Advice From 3 Entrepreneurs During #EntUnpluggd

My Life as an Entrepreneur on Tuesday June 19, 2012

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Entrepreneurs Unpluggd is a series of events, created by @TimJahn & @StartupStella, aimed to be an engaging environment for growing entrepreneurs to learn from successful entrepreneurs (ents). Tonight’s event put 3 superstar ents on a stage at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago. They each spoke for 15 minutes followed by a Q&A. They provided very useful information that I have summarized below. If you are struggling to find focus, guidance, or motivation, hopefully tips from these expert ents will put you on the correct path to happiness. I interspersed a few tweets from the hashtag for the evening: #EntUnpluggd.

Desiree Vargas Wrigley (@DesireeGF) – The person I most wanted to listen to, co-founder of GiveForward. A portion of her talk focused on rejection. As she put it, “My idea was laughed out of the room a few times.” But who’s laughing now?! During the Q&A I asked Desiree how she dealt with the rejection. Her answer was simple, “I grew thicker skin.” The message I’ll take home from Desiree’s talk:

Just because someone else doesn’t believe your idea, don’t quit. Not everyone has to get it.

Jake Nickell (@skaw) – If you live in Chicago, you probably own one of his tshirts. The co-founder of Threadless had a wild journey to success. Jake was very transparent about his struggles. He put me at ease about a problem that we share when he talked about not being a good communicator when it comes to money. Money doesn’t motivate me, passion does. So talking to people who are only looking for dollar symbols doesn’t work well with my mind. But I’m learning! Regardless, my take home message from Jake to share with you:

Don’t focus on the money. Focus on your passion and the money will follow.

Joshua Hernandez (@gamepreneur) - A seasoned leader, designer and developer currently at Tap.Me!, Josh provided me with 2 useful pieces of knowledge. Find the right business person as soon as possible, and when I asked him to talked about “patience”, he said (paraphrased):

Always be creating or learning. Don’t wait.

That’s all for tonight. I’ll leave you with this tweet and a previous post of my favorite inspirational quotes from Chicago Ideas Week 2011. Thank you for reading, chase the smile, and letUbeU!

Quotes for Change via @ChicagoIdeas Week