alma mater and let’s give a round of
applause to everybody who organized this
great event you guys did a great job so
about 15 years ago I started a company
called hyper office and many of the the
points made by our previous speakers
really rung true for me
one of the one of the key lessons that I
learned was what’s possible when you
have a small group of people come
together with a shared vision and shared
values that company is serving half a
million people today and and very proud
of that work the other thing I learned
through that was how important it is to
have solid business partners and
co-founders and mentors and advisors
really this sort of cabinet of resources
that you can tap into when I joined when
I started that company I was the most
inexperienced person on the four-person
team and my three other co-founders
certainly had that over decades of more
experience and they really coached me up
they were very patient of course I had I
had some strengths and a lot of
weaknesses that they helped make up for
and you know and I learned a lot a lot
to that process and I thought to myself
you know what I think probably the
reason why we survived and did so well
was because of the team that we had
assembled this group of four people that
was able to complement each other’s
skills and balance each other out to
achieve a good outcome for the company
and as I was leaving Hyper office we had
sold it then I kind of wondered what do
what does everybody else do how about if
you don’t have a business partner that’s
invited you how do you find them and I
was really also interested in doing a
social enterprise how can I improve
Society in some way and today’s theme
being the the ripple effect I thought to
myself what if we could come up with a
way to bring people who are interested
in starting businesses together and that
turned into a company called co-founders
lab and what we would do is we would
organize meetups it ended up being one
of the
largest meetups in the world and then we
had an online companion where he can go
on an app or a website and find a
co-founder kind of like a match.com for
business folks and through that today
there is four hundred thousand people on
cofounders lab about ten thousand people
a month go on there and what I’m most
proud of is the ripple effect that was
created is over 350 companies have
formed through the co-founders lab
network and they’re all they’re not all
doing social entrepreneurship but
they’re there they’re realizing their
dreams and I think it’s it’s it’s really
powerful to think about designing ways
that you can you can do your work and
that has a multiplying effect the other
thing I learned while building
co-founders lab is the importance of
mentorship I had some really fantastic
mentors that were some of them were
specialists what they’re trying to help
me figure out sort of social networking
for example I had one who was the chief
technology officer at match.com to
figure out how to build these algorithms
and and in there probably about a dozen
that kind of came in and out and someone
would have a formal relationship and
become advisors to to the company and I
was inspired to try to mentor others I
said you know this is really cool so
I’ve benefited from this what if now I
want it I want to help other people so I
began I began attracting really talented
entrepreneurs and was really struck by
how effective just a little bit of
mentorship time can have on and it on an
individual I was really inspired by by
that and I continue to do it and I made
it I made a promise we made a promise
that anybody who I mentor they will go
mentor another to at least two people in
the next four or five years or sort of
in the near future so that’s what we’re
that’s what that’s what I’ve been really
inspired to continue to do that and
today rather than just talk about how to
have a ripple effect I thought I would
introduce two of my mentees Ryan Pirtle
who has been featured in the Baltimore
Business Journal is an entrepreneur has
his own active company while he’s
studying at Towson and zani Aqib who was
featured in Bethesda
magazine just if you have the current
edition you’ll see him in there with a
bunch of other talented high school kids
in our region so I’d like to call them
up and have you here loaded about their
story as well
[Applause]
testing all right well thank you so much
for that great introduction mr. kavion
ii so yeah my name is Zane I’m a senior
at local Walt Whitman High School in
Bethesda and mr. Cavanaugh I’ve been
I’ve had such a pleasure of working with
him for the last four years he’s helped
me create my two businesses my first
business I created when I was a freshman
because you know I couldn’t find a class
that could link young high school
ambitious students with real
entrepreneurs and so I created a
business called the Bethesda
entrepreneurship Academy and we’ve had
over 60 local teenagers join our program
and we’ve had over 30 CEOs meet when an
informal discussion with these kids and
that was a great experience and the
second business I created just over a
year ago with a close friend of mine and
it’s a marketing agency where we work
with local businesses and help them with
their Facebook ads Google Ads things
