On May 18th, we had our inaugural Phoenix Female Founders Forum (FFF) and I was so excited I wrote about it the next day! It’s been one month and I wanted to give an update on the group and my experiences.
The More the Merrier
That’s not a pun on the Arizona Technology Council’s Merry Lake Merrell, who is the amazing FFF organizer. Rather, after the May event, we have had so much interest from around the Valley, which is awesome. Our goal this time is fifty attendees.
We are looking for women who have founded a business or are planning to start a business. Our mission is to have people establish connections to address their burning top priority.
Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) Ask
The FFF format is simple. You arrive and put your ask up on the board with your name and twitter handle. In our first meeting, I put up the following:
Mary Juetten
@traklight
CRO & Intros to early stage companies
Please note that it seems like I broke the rules and put up two but they are really the same thing. A Chief Revenue Officer will be someone who can make intros for us to early stage companies.
One of the other founders has some extra time to assist with Traklight Sales – not precisely a CRO but she will increase revenue for us, and we would not have made the connection without FFF.
It is the fundamental requirement to being an entrepreneur of any gender: you have to ask for help. No one has it all figured out and you would be surprised how many other people are dealing with the same challenges.
In the next event, we will be making some lists of local resources that we can then post on the Facebook group.
Networking
We do not see this event as pure networking but there is a component of that and it is all about making the connection. Of course, it is then on each of us to actually follow-up. I met a recent Silicon Valley transplant and that led to a great meeting.
Please bring your number one need and join us on August 17th – more information on Traklight’s events page shortly.
Also, anyone working on a new idea or business should take the time to use our Free Business Assessment Risk. If you are a fan of HBO’s Silicon Valley, you can see why these seemingly annoying tasks are critical to your success.