Tag: founders forum

Fortnite to Factories: Embracing an Increasingly Digital World

Learn how you can improve your efforts as a founder, walk away with outcomes you can apply directly to your business, and strengthen your relationships with peers and content experts.

Light refreshments will be provided with networking opportunities.

Join us for an insightful panel conversation delving into the profound impact of digitalization on industries and consumer interactions, and how businesses are strategically preparing for the future. In this engaging session, we’ll explore innovative approaches taken by industry leaders, including ventures into virtual realms such as Fortnite and Apple Vision Pro. This event aims to provide founders, the teams, and innovators with actionable insights to broaden their reach among emerging generations of consumers while navigating the evolving digital landscape.

Our expert panelists will tackle pressing questions such as how the emergence of GenZ is reshaping consumer interactions, and whether traditional marketing channels need to adapt to effectively engage with this digital-savvy audience. Additionally, we’ll delve into the potential of spatial computing and virtual reality in business contexts, beyond their current consumer-centric applications. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable perspectives and strategies for future planning, as we collectively embrace the challenges and opportunities presented by an increasingly digital world.

Meet Our Panelists:

Jon Curtis, IT Innovation Strategist, BMW
Dr. Marcin Ziolkowski – Emerging Technology Manager, BMW
Burak Soehmelioglu – Emerging Technology Manager, BMW
Brent Westmoreland – IT Director, Strategy, Cybersecurity and Innovation, BMW

The YoPro Know Perspective on Retention & Intergenerational Communication →

Learn how you can improve your efforts as a founder, walk away with outcomes you can apply directly to your business, and strengthen your relationships with peers and content experts.

Light refreshments will be provided with networking opportunities.

Kamber Parker Bowden

Kamber’s first job in the “real world” did not live up to expectations and left her with questions: “Why do so many of my peers have the same results (i.e., they leave or job-hop) in their first jobs, then their second jobs, and even their third jobs?” Like many founders, she took it upon herself to figure it out.

More than 7 years later, and still a young professional (“YoPro”), Kamber has not cracked the code for the entire workforce, but her team is supporting thousands of companies across the country that want an innovative approach to recruit, develop, and retain their future leaders.

The YoPro Know started as a blog and podcast and has now uncovered data from thousands of YoPros since 2018. They’ve identified what YoPros look for in the modern workforce and “decode” the myths and communication barriers between GenZ + Millennials, and their Experienced Professional counterparts in the workforce.

Today, YPK is an innovative consulting firm that uses our their own data and research to support companies looking to improve their recruiting and retention efforts of young professional talent.

Let’s talk more!

⬇️Download the YPK 2023 Report: https://yoproknow.com/ypkreport/
💻 Subscribe to The YoPro Know’s newsletter to get free resources: https://www.yoproknow.com/blog
🎙 Is your business looking for ways to increase your retention of young professionals? Learn about how we can support you. https://yoproknow.com/services/
🗣️Shoot them an email if you’d like to learn more about speaking and workshop opportunities: information@yoproknow.com
💼 Check out our resources including the blog, podcast, and more! https://yoproknow.com/resources/

Typhoons & Contingency Planning Founders Forum Recap

Founders Forum is an opportunity for founders to take the stage and share their stories and expertise. If you leave one of these monthly events with some new connections and one piece of immediately applicable advice for your business (or life), then we call it a success!

We launched our 2024 Founders Forum series with Doug Kim of Kim, Lahey, & Killough Law Firm.

Doug didn’t just attend as one of the highest-rated lawyers in South Carolina; he was also present as a founder. His professional journey began in computer programming and software engineering, providing him with a strong tech background. Subsequently, Doug pursued law school, creating a distinctive skill set that encompasses both legal expertise in patent writing and a deep understanding of the technology being patented. This unique combination positioned him as one of the early pioneers in the legal landscape of patenting software.

