So this is it! Our first official blog post. Believe it or not, it took us several months of dreaming, planning, strategizing, pitching and partnering to get to this point. With the web-site officially launched and our first event less than a month away, this is all becoming very real, very fast. Fortunately, we have an awesome, dedicated team ready to make our first event (and all subsequent events) an absolute success.

With that said, I thought a fitting first post would talk about Momentum at its conception. And to do that, I should probably talk about the significance behind the name. Call me cheesy, but remembering the significance behind the name of something (this name in particular) is a great way to bring you back to where you started, to make sure you’re still moving in the right direction.

The purpose of establishing Momentum was to create an organization that would help young entrepreneurs not only connect, share and learn from one another but advance their ideas and entrepreneurial aspirations. When establishing Momentum, we identified three largely untapped groups that we thought we could help:

• the student at a local university or college who wants to start a business upon graduation
• the aspiring entrepreneur working for someone else but has clear plans to start their own business in the near future
• the first-time entrepreneur who has established their business but needs to know where to go and what to do next.

But what could we help them with? Well, we could help them connect to like-minded entrepreneurs. Maybe meet a business partner, or find someone to help vet out their ideas. We could help them meet mentors and other entrepreneurs for practical advice and inspiration. We could help them promote and pitch their business ideas. We could help facilitate interaction with angel investors and make it easier to find financing.

So what did this all mean? When we took a step back and looked at the demographic we’re targeting, the different things we can help with, the program of events that will help us do all those things, what were we actually offering? Well, after a few e-mails back and forth we quickly realized – we were providing momentum. We were helping young, aspiring entrepreneurs gain traction and advance their dreams, their ideas and their businesses forward.

And so you’ll see over the coming weeks, months and years that every thing we decide to do will have that initial premise in mind. Our events, our blog posts (most of them), our meet-ups, or whatever else we decide to do will have to pass the simple test: is this helping that young entrepreneur take a step forward, is it helping them gain momentum?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.