At an event hosted by the Shore Entrepreneurship Center on Jan. 19, students networked and interacted with leading entrepreneurs from the Atlanta area.
Four business-owners answered students’ questions in a “speed dating” style, giving groups of students a limited time with each entrepreneur before moving on to the next.
Doug Shore, a member of the Coles College of Business Advisory Board, founded Shore Communications in 1982. He shared with students his experience with starting the company, including the challenges and hard work that came with keeping it up and running. When students asked Shore why he eventually sold his company, he stressed the importance of having an “end game” or a future plan for the business.
“When you’re young, you think you’ll live forever,” Shore said. “You don’t even think about stuff like that. As you get older, if you’re lucky enough to get older, you learn, ‘I’m not immortal. Someday I will leave my business.’”
DynamiX Web Design founder and CEO, Jeff Jahn, answered questions about his experiences at Berry College and what motivated him to co-found six different companies.
“While I was at Berry, I worked during all of my classes,” Jahn said. “I got so much value out of it by not thinking of school as school, but by thinking about it as how much value can I extract from these professors to really accelerate what I’m doing here.”
Curtis Gropman, the founder of AlphaGraphics, spoke about his prior experiences working with larger companies like Coca-Cola and how his career took many turns before he got to where he is today. As students asked their questions, Gropman encouraged them to go with the flow to find out exactly what they want to do and to not be afraid to make major changes in their careers.
“It’s not something to sweat about if you don’t know what you want to do exactly. Life isn’t a GPS where it says, ‘In a hundred feet, turn left,’” Gropman said. “I think it’s more like a compass. It only points north. It tells you if you’re way out of bounds, but it doesn’t tell you when to stop. It doesn’t tell you how far you have to go. It will just always point north.”
Steve Beecham is the founder of Home Town Mortgage. He encouraged students to find their passion and work toward doing whatever that may be.
“Discover your purpose,” Beecham said. “Why are you here on this planet? And then help somebody else discover their purpose.”
At the end of the event, students were given applications for the KSU Top 100, a competition in which participants submit an idea for a product or company. The top 100 ideas are chosen to work with mentors and compete for a chance to pitch the idea in front of a live audience. The winner can receive up to $100,000 in investments and business services.
Executive Director Chris Hanks announced that the Shore Entrepreneurship Center is working on reserving a larger space on campus and plans to host the networking event once every month.
