Gathering around practicality

Young Entrepreneur Convention 2023

Feb 28, 2023

This past weekend was an annual event I co-organize with good friend Andrew Zalasky, called Young Entrepreneur Convention.

On the spectrum of who we’ve hosted in years past, it’s been Jake Paul (closer to his Disney days, than his boxing days) clear through Jason Calacanis (closer to his author of Angel days, than his All In podcast days). It took us a few years to find our identity, and I’m grateful that we’ve shifted focus to tech and startups.

I’m also grateful for the sponsoring partners who have stuck with us since day 1—Zarley Law and Iowa State University. Both are staple supporters of entrepreneurial activity across the state.

In this year’s event, we focused on practicality.

My friend Shelby Smith shared her bootstrapping story of Gym-N-Eat Crickets. Our lead software engineer at Clayton Farms, Nick, hosted a workshop on focusing on the right metrics and achieving revenue. Fellow Young Entrepreneur Convention Co-Founder and friend, Brandon T Adams, shared what he looks for in pitches. My friend Michael Guerin flew in from Ireland, to share his founding story of Imvizar. I enjoyed a fireside chat with Tim Zarley, to simplify how entrepreneurs should think about IP.

I also shared a presentation on a mental model and practicality in building something.

The mental model

The red layer represents a business person, who is transaction driven.

The yellow layer represents an entrepreneur, who must be transaction driven and relationship driven.

The green layer represents a founder, who must be transaction, relationship, and vision driven.

An example to highlight the 3 layers would be if you became a realtor in your hometown. At this stage, you’re a business person. If you launch your own real estate firm, you’re an entrepreneur. If you want to launch your real estate firms across other states and scale, you’re a founder.

What you build depends on what you want to accomplish.