Friday, September 11, 2009

Pay It Forward

Ran across this interesting blog on Reuters and (Let’s Work Together to Boost Entrepreneurialism) by Michael Gaiss, who is a Senior Vice President at venture capital firm Highland Capital Partners. In particular, I liked the first point:

Connect and enable the next generation of entrepreneurs. Much can be learned from those who have already done it. Barriers preventing the next generation from connecting with the existing entrepreneur community, as well as each other, need to be removed. Gatherings and one-on-one mentoring can be orchestrated to bring entrepreneurs of all stages together to better enable the free flow of ideas and advice. The challenge is to leverage existing institutions such as associations, universities, venture and angel networks, and relevant service providers to get these off the ground, while encouraging the organic emergence of new networking & mentoring platforms over time. As entrepreneurship evolves, what started as forums for sharing insight and advice matures into a vibrant and proven support ecosystem that entrepreneurs can rely on to help get their startups off the ground.

Entrepreneurs are the most giving of folks; looking to help out the next generation of business innovators. In most cases, the entrepreneurs want to help, but they don’t how or where to go to provide assistance. At Syracuse University, we’re trying to facilitate that flow of help and be a connecting point to match mentors with those who need the help. It’s really just an entrepreneurial way of paying it forward.

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