Last week was one of our most eventful weeks yet! The week commenced with The Edinburg Women Business Center’s 10th anniversary event that was held on September 25th. We were privileged to have a booth showcasing our services, and, more importantly, the opportunity to meet and greet Dr. Kathleen Connell.
A recap
She is the founder and chief executive officer of STEMACCEL, an educational program that focuses on academic disciplines in S.T.E.M (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields for students in grades 7-12. Also, STEMACCEL aids professionals with business strategies, marketing, and finance.
Dr. Kathleen is renowned as one of today’s most influential women entrepreneurs. She also has an intense track record in business, government, and academia. Dr. Kathleen was elected twice as the California State Controller and served as California’s chief financial officer for eight years.
She was also the director of New York Investment Bank, and founder and chief executive officer of L.A. investment firm. Dr. Kathleen was a professor at Haas Berkeley Graduate School of Business and at UCLA Anderson Graduate Management School for ten years, and wrote Moneywise, a national weekly finance column.
Wow.
Own your journey
I’m certain everyone that attended will agree that Dr. Connell’s speech was highly motivational, inspirational and refreshing. Since she is from California and being encircled by the world’s most elite tech start-ups, it was refreshing to hear her speak on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur in today’s business world. She discussed pivoting, bootstrapping, seed rounds, angel investors, and Series A funding.
Listening to Dr. Connell truly motivated and encouraged us to continue bootstrapping our way to success.
Dr. Kathleen spoke on the significance of avoiding a larger firm’s seed investment dollars and truly having ownership in your company. She spoke on the importance of business pivoting and how bootstrapping will prompt you to make critical changes to your business in order to survive and overcome your competition, thus strengthening your entrepreneur business muscles.
The most important lesson is to not cheat our way through business with any seed rounds of investment. There is not enough emphasis on how important this is. Don’t take the easy route. Instead, challenge yourself and take the most rigid paths so that you don't short-change yourself.
For example:
- Loss of majority ownership in your business - Since your business idea is considered high risk, it’s hard to negotiate for better deals
- Loss of motivation - It’s proven that the less you own in a company the less likely you are willing to continue to strive to make it successful
In Summary, if this is your first business odyssey, don’t miss on the opportunity to improve as an entrepreneur by taking the easy way out. Instead, challenge and commit yourself to gain experience every step of the way. We would not be where we are now if it weren’t for the experiences and skills we’ve gained through our initial hardships.
Hands-on experience far exceeds anything you might read in a book. Everything we’ve learned as far as what makes a business successful, such as team building, leading teams, marketing, sales, and operations, has been acquired through doing and taking action.
Here at Bridge, we remind ourselves that
“in business, you only have to learn to be successful once”.
Once you learn what it takes to put together a successful business, just hit repeat!
As a consultancy agency, we assist business owners through the challenges they face in successful marketing, design and technology. If you're struggling in any of these fields, please feel free to contact me directly at luisedtr [at] createthebridge [dot] com.
