Not Sunday, Club Entrepreneur

I had an extraordinary experience tonight, and I just couldn’t wait to post it. Tonight’s Club Entrepreneur meeting was out of this world! First of all our speaker, Ingrid Vanderveldt was excellent. It brought me back to the good ol’ days of hanging with Peter at ASU’s Barrett Honors College. She was so eager to help everyone! You could tell she has a natural passion for entrepreneurship. Her enthusiasm for business and the Club was uncanny. I was very glad to have her in our company. We had some what of a low turnout, but I feel bad for all those that missed the meeting. The entrepreneurial energy in the room this evening was mesmerizing.

On top of that I have something to share about the core purpose of the club. We are an organization about helping entrepreneurs fast track their business and bring them new opportunities. I feel sad for those few that show up and don’t take advantage of the people they could meet. Luckily, this evening I found someone I could truly help. She’s interested in developing a unique reverse business website, but couldn’t seem to get herself out of her seat to seek out the help she needed. So I asked her what she needed the most and introduced her to someone who could help. A web developer I know, Jeremy was more than happy to sit down with her and talk about the site. That right there is what Club E is about. I wish and hope that everyone experiences that kind of potential when they attend Club Entrepreneur.

Also, on a personal level, I had the opportunity to help a wonderful woman with her business ideas. To give you a taste of the caliber of this woman I’ll tell you a bit about her. I was first introduced to Leslie over email. She had sought out Peter for more information on the Club and College, but to what extent I did not know. I asked her about it tonight and as it turns out she had read about Club E in the paper and persistently called GCU to find out information on the club and Peter. Finally she got a hold of a secretary we (the core E students) all know there. She was unable to tell Leslie the date of the meeting but she was able to give her the place. Leslie went as far as to call Bamboo Club (our event location) to find the date of the meeting through our reservation. Luckily our secretary also disclosed Peter’s email and we were able to talk to her then. As you can tell, Leslie’s passion for entrepreneurship comes from deep within her. She’s unstoppable. I even quote her as saying, “Even if I didn’t get a hold of you guys over email, I would have been here for the meeting and met you eventually.”

I spoke with Leslie for a good hour about her business ideas with my business partner Toby. In fact, we closed out the place and were the last one’s to leave. She is extremely passionate about her ideas, entrepreneurship, and learning more about business. We tore through her ideas, built on them, found new revenue streams and really brought her ideas to life. I think we had helped her see the light in the possibilities of entrepreneurship. It made me feel like I was at my beginnings again. When I had ideas spilling out of my ears, and lost sleep muscling over them. Just with my conversation with her I was invigorated to achieve great things. I had been feeling kind of down lately, even considered redoing my vision board background as a pick-me-up. However, Leslie saved me. I’m grateful to have finally met her in person. – Funny side note, I just happened to catch her at the event as she was walking by. I introduced myself not even knowing that she had been the person I was talking with over email. I caught her completely off guard. Over our emails she had thought Merlin was a woman. Well surprise, surprise. :-)

I could not have asked for a better evening. Thank you all who made it a wonderful. I now have to go walk the dog…