“The fever of entrepreneurship is alive and well in Fargo.”

So said Hardeep Walia, CEO of Motif Investing, after a successful e-commerce breakfast series at the Plains Art Museum last Wednesday.

Last week, a group of nearly 25 convened in the early hours of Wednesday morning to discuss e-commerce with Fargo-based entrepreneurs, Emerging Prairie representatives, and two special guests. Hardeep Walia of Motif Investing and Aaron Klein of Riskalyze flew in from California to discuss their respective companies and how they connect to e-commerce in Fargo.

As CEO of Motif Investing, Hardeep manages a unique kind of online stock broker. Motif Investing allows investors to pump their money into baskets of stocks that are focused on an idea, not a specific company or industry. Individuals can choose to create portfolios with a cyber security focus, or they can funnel investments into clean technology, among many others.

Aaron, on the other hand, manages Riskalyze, a company that seeks to quantify a client’s tolerance of risk and then create portfolios that meet those risk expectations while still optimizing investment strategies. Using risk as a basis for portfolio creation allows for the mollification of relatively risk-averse clients while still providing riskier assets to willing individuals.

It may have been early, but this breakfast meetup at the Plains Art Museum was a solid start to a Wednesday morning, prior to the week’s 1 Million Cups Fargo event. Be sure to check out our future e-commerce breakfast series events for your chance to participate in this part of the Fargo entrepreneurial community.