Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour

The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour (EET) was invited to deliver a panel and keynote address at the first Governor’s Conference on Small Business and Enterprise, which was part of the kick-off for the first-ever Global Entrepreneurship Week. Representing EET was Arel Moodie.

The conference included over 400 small business owners, workforce development and economic development professionals, college administrators, government officials, and Small Business Development Center managers.

A very interesting portion of the event occurred when the audience was split into caucuses who brainstormed and voted on bills to present to Honorable Governor Shwarzenegger on how to promote entrepreneurship within the state.  37 ideas were brainstormed and 10 were officially presented to Shwarzenegger who later addressed the conference.

To view a video of Arel moderating a panel with some of the world’s top young entrepreneurs, visit the Kauffman Foundation web site.

The conference can best be summarized by its main organizer, Mary Wollesen, Statewide Initiative Director for Economic and Workforce Development through the California Community Colleges, who said, “The Conference was wonderful and the Extreme portion of both events was considered the best. Content was right on, the panel was inspiring, and Arel…well, what can I say.

Rapid City, South Dakota—

Wow! It’s hard to believe it but we just finished the last event of the tour season. It’s been a wild ride—literally—with good times on the tour bus, late nights, early mornings, and a whole lot of laughter and inspiration in between.

Our final stop brought us to South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. (It’s so close to Mt. Rushmore that the pilot pointed it out below as we took off from the airport.) This school has a hardcore focus on math and science and we brought in two tech entrepreneurs from the West Coast to keynote this event.

The Director of Career Planning, Darrell Sawyer, Coordinator of the Student Activities and Leadership Center, Mike Keegan, and other staff brought the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour to their campus to help students consider life as a business owner after college.

Dr. Robert Wharton, President of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, opened the event. Then our very own, Arel Moodie, of Arel Moodie International (www.arelmoodie.com), introduced everyone to the tour and got them excited to learn life-changing information at this event.

As our first testimonial to the power of thinking big and going outside of your comfort zone, Anderson Schoenrock of ScanDigital (www.scandigital.com) shared about his unconventional, yet super successful career journey. At the outset of life-after-high-school, Anderson attended Dartmouth College and then worked for three years at Lehman Brothers as an investment banker. At the time, that career seemed like the pinnacle of job security. But instead of staying comfortable, Anderson headed to California and started a real estate firm and then now owns a digital imaging company. He told others to go out and take risks and not be afraid to bypass short-term security for long-term gain.

After that encouragement, Arel and Elizabeth Saunders, speaker, trainer, and coach with Real Life E™ (www.RealLifeE.com), asked the audience to shape and stretch their goals through an interactive workshop. During this time, Arel reminded the audience that the time to start finding and following our purpose is now. And Elizabeth led the participants through an exercise where they started to understand and write down the key components of a life plan. Following the individual reflection time, students had a chance to share with other people in the room during speed networking. Every three minutes, different pairs of people got together and shared about their vision, mission, and goals.

Our second keynote speaker emphasized that anything truly is possible in the world of entrepreneurship. Chris Leach, owner of Th¡nk idea brokerage and consulting firm hit the big time just this year. Although he graduated at the bottom of his high school class, Chris has an amazing mechanical mind. Through the encouragement and support of his mentors, he was able to sell one of his inventions for $4 million and is on his way to creating many more. Chris encouraged the audience to be willing to risk big to win big and believe in themselves when others don’t.

For the panel discussion at the end of the event, our two key note speakers were joined by local entrepreneurs: Jason Nelson, who owns a technology service firm and Dennis Schmidt, who owns a chain of coffee shops and was recently voted state senator.  Elizabeth moderated the discussion that gave participants the opportunity to learn from the rich and varied career backgrounds of the panelists.

This was an awesome end to an awesome season. Thank you for all of your support! And as always, many thanks to our sponsors, VenturePORT.org, Inc. magazine, and Palo Alto Software!!!
Until next spring! The Extreme Entrepreneurship Team!

Rochester, New York—

After a number of awesome events in the Midwest, we headed back to the East Coast as part of the E-Month programming at the University of Rochester. Our November 5, 2008 half-day conference included presentations by local and national young entrepreneurs encouraging Rochester-area students to start a business and consider coming to U of R.

Bob Tobin, Entrepreneur in Residence at the University Center for Entrepreneurship, opened up the event and talked about the school’s resources for high school and college students to put foundations under their entrepreneurial dreams. Then an admissions counselor shared about how local high school students could find out more about attending U of R.

After the intro, Arel Moodie, of Arel Moodie International (www.arelmoodie.com) pumped up the crowd for the first key note speaker, Jason Duff, owner of Community Storage & Properties, Ltd. (www.communitystorage.com). After over a decade as an entrepreneur—he started stocking vending machines at age 10—Jason has learned many lessons about going after his dreams and making them bigger and bigger. Jason has gone from candy bars to construction projects and encouraged the audience to also keep growing.

Next came the time for students to take action with a goal setting workshop. During this exercise, Arel walked the audience members through the purpose of setting goals. Then Elizabeth Saunders, speaker and trainer with Real Life E™ (www.RealLifeE.com), asked the participants to write down their thoughts on items like personal vision, mission, and strengths.

A local entrepreneur, Joanna Alberti of PhiloSophie’s (www.sophiesphilosophies.com), presented the second key note on how she went from working at an advertising agency to turning her artistic talent into a stationery and gifts company.

For our final portion of the evening, our two key note speakers were joined by two U of R student panelists: Andrew Agnello, founder of Andrew’s Toyz (www.andrewstoyz.com), and Eric Meyer, founder of Spotlight Video Productions. Elizabeth facilitated this discussion where the questions ranged from: How do you stay inspired? to How should you choose a server?

At the end of the OppenheimerFunds-sponsored event, students came away excited about growing their own businesses and aware of the local resources that could help them achieve their goals.