Article written by Ellen Sherberg of the St. Louis Business Journal. Please refer to original at: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/print-edition/2012/05/04/accidental-entrepreneurs.html

1. May 4-10, 2012 St. Louis Business Journal 31
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THE PULSE
www.stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/poll
A CLOSER
We asked:
How far will the Blues go in the NHL playoffs?
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THE THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO THE BUSINESS JOURNAL
Stanley Cup
Champions
43%
Accidental
They’ll win
the conference
entrepreneurs
semifinal.
15% Brian and Carol Matthews are
accidental entrepreneurs. Opportunities for:
They’ve gone Software developers;
In fact, it was the games they
as far as they played that led to their serial suc- Engineers;
can go. cesses and the creation of Cultiva- Fantasy leagues.
15% tion Capital, a new venture capital
fund for early stage tech firms, ac-
Conference cording to this week’s Page One
Champions story by Amir Kurtovic.
The Matthews met at McDon-
27%
their investments.
nell Douglas where he was an en- What you don’t see in the Mat-
gineer and she was a software de- thews’ story is a lot of whining
veloper. about the lack of resources in the
The game was fantasy baseball region or the omnipresence of bu-
and they played with aerospace reaucratic efforts to support entre-
893 people voted in this poll. workers across the nation. Dis- preneurs. These are two extremely
gruntlement with the algorithm bright people who saw opportuni-
You said: used to calculate results led the
Matthews to form a league of their
ty through the lens of their tal-
ents. Now they’re joining with
own. (Remember this was 1991 others to afford more companies
“Objectively they already had a hard “GO AHEAD, make me drink cham- when most of us didn’t know how the same chance.
time with the Kings. The Kings beat the pagne from a BLUES coffee cup, and get
to spell algorithm, much less write We’ve focused on investors like
Presidents’ Trophy winner, and the way all my fan clothes out of the closet...”
they handled us in game one makes me one.) Three years later CDM (CBC the Matthewses in recent months,
think they are a team of destiny.” Distribution and Marketing), the including Sage Capital, Tom Hill-
company they created with Char- man and RiverVest. These are
lie Wiegert was in such demand, great stories to tell. They’re the sa-
all three quit their day jobs. gas of risk takers who made mon-
Fantasy sports lead to Primary ey through investing in other risk
Network, an early Internet provid- takers. And they’re willing to do it
er in the St. Louis region. Compa- again and again.
nies were sold and bought back. After all, the Matthewses may
Not everything the Matthews have started in fantasy sports but
touched turned to gold. Minor they’re in the big leagues now.
league sports teams and the St. Have a great week.
Charles Family Arena did not turn Ellen
out to be best field to showcase
For more comments, visit www.stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/poll
I can live for two weeks on a good compliment. — Mark Twain
THIS WEEK’S PULSE QUESTION:
Who should Mitt Romney pick as his running mate?
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