I’m excited to announce that I was profiled today in the New Venturist blog, which is dedicated to introducing it’s readers to the entrepreneurs “who will shape our country’s future.” Wow. What a humbling comment.
The mastermind behind this work is Babs Carryer, a serial entrepreneur who has her hands in many ventures related to entrepreneurism. She is the Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship, Embedded Entrepreneur for Project Olympus at Carnegie Mellon University, as well as the President of Carryer Consulting, which provides strategic business planning services to technology companies.
The article is a fun walk down memory lane and covers some of my experiences leading up to our venture capital raise and the launch of the *new* UsingMiles.com. It also hints at some of our [very] exciting future announcements about site enhancements, mobile apps (yay!) and our awesome team. She even managed to promote that I am on the hunt for Java programmers (thanks, Babs!)
The entire article is great, but I think the most important point I would like aspiring and active entrepreneurs to take away from it is don’t ever quit. It’s not always going to be easy, and in fact, most of the time it most definitely won’t be — but continue to put yourself out there, meet more people, and find a way to make it work. People are the key to your success as an entrepreneur. And you never know when you might meet that next person who will help you get to the next level — whether it be through a piece of advice, and introduction, or through them taking an active role in your company. I fiercely believe for the most part, that people are good. They like helping other people. And your business won’t succeed unless you have a lot of good people helping you make it happen. In my experience, that has been the key ingredient to getting me to this point.
That being said, I still have my work cut out for me! But I am grateful for where we are as a company and excited to continue building a product that will truly make a difference in people’s lives, even by just cutting out some of the day-to-day stress when it comes to travel.
Thank you so much, New Venturist, for allowing me to take a little trip down memory lane, and to stop for a moment to be grateful for what I have. So thank you Babs, and to echo what you said, I’m you’re newest reader!
