I can't believe it is already August. It was just last month that Heidi Ganahl, Founder & CEO of Camp Bow Wow came in and spoke to the 50 for Colorado leadership group. The day's focus was on Entrepreneurship.
Heidi opened the first Camp Bow Wow in 2000 in Denver and began franchising it in 2003 (over 200 franchises to date in the US and Canada). Heidi is an amazing speaker and is a great supporter of CU-Boulder. To put it in perspective of how much she supports us...she spoke to our group while she was just shy of 9 months pregnant.
If you haven't heard Heidi speak, I strongly encourage you to do so. She will be the keynote speaker at the Denver Business Journal's event "Outstanding Women in Business-2009" on August 27. I hope to see you there.
Also during our Entrepreneurship Day, Marley Hodgson of Mad Greens (great paninis & salads- Don Quixote is my favorite) spoke about Building an Honest Business and utilizing locally-owned businesses as much as possible. John Georgis of Banjo Billy (not your average bus tour-yee haw!) spoke about how he was in the right place at the right time. Lynn Price, founder of Camp to Belong, talked about her personal story of not knowing her sibling growing up and founded an organization for people who are in a similar situation. The common theme was how they all started their own businesses and the obstacles they overcame. All are fabulous speakers.
Later that day seven participants of the 50 program were on a panel discussion and talked about the positives and negatives of having your own business. Industries included financial, insurance, consulting, accounting, human resources, promotional advertising, and auction/public relation services. The panel was moderated by a 50 participant who works at the Small Business Development Center.
Additional speakers for the Entrepreneurship session included Paul Jerde of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, Greg Berry of Nuance Intelligence, and Courtney Price of VentureQuest. It was an enlightening day and gave a lot of people food for thought of what kind of business they would create.
So...what kind of business would you start up?
-- Heather Owens, Program Coordinator