like that and I just can’t understate
the value of can’t overstate the value
of how much help I’ve received along the
way from mentors like mr. K V Ani
without people like him I would have
made a lot more mistakes along my
journey and I would have not been as
prepared as I am now whenever I’m making
a business decision now I have him to
consult for me and it’s just great
because he’s helped me generate a lot of
leads for my second business and he’s
helped me a lot with my first business
from building the website to you know
finding customers to finding other
speakers you know it’s just so valuable
to have someone in your corner that can
teach you so many things and that’s just
really why mentorship and mentoring is
just so important and so needed in
today’s society and economy and to talk
about mentoring so he was talking about
the ripple effect when you mentor
someone there he wants you to mentor
someone yourself so I’ve done some local
work
local greenery homeless shelter which is
located in Bethesda and I’ve met with
kids there and help them build a website
and I’ve helped launch two businesses
out of that recently one was a
photography business and one was a
concert venue business and I’m working
with several kids there and hopefully
their dreams are going to come true
so I’d like to pass the mic to Ryan here
and thank you so much for your time
hello everyone my name is Ryan / Paul
I’m a current junior at Towson
University I’m majoring in cultural
studies and I’m minoring in
entrepreneurship I first met mr. Cavani
my senior year in high school I attended
DeMatha Catholic High School in
Hyattsville Maryland and we didn’t have
a business club there I was really
interested in business in
entrepreneurship and innovation at the
time watching a lot of videos on YouTube
I really wanted to dig more into this
especially before I went to college so I
had no resources at the schools so I
decided to do what a lot of people do
around the world and then what mr.
Kalyani has kind of mentored me over the
past couple years and it’s really to
just use what you have around you and
make it work so I found him through
sending out a lot of messages on
LinkedIn first of all I created a
LinkedIn at my senior in high school but
all of my all of the stuff that I’ve
done where it was like going to soup
kitchens or different clubs I was
involved in or sports and just the bare
minimum you know I didn’t have much but
I had something there and I introduced
myself to a lot of people and through
about two people I met mr. Cavey Ani who
then helped to mentor myself and the
other group the other ten or so
entrepreneurs or budding entrepreneurs
at my high school going more recently I
am the founder and CEO of brick box
recycling break box is where
recreational destruction meets glass
recycling and so basically it’s my take
my innovation on fixing the problems
that affect the glass
recycling industry and adding an
entertainment value to it and I really
think that I couldn’t have done that
without the mentorship of mr. coffee
honey and a couple of other people in my
life really I I could I would I would
turn myself a perfectionist sometimes
and that can get in the way of
innovation where you should allow
yourself to make mistakes and maybe
allow yourself to have some messiness we
were trying to figure it out I didn’t
know about entrepreneurship in high
school it was kind of messy I figured it
out I got really good people around me
and in college I figured it out and I
touch base regularly with mr. Cavey Ani
on how to do simple things like just
communication so that’s really been
pivotal to the success I’ve had already
I’ve been working on break box recycling
for about two years now and it’s really
great to be kind of my I guess I would
say I’m on the track to being like a
specialist or expertise in recycling in
terms of innovation and that’s just
something that I personally enjoy but it
can be anything and a mentor doesn’t
necessarily have to be someone in your
field mister community is an IT he’s in
tech what I want to do is definitely not
that but you could benefit from anybody
because you don’t know who they know or
what opportunities may come up like
speaking here today so that’s all I have
to say thank you for your time
[Applause]
I’d like to try to speak with everyone
here for the younger folks who are you
know in school and studying go out and
seek seek a mentor for the for the more
experienced folks who are out in the
workforce realized that it’s really a
very little bit of your time to be able
to nurture the next generation whether
it’s leveraging your specific skills or
just general experience and wisdom I
found it so rewarding to to work with
talented folks like Zane and Ryan and I
also learned a lot to the process as
well I’m always sort of fresh on sort of
the latest techniques and what’s
happening on the ground so it really
pays back in huge dividends I’m just so
inspired about watching watching them be
up here today and talk talking about
their their story the people that
they’ve affected the ripple effect that
they’re having in creating waves to
improve society through social
entrepreneurship and I can’t wait to
watch their story unfold thank you so
much for having me [Applause]