Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference » Conference

Meet Some of the Speakers from Geeks on a Plane

Francine Hardaway — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:51:46 +0000

Here’s Kris Krug, otherwise known as @kk:

And here’s Dave McClure, the most approachable VC on the planet, and a guy who is not afraid to do global investments.

And here’s Francine Hardaway, founder of the Opportunity Through Entrepreneurship Foundation and co-founder of Stealthmode Partners

We hope you will join us to meet these superstars in person.

AZEC09 Breaks Fundraising Record

Francine Hardaway — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:42:27 +0000

We had a very successful AZEC09 (formerly Fourth Annual Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference) last week. It was oversold, at the last minute. The bills aren’t all paid, and the sponsorship money hasn’t all arrived, but I know for a fact that we raised the money to offer another program to the disadvantaged, and we are going to research and choose an agency to partner with now that we know we have the funds. Let me first thank Joan Koerber-Walker, Steven Groves, and Merlin Ward, board members who took their responsibility above and beyond to help put on the conference.

And let me also thank Life Pilot, Microsoft, InfusionSoft,, the Business Journal, and EmpowHer for their major sponsorships in this difficult year. A whole host of in-kind sponsors, listed on the event site, also helped make this possible.

A few highlights for me (I didn’t see everything): Kevin Surace‘s excellent keynote on green building and its role in America’s competitiveness; Merlin Mann‘s admonition that we check our email every five minutes because we can’t stand uncertainty, not because there’s anything important; Michelle Robson‘s courageous slide of her first company name and logo; an incredibly good panel on health care entrepreneurship consisting of three doctors who see what’s wrong with the system and are working to fix it; Tara Hunt, Joan, and me singing an original song made up by a fan of Tara’s; and Dan Gillmor helping Mary Kay Reinhart of the Arizona Guardian move from old to new media.

And today I got a note in the mail from a man I know from the gym. He’s 94, and a retired entrepreneur himself. The handwritten note says: “this cheeseball wants to support your Foundation,” and enclosed was a check for $50. This was a response to a blog post I wrote while planning the conference complaining about the lack of community support for entrepreneurship. Clearly, I was wrong.

Mentoring Those on the Way Up

Francine Hardaway — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:52:13 +0000

AZEC10 is the place where entrepreneurs gather to Connect, Share ideas, and Be Inspired.

Each year, entrepreneurs who can’t attend themselves have the opportunity to sponsor a student.

(Simply click REGISTER) and select “Sponsor a Student”.

Each student is asked to complete a short essay after the event on their Three Best Take Aways from AZEC10 and share it with their sponsor.

Here’s what one student said:

Today was great!!! I had such an amazing time. Meant plenty of people and learned plenty of things. I took 10 pages of notes throughout the day and I am still processing all the rest of the information.

Three best takeaways from last year’s conference:

Pam Slim stood out to me as the biggest influence of the conference. For the last year I have been following her blog as well as her communications with a few other of my favorite bloggers. While watching her presentation I asked her the question,”How should I go about deciding which passion I am going to brand? I have narrowed it down to three passions and I am not sure which one would lead me down the strongest path”. She told me to evaluate what my final goal is as well as what my ideal self is. Those are two things that I really haven’t done, but will be working on as soon as I can. I am going to stay in contact with her and hopefully she continue to be a mentor for me.
Ever since freshman year of high school I have been following Merlin Mann‘s blog 43folders in which he demonstrated ways to streamline or optimize your workflow. I ran into him in the bathroom and we sparked off after that. Over a 10 minute conversation with him I learned more about optimizing specific things than I could ever learned in an hour long presentation. As a matter of fact the conversation I had with him gave him the idea to setup a system for the type of optimization we were talking about. It was real impressive.
Finally, I would like to say that I met the CEO’s of the actual company that I was applying for. redPear, a local software development company in the valley is looking to train a college student such as myself to experience what it is actually like to be an entrepreneur. All three of the gentlemen were really nice. I hope the connection that I made at the conference will plant a good seed in the application process. :)
If i do get the position I will work my heart out.

Once again, I want to thank you for putting on such an influential event for me.
–name withheld pending permission

Creating a Vibrant Business Community

Francine Hardaway — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:51:41 +0000

According to the Kauffman Foundation, most jobs are created by new businesses. Arizona needs those businesses. And they can’t be developed in a vacuum. Everyone knows Silicon Valley is the mecca for tech company startups, and New York for the media industry. Detroit is the auto industry, and Los Angeles is movies. But what if you live in Arizona? At this year’s conference, we will address some of our community’s needs:

1. Collaboration – the first ingredient is to get the community to work together, pulling in the same direction for the same goals. If well-intentioned efforts spring up all over the place, each claiming its own piece of the territory, sooner or later, those efforts collide and weaken their combined effect. We gather the high growth business community to achieve critical mass.

2. Civics. Once aggregated, it’s time to look up from those laptops and figure out how to make an impact on the local community. We contribute social capital so it will come back. Startups and new businesses often labor in solitude, without support, while Federal programs designed to help small business and administered by cities and counties can’t find the businesses to participate. Aggregating the potential high-growth businesses and pushing them out into the community is essential.

3. Education and Training. Families with children want to live in communities with good schools, and yet public education is facing budget cuts and contraction all over America. If you want to build a workforce, you can’t just consign the job to the schools. You have to model the behavior and make it exciting to the children.

4. Art and Culture. Creative people produce great businesses, as well as great pleasure for the people around them. Creative pursuits are not easy to outsource, and making a place for a creative class is something we encourage.

5. Investment Capital . This comes last. Money follows community and talent. Building the ties between the money and the people who need it is a major objective.

What does this all add up to? Creating a sense of place. When you create such a sense of place, people will want to move there, start their businesses there. and most important, stay there. Be here now!

Where does the money from your ticket go?

It goes to help entrepreneurs who are disadvantaged receive training and resources to continue the tradition of entrepreneurship. The Opportunity Through Entrepreneurship Foundation, a 501 (c)3, was founded in 2005 to help grow the community by growing our entrepreneurial culture. Every penny above our costs goes to fund programs. There is no overhead and no administration in this organization. Visit the OTEF blog to see the results of our previous programs.

Passing the Torch

AZEC10 is the place where entrepreneurs gather to

Connect, Share ideas, and Be Inspired.

We hope to see you there.

Even if you can’t make it, you still have the opportunity to participate by passing the entrepreneurial torch and sponsoring a student. (Simply click REGISTER NOW up above) and select “Sponsor a Student”.

Each student is asked to complete a short essay after the event on their Three Best Take Aways from AZEC10 and share it with their sponsor.