After working for a large law firm and seeing many of the inefficiencies, he thought to himself: “There has to be a better way.” (Funny, we hear this a lot…) In 2018, he decided to set out on his own and quickly brought on a partner forming a boutique law firm servicing the manufacturing, software, energy, finance, hospitality, tourism, and technology industries. Their key practice areas include intellectual property, business and commercial litigation, mergers and acquisitions, cybersecurity, and more.

Kim, Lahey, and Killough takes a client-centric approach, focusing on how to use technology to not only make their business run more efficiently but to protect their most important assets. Which transitions nicely into the topic for conversation – contingency planning!

Let’s go back to last spring. Doug flew to Micronesia via Guam with a group of scuba divers from Greenville, SC. You may remember hearing about this story. What was supposed to be just over a week turned into a month-long “vacation.” (In all honesty, it sounds like it was for Doug and their friends as although Guam was hit directly, not letting anyone leave the area, their little island was still sunshine and scuba.)

Doug admits that this trip was a test to see how his office and team would handle him being gone (and out of touch) for a length of time but no one expected it to be this long. For the first few days, the team back home was able to push things off but when two days become two weeks, they had to be able to keep moving forward.

What would happen to your company if you were unexpectedly out of touch and out of reach for an unexpected length of time? Maybe it’s easier to ask, are you able to step away for a vacation to refresh and rejuvenate yourself? (We all know the burnout statistics with entrepreneurs!)

Kamber Parker, of The Yo ProKnow attended and after the event remarked, “It hit me how many things I am the only one that can do on my team.” One of Doug’s main tips was to make sure your team is cross-trained. And, if you’re a solopreneur have a trusted friend that is able to help. Just like you have a neighbor or friend with a spare key to your house for emergencies, your company needs that spare key holder. In essence, be prepared. Know what the most important assets, systems, etc. are and make sure there is a plan in place to protect them. Not sure how to determine what’s important? Think about it in terms of how closely related it is to your income.

Some additional suggestions included:

Have data recovery in place: copies and backups, including one offsite
Be geographically untethered
Implement measures to safeguard property and funds
Make sure your agreements are in order
Protect your IP
Have duplicate vendors in the case that one goes down
Have an incident response team, both internal and external
Insurance!

If you could take away the biggest piece of advice, it’s have a plan (and share it with the appropriate people to put it in action). It is important for business owners to be able to take a step away from their businesses to recharge AND things happen all.the.time. So, have a plan to keep things moving forward even if you, the founder, isn’t available to implement.

“A bad plan is better than no plan, and the most important quality of any plan is the flexibility to change.” – Judson L Moore, Exponential Happiness: How to identify and pursue life goals starting at a young age

Don’t miss February’s Founders Forum; Feb. 13 at 3:30pm @ Atlas Local!

Profit First: Getting to Profitability with a Product/Service Quickly →

Learn how you can improve your efforts as a founder, walk away with outcomes you can apply directly to your business, and strengthen your relationships with peers and content experts.

Light refreshments will be provided with networking opportunities.

Profit First – Getting to profitability with a product/service quickly

Discover the keys to getting to profitability fast and gain insights from an experienced CFO, learning practical strategies. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to strengthen your business foundation!

Meet Shondra

After working as a technology investment banker at one of the fastest-growing investment banking firms in the world, Shondra Washington founded TBC-Capital, an advisory and consulting firm offering on-demand CFO, business development, and strategy services for VC-backed companies and small businesses. Through TBC-Capital, Shondra has helped her clients secure over $40M in startup capital. Her work has been featured in Reuters and Inc. Magazine.

Shondra is also the CEO and cofounder of Black@, the first all-Black Web3 communities. Black@ brings together creators, artists, investors, and engineers working together to increase ownership of Black culture in the next generation of the Internet.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shondra-washington/

IG: @shondradanielle

Contingency Planning & Disruptions: Preparing for a Typhoon →

Founders Forum is an educational series from NEXT designed for entrepreneurs BY entrepreneurs, created to connect and educate founders in core disciplines relevant to all startups and activate the ecosystem at large.

Learn how you can improve your efforts as a founder, walk away with outcomes you can apply directly to your business, and strengthen your relationships with peers and content experts.

