FountainBlue's June 10 When She Speaks program, on the topic of 'Startups Changing the World'. Please join me in thanking our hosts at Intel and our esteemed panelists.
We were fortunate to have a range of amazing leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs for this month's panel. They represented a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds, but they had much in common:
Passionate, intelligent and hardworking, our panelists were not intimidated by the STEM subjects they mastered, and all took their technical abilities into business roles.
Ever fearless, resilient and unflappable, our panelists thrived on adopting and conquering business, technical, and operational issues, earning them leadership roles in companies big and small.
Each panelist has had experience working in companies, start-ups and some even in investment groups, and each is contributing to the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Below is a summary of advice for supporting start-ups changing the world.
Work with engineering and product teams to create solutions which address core world issues.
Focus on growing a business which does the right things to support people, the earth, and others while doing well financially and operationally.
Create and support an ecosystem of partners and providers who can collaborate with you to increase influence and impact.
Build momentum with customers, sales, partners and others and keep focusing on the needs of the customer.
Look for a start-up leadership team which is resilient enough to ride the ups and downs of start-ups and also market variances which impact us all, especially now with so much variance and so many unknowns.
Passionately tell your start-up story in a way which is compelling, and fill your story with data.
Let your customers help you define your feature sets, milestones and timelines.
Help successful companies and leaders keep growing and learning.
The bottom line is that start-ups aren't easy to lead or manage, but it is these start-ups that will help us all change the world for the better.