Entrepreneurs discuss trials, triumphs with Athena League
September 17, 2015 | Ashley Jost
Embracing chaos and persistence.
Those were the two main themes that arose from Athena League’s Techweek event Thursday morning.
Athena League worked in conjunction with Techweek to host Hailee Bland-Walsh, owner and CEO of City Gym KC, and Jill Minton, founder and CEO of t.Loft, to speak to a crowd of roughly 100 about their trials and triumphs in entrepreneurship. Athena League is an organization that focuses on providing a community of support to female entrepreneurs.
Both women highlighted diligence, among other things, while talking about how they started with their respective businesses.
Bland-Walsh said she was raised in a house of entrepreneurs and was told from an early age that if she wanted something, she had to find a way to pay for it. A babysitting business and a college degree later, she applied the same mentality to her company.
“Entrepreneurship is a personality trait,” she said.
Let go of the idea of having a work-life balance, Bland-Walsh continued. Instead she said that businesspeople need to find work-life alignment and embrace the chaos that results from owning their own business.
Minton shared with the crowd at Union Station the sacrifices she made when launching a business.
“I had a great career… and when I started to dream about going out on our own, we had to make a decision to downsize our lives,” Minton said.
Her resilience appears to have paid off as t.Loft now has three locations that make health food and drinks. The company is planning to open another location soon in the Country Club Plaza.
To learn more about the Athena League and its VOX events, click here.
Featured Business
2015 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Schukman: 5 ways to fuse a social mission in your company
I’ve recently been exploring ways in which traditional companies have been retroactively becoming social entrepreneurs. Recall from my last piece that social entrepreneurship is a businessperson that creates a profit and purpose-driven organization in which the business and social missions run in tandem. Our social mission, therefore, becomes a key component of our marketing, branding,…
KCK tech firm RFP365 named ‘new small business’ of the year
The wins are stacking up for RFP365. Now weeks after scoring a contract with the City of Kansas City, Mo., the tech company was named the 2015 “New Small Business of the Year” Friday by the Kansas City Kansas Chamber of Commerce. A member of the Kansas City Startup Village, RFP365 created software that eases…
Gallery: Sprint Accelerator Demo Day
The Sprint Mobile Health Accelerator held its Demo Day event Thursday at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Ten startups that specialize in mobile health technology graduated from the Techstars-led accelerator, which conducts a three-month, mentor-led program designed to quickly advance businesses. Check out photos from the event by scrolling below.
Think IP: 3 IP rights your startup should know
In this Think column, Venture Legal attorney Andrew McGhie explores the complex world of intellectual property and how to protect your company. The Think column helps entrepreneurs to stop and think about the various aspects of starting and running a business. The most valuable assets for startups often include some type of intellectual property. What protection is…