On Thursday, June 7th at Pivotal Labs, over 150 people crowded in the packed space to hear the twice sold-out panel we hosted on “Startups: Their Journey to Success.” Panelists included two founders who created their startups at NYCEDC’s BigApps 3.0 Hackathon, one female founder who sought to change the way men felt about beauty and healthcare, one former lawyer who quit to start a data-driven inbound marketing solution, one editor who founded a city-to-city costumed road race company, and another female founder who created an app that crowdsourced opinions on to wear.
The audience listened closely as these founders gave heart-felt advice to starters-to-be. It made sense, especially since almost half of those in attendance were founders themselves. And, to everyone’s delight, a celebrity and innovator was amongst them. The founder of VH1, Ed Bennett, not only came in support of our newly-established TechSeri.esTM but also to sought to play guitar with the panelists. (Though a joke, he might just do that at our first-ever TechSeri.esTMhappy hour on Tuesday, June 19th)!
The TechSeri.esTM was first created for the IARU, an umbrella alumni organization comprised of Yale, Oxford, Cambridge and 7 other top global universities, by Rose Jia in the summer of 2011. Since then, Rose and our core team have put on two sold-out panels, including this most recent one. Rose explained that the purpose of the TechSeri.esTM is to be a platform for our members by introducing the latest innovators who are changing traditional industries, creating new networks and providing exclusive access to top names.
And, last Thursday night, those in attendance got introduced to all three things. If the attendees didn’t get some sound advice from the panelists or chatted up with Ed Bennett, they definitely got an opportunity after the panel to network with one another as well as those from organizations who sought to help startups grow, such as American Express initiatives like OPEN Forum and Small Business Saturday.
Because of the huge public reception in the first two panels hosted, in the upcoming months, we aim to have more events showcasing game-changers in industries like music, government, education and more.
Thursday night closed on some final words of wisdom from the featured (co)founders:
Alastair Coote (Taxonomy): “Keep with an idea that drives your passion. You can abandon a good idea but not passion.”
Luis S. Miranda (Scene Near Me): “Your startup might have started as just something ‘fun,’ but eventually you need to be an adult and have that honest conversation of what happens next.”
Jennifer Lucy (Urban Cargo): “Embrace the value of patience because not everything will happen instantaneously.”
Rodrigo Fuentes (callTrackingFox, rebranded as RevSign): “Indecision saps your team’s dedication. You need to be decisive for your team to support you.”
Marissa Evans (Go Try It On): “Strong leaders are good at ‘giving away’ leadership and decreasing day-to-day involvement as the business grows.”
Steve Bryant (Rental Car Rally): “In a startup, you must build your own support ‘scaffolding’.”
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