Coming up this Friday, March 5th, is a great event happening in Denver, Colorado called the Rocky Mountain Entrepreneurial Summit. It is hosted by the Colorado chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).
This two day event features an on mountain ski day on Thursday and Friday is filled with 2 different breakout session times, a keynote speaker, and a pitch competition, Shark Tank sytle.
I got a chance to offer up a few quick questions to the EO Colorado President and host for the summit, Cam Mochan, to learn a little bit more about the summit and the EO organization.
If you are interested in attending, head over to www.rmes.eocolorado.org to learn about ticket prices. For young entrepreneurs or startups, they are a bit costly ($150 for a general ticket), but you might find more value in the keynote speaker and networking than the sessions, so it may be worth it to you. If you are student attending, the cost is more reasonable at $25. As you will read in the questions and answers below, EO is much more focused on businesses and entrepreneurs with over $1M in sales, so not exactly dorm room business friendly from a membership standpoint, I still wanted to share this event with our readers.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
My name is Cam Mochan. I am married to my wife Katie and have three kids, Claire (11), Quinn (7) and Colton (3). I am involved in several businesses in both the retail space and investment real estate development all operating under The Crux Company. I am from Boston, went to CSU and enjoy reading, skiing, running, hockey and traveling.
What is the Entrepreneurs Organization and how did you get involved with the organization?
I have been in EO Colorado for 8 years and on the board for the past 4 years. The Entrepreneurs’ Organization is a global business network of 9,500+ business owners in 131 chapters and 40 countries. Founded in 1987 by a group of young entrepreneurs, EO enables small and large business owners to learn from each other, leading to greater business success and an enriched personal life. Our vision is to build the world’s most influential entrepreneur community, which aligns with our mission of supporting entrepreneurial education and engaging entrepreneurs to learn and grow.
When reviewing the EO website (local and national), I see it appears that the organization is focused towards highly successful business owners and larger companies (average age 42, average employee size of 242 and average sales of $59M). Is the organization open to young startups and young entrepreneurs new to business looking for mentorship and networking opportunities?
EO Membership is reserved for companies with at least $1MM in annual revenue. EO does have a program called EO Accelerator for companies with less than $1MM in rev. EO Chapter and members run the Accelerator programs and do provide mentorship and networking for these companies with the express goal of getting these companies to $1MM in rev.
What is the Rocky Mountain Entrepreneurial Summit and what are the main goals for the event? Why should someone attend?
The RMES is EO Colorado’s gift back to the entrepreneurial community. It is the interest of EO Colorado to use the RMES to bring all the disparate pieces of the entrepreneurial ecosystem to include experienced entrepreneurs, starts ups, students, academia, government agencies and the investor community together once a year for a day of learning and networking. If you want to be part of the entrepreneurial community in Colorado you should attend the RMES.
If someone is attending the RMES for the first time, what do you hope that they will take away from the event?
One of the biggest takeaways that past attendees have left with is an understanding of how many resources there are for learning and connecting in the entrepreneurial community. We hope all attendees, new and old, leave with new inspiration and connections to make the things happen in their businesses and careers.
The even has two time slots for breakout sessions and a keynote speaker. What speaker/panel are you most looking forward to and why?
The Key Note Marcus Luttrell is going to be great. I loved his book Lone Survivor and I am looking forward to his presentation. As for the break outs, I am facilitating the “Manage Your Legacy: What to do After Success” panel so I am very interested in that. The panelists are all experts in this space and it is a very important part of the entrepreneurial journey once some level of success is created. Most entrepreneurs are good at focusing on making money and don’t spend much time or energy on planning for what to do after success is created. As for the afternoon, the “Fund Your Mission: Crowd Funding and Other Innovative Ways to Fund Your Dream” is going to be a great session. All entrepreneurs, from startups to the experienced are always interested in finding ways to access capital. Crowd Funding is on the cusp of creating a new, innovative ways for entrepreneurs to raise funds and EarlyShares is leading the innovation.
What is the Entrepreneur Award that is on the agenda for Friday?
The Entrepreneur Award is another learning event for both the participants as well as the attendees. New companies will do pitch presentations in a “Shark Tank” style setting. A panel of judges will select winners and cash awards will be given. The presenters will benefit from the opportunity to do a public pitch of the their concept and the audience will benefit from hearing the unbridled optimism of entrepreneurs with new concepts. I have sat through several of these presentations and I am always inspired. Often times new companies and new entrepreneurs “don’t know what they don’t know” and drive forward without concern for all of the potential challenges that a more experienced operator may have dealt with.
What 2 or 3 things would suggest to someone to really take advantage of or do at the RMES event to come away from the event feeling like it helped them in either their personal life or their business life?
Come to the RMES and make as many connections as you can. The collection of attendees will be exceptional. Once engaged in the entrepreneurial community stay engaged and remember, the more you give, the more you will gain.
Interested in seeing the full agenda? Head over to the RMES site and you can see it there as well as purchase tickets to attend.
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