2nd Annual Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference, and then some...

What’s better than getting up at 5AM to hang out with your best friends, and the greatest entrepreneurs in the valley for an ENTIRE day? Nothing. I can’t think of anything I wanted to do more than help my friends run one of the coolest conferences to ever be held in Arizona.

I got up in the early morning after a long night of meeting with my partners to pick up Seth Adamson, a new Club Entrepreneur intern, and head over to the Marriott Hotel. On the way Seth was telling me about his entrepreneurial dreams and how excited he was to be a part of our group. We couldn’t be more excited to have him; he’s a great guy and really has the passion and spirit of an entrepreneur.

Upon arriving at the conference we helped finish up with the setup. Then the people started rolling in. This is always my favorite part. I get to hang back and greet some of the coolest people I know. We had our regulars showed up, all good friends, and then a bunch more from all different businesses. We had VC’s, radio stars, film producers, innovators and inventors… the works!

After the morning keynotes by Pat Sullivan, Founder of ACT and SalesLogix, and
Marc Canter, CEO of Broadband Mechanics (both great presentations!) it was time to start the tracks. As expected, most people waited about 10 minutes into the sessions to network outside in the hallway. Everyone was chatting about business, dreams, and new deals. That pretty much happened the entire day. The afternoon keynote by Dan Morrison, Co-Founder and CEO of ITtoolbox was excellent. His company was recently acquired so he had some great stuff to say about his experience with that. Lunch was great, and the afternoon sessions rocked. I got a lot of great feedback from our guests. The ending keynotes by Corey Kossack, Ingrid Vanderveldt, and Michael Gerber were the best (I might be biased). They really demonstrated what it meant to be an entrepreneur and how it feels from the inside out. It was a wonderful talk on the mindsets and lifestyles of the entrepreneur.

Right after the conference it was time to gather the whole team together and head over to the Junior Achievement grand opening of BizTown. Club Entrepreneur sponsored a shop in their mock city – If you don’t know what Junior Achievement is then you’re missing out. Go there and get a tour from Marilyn Raigel. She’ll blow you away with the happenings there. It’s a great space for Club E to be. – Unfortunately we were a little late to our own ribbon cutting (hey, we’re entrepreneurs not clock makers), but we were still able to get a 2^nd chance photo op. We had a few of our members join us, too. Jamie Forseth (who by the way was there on time to appear in the first photo of the ribbon cutting, thanks Jamie for stepping in!) and Justine Matthew a longtime member from way back in the day.

After chatting with Marilyn for a while the gang headed to the Hyatt Hotel to let loose for a while. Ingrid also had an interview with a great guy about a new hydrogen fuel he has created. (His name fails me right now, but I’m sure someone will correct me) The evening was a great chance for us to just hang out. Liz Fischer from HBMG, the website developers for the network, was in town to get a little face-time with the Club E team. They’re based out of Texas, and until yesterday we hadn’t ever seen her in person. It amazing we’ve been working together for over a month now and never hung out. But I’m glad we got the chance. The team is becoming an even more closely knit group as the days pass and I’m looking forward to the months to come. Its time to rock out and really start turning out some stuff for our members, so stay tuned!