Light refreshments will be provided with networking opportunities.

Can Founders Ever Take a Real Vacation?

As an entrepreneur, envision a scenario where you decide to take an extended vacation around the world, intending to disconnect from your business. This might seem like a distant dream for many business owners, especially those who perceive themselves as integral to their company’s operations. Now, picture a situation where, during your vacation, a typhoon strikes, completely isolating you from the outside world and extending your 10-day vacation into a three-week ordeal. Can your business thrive in your absence? This is a real-life experience Doug Kim encountered! As a founder, should you:

Abstain from taking vacations altogether?
Never sever modern communications while on leave?
Establish contingency plans in advance, and if so, what should they entail?

Join us as we delve into strategies for fortifying your entrepreneurial ventures, allowing them to withstand unforeseen disruptions and planned absences. And, start planning that vacation!

Meet Doug Kim

Doug Kim began his professional career as a computer programmer and software engineer. His intellectual property career began in 1998 when he combined his business experience with his legal education and was involved with enforcing a client’s patent against multiple infringers. Since then, Doug has created a well-rounded IP practice that provides legal solutions and strategies tailored to each client from multinational corporations to start-ups. Doug provides his clients with strategies to protect inventions (patents), brands (trademarks), websites, software, apps, music, photos, and websites (copyright, licenses, and Internet law), and trade secret (the “secret sauce”). Through the creation of intellectual property rights and their enforcement, Doug seeks to develop legal strategies that fit clients’ business goals and increase the company’s worth. Doug also assists clients with drafting, negotiating, and reviewing license, assignment, independent contractor, and employment agreements as they pertain to intellectual property and ownership. Doug’s business background and legal education and experience make him well suited to understand the interaction between the legal services available to a client, a company’s available resources, and the client’s business goals.

Doug Kim is not only an Intellectual Property Attorney but he is a great friend of the Greenville entrepreneur ecosystem. Doug co-founded Kim, Lahey & Killough Law Firm in 2018 and has grown from a single lawyer to 16 in 5 years. Not only does he love working with founders but he is one!

From Afghanistan to AI: Understanding Data & Human Behavior →

Learn how you can improve your efforts as a founder, walk away with outcomes you can apply directly to your business, and strengthen your relationships with peers and content experts.

Light refreshments will be provided with networking opportunities.

Gary M. Shiffman, PhD

Gary M. Shiffman first inspired us with his journey at the 2023 GROK Conference. He caught our attention with bananas saving lives and kept it by catching bad guys with AI. We were left wondering how Gary made his way to Greenville, SC from Afghanistan and Washington, DC. And, we want to know more.

Gary is an economist, entrepreneur, and writer. Through his teaching, writing, various government and corporate roles, and entrepreneurial ventures, he has led the creation and adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) applications in U.S. national security and financial institutions over the past two decades.

A Gulf War veteran and former national security professional in both the Pentagon and the Senate, he was appointed by the President of the United States to the position of Chief of Staff at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. As an academic, he has spearheaded social science contributions for DARPA research since 2009 and served as a professor at Georgetown University for two decades. He currently teaches Economics with the Clemson MBA program. He founded and is the former CEO of two Artificial Intelligence companies: Giant Oak, Inc. and Consilient, Inc. here in Greenville, SC.

Since 2009, his efforts have combined behavioral science methodologies with the rapidly advancing field of AI to refine the processes of understanding data and human behavior. Known for overcoming entrenched challenges, he’s garnered a reputation both as a results-driven scientist and a business leader at the frontiers of knowledge.

Gary believes that small teams change the world, so he actively supports people who show genuine passion for a mission and dedication to making meaningful contributions. Follow him on LinkedIn.

Storytelling: It’s vital to building and growing a business, from sales & marketing to pitching for capital

Travis McConkey, of Cultivation Studio, led a Founders Forum presentation focused on how founders can start telling their story and capturing their audience’s attention. Sometimes getting started is the hardest part so having some frameworks to follow is helpful. A big thanks to Travis for coming out and sharing his expertise!

