Michael Steele

Date: July 26, 2017

Name: Company of Young Professionals – Zero to 100, startup lessons from Vancouver Founders with Futurepreneur

Presenters: Michael Steele, Kathryn Loewen, Gamelle Fitzgibbon, and Keith Ippel

Many young leaders have great idea for business, but they do not have any idea on how to get started. Company of Young Professionals invites the seasoned entrepreneurs panel from Greater Vancouver to discuss their experience and journey on how they get their big ideas off the ground. The panel will share their mistakes and obstacles from their entrepreneurship. In addition, young leaders will discover the importance of mindset and the key elements of igniting their business idea into reality. The presentation will follow a workshop by Keith Ippel, Co-Founder of Spring.

The seasoned entrepreneurs panel includes Michael Steele, the Co-Founder of The Good Stuff, Kathryn Loewen, the Founder and CEO of Control, and Gamelle Fitzgibbon, the Managing Director of Bespoke Spanish. All panelists went through the program from Futurpreneur, a non-profit organization that helps mentoring young leaders into successful entrepreneurs. This panel is moderated by Natasha Jung, the Co-Founder of Cold Tea Collective.

Interviewing the panel

Jung asks all the panelists to define the meaning of the word “entrepreneur”. Fitzgibbon defines it as “taking risks”. She believes entrepreneur is a way to find out what people are good at. She loves service and she loves helping people; in fact, the path of entrepreneurship creates a self-discover process for Fitzgibbon. For Loewen, her background of technology created her passion and allowed her to enter the employment in technology sector. Later, she left due to less employment. While trying to figure out where she could go next, her only option is to enter the world of entrepreneurship. Steele defines it as a way to see the problem in the world and think about solution. True entrepreneurs will not stop. They will do something about it. The idea of entrepreneurship fits his needs.

During their startup launch, all panelists have their hard times. Fitzgibbon states the hardest part is she put a huge amount of emails and coffees she had to make to create connections, but nothing happened until a year later. In fact, entrepreneurs usually plant seeds, but these seeds will not grow until later down the road. Many young entrepreneurs do not have the patient to wait, and they do not realize people will come eventually. When they are at the dead end, they do not know where to finish.

In the technology sector, Loewen shares all businesses have projection and strategy in place. In her first year of business, she took no salary. She only focused on generating revenue and raising capital. What kept her moving forward was creating the opportunity to pitch like what it showed in Dragon’s Den. When success comes, Loewen suggests young leaders to keep the lights on as much as they can. In Loewen’s perspective, every day is a success.

Steele shares that many people think startup is simple as a whiteboard. In reality, it is more than they see on the whiteboard. Entrepreneurs need to learn all kinds of operating functions in order to run the business.

There are times when things are not as plan in business. Fitzgibbon believes momentum is the key when business feel like death. Loewen wants young leaders to imagine when they need to feed their employees when there is nothing coming in. The reality is that business is never the same as what textbook describes. In technology sector, sometimes investors demand business to burn capital because they are looking for huge profit return at the end. Steele emphasizes sometimes finance does not track success, especially when business is struggling.

Word of mouth is the best marketing for startups. Loewen suggests young leaders to use freemium as much as they can. There are some great tools for startups. Mailchimp is a great start for building a mailing list for startups. Another tool is called Slack, and it helps young leaders to look for user behaviors and engagement.

It is important to surround with supporters. Young leaders need to ask themselves who they hang around with. Time is limited and it is important to create their own circle and vibe. Fitzgibbon believes everyone has the option to choose their inner circle. For young leaders who would like to learn more about entrepreneurship, Steele recommends them to find another startup to work with. This will give them the opportunity to learn the necessary skills from watching other successful entrepreneurs.

All panelists have gone through the program from Futurepreneur. Loewen had the fortune to access to a group of supports and mentors. She advices young leaders to take actions and embrace the support from family. Steele recommends the program for young leaders because it allows them to seek supports from business obstacles. Fitzgibbon senses the program allows young leaders to take fresh idea and turn it to clarity. It is great to get direction and introduction from people who have similar mindset. In fact, options are available for young leaders and it is up to them to take advantage from it.

“Strength of community is still strong and existed”

Workshop with Spring Activator

Spring is a startup school for social entrepreneurs. Keith Ippel is the Co-Founder and CEO of Spring. He summarizes 3 major keys from the panel.

• Able to find the right support group
• Being strong as generalist
• Adaptability is important

Ippel wants young leaders to think about the best place to receive support. He invites the audience to pair up and discuss their ideas. Afterwards, he wants everyone to narrow down one question: “if you can get help with one thing, what would it be?”. This question looks simple, but it is difficult to execute. It helps young leader to discover what is the most important task they are searching in business. Ippel also shares 4 tips to networking.

1. Talk to 3 new people
2. Ask how can I help you
3. Connect on LinkedIn or other social media platforms
4. Connect with the business groups