The Essence of Attention Capture

“The target of all business strategy is the human mind.” In a world filled with distractions, the ability to capture and sustain attention is a business’s most prized asset. Moreover, storytelling isn’t just another sales technique; it’s the linchpin to winning over customer attention.

The Ingredients of a Compelling Story

To comprehend what truly engages us in a story, Travis broke down the fundamental building blocks. Narrative arcs, identifiable characters, location in time and space, authentic emotions, and specific details were all vital components highlighted. The real secret, it was explained, lies in the unifying principles across various storytelling frameworks.

The Journey of Value in Storytelling

Travis introduced several storytelling frameworks. The Storynomics framework, which outlines the structure of a compelling narrative stresses that every story should commence by establishing what the protagonist desires or values, setting the stage for the conflicts that drive the narrative. As the story unfolds, the protagonist must invest effort, face challenges, and make sacrifices, introducing conflict and tension into the narrative. Crucially, the story must convincingly show that the desired value is worth the costs and challenges, engaging the audience emotionally, and ultimately, the story must provide a judgment on whether the desired value was achieved.

Frameworks that Guide the Way

We delved into other frameworks such as Pixar’s 22 Rules and the Storybrand approach, a popular guide from Donald Miller. (We actually read the Storybrand as part of the Accelerator program curriculum and highly recommend!) These frameworks provide storytellers with a clear path to crafting engaging narratives with a business’s client or customer as the hero of the story and positioning the Founder as a guide through a process to solve their client’s pain point.

Harnessing the Power of Gaps and Tension

The insights shared about what keeps us hooked in a story were intriguing. Knowledge gaps, emotional gaps, and action loops were highlighted as key components of narrative tension, driving business results. Knowledge gaps stoke curiosity, emotional gaps compel us to seek resolution, and action loops motivate customers to take that all-important next step.

Storytelling isn’t merely a tool; it’s a strategic necessity for capturing your audience’s attention. Whether you’re a marketer, a presenter, or an entrepreneur, mastering the art of storytelling is key to thriving in an attention-scarce world.

Remember, Founders Forums are monthly (with the exception of December and July) so keep your eyes open for the next one coming around the corner!

How We Build Things: The Functional Team of Product+Engineering+Design →

Learn how you can improve your efforts as a founder, walk away with outcomes you can apply directly to your business, and strengthen your relationships with peers and content experts.

Light refreshments will be provided with networking opportunities.

Building a Cross-Functional Team

A highly collaborative product, design, and engineering team form the backbone of successful modern tech companies. It’s through this “three-legged stool” approach that many of the products or services we love have been conceived and delivered. John and David each have experienced how this works at large companies and small startups. The goal of this session is to outline best practices and provide real-world examples of how this approach to team-building creates great outcomes for users and the business.

Meet John & David!

David Siglin has broad experience working as a developer, head of design, and head of product. He has seen how tight collaboration across these functions creates phenomenal outcomes for startups, and large companies alike. He’s currently a Principal Designer at Stitch Fix. Outside of work, David is active in the design community, giving talks on design, mentoring those looking to break into design, and advising startups on product and design strategy.

John Barnett is the Co-founder of Supermoon, previously CEO and Co-founder of Chroma Labs (developer of the Chroma Stories app, acquired by Twitter), and the creator of Boomerang from Instagram. Over the last 15 years, John led the development and launch of 6 apps with over 450M downloads.

Before founding Chroma Labs, John was the PM for the Facebook Camera, and a PM on Facebook’s AI team, focused on the future of visual creation and innovative consumer AR/AI applications. He was also a PM on Facebook’s Applied Machine Learning team, and Gen-Z team, and Instagram’s Story, Video, Profile, and Creation teams. John helped create and launch both Instagram Stories and Facebook Stories, along with helping to develop and pitch the initial product concept and framing of the market opportunity for WhatsApp “Status” in early 2016 (now the world’s most used Story product.)