Personal Narrative: My Experience At Startup Island

My experience at the Startup Island speaker event was not at all what I had expected. A female architecture student in a room full of young, suit-wearing business men, I felt a little out of my element. After a series of announcements regarding upcoming events in the entrepreneur’s club, Josh and Brian were welcomed to the front of the room. The energy in the room was instantly transformed as they first introduced themselves and then immediately asked everyone to stand. We were guided through a series of changes that resulted in every seat being shuffled and asked to introduce ourselves to our new neighbors. This somehow put me at ease as I settled in to listen to what I was sure would be a great presentation. Brian and Josh are the kind of presenters I think we all aspire to be. As each of the co-founders ran through their story by way of highlighting what they called their “defining moments”, I felt like I was having a conversation with just the two of them. However, this particularly informal style of speaking meant that I had to look a …show more content…
This spring, Startup Island is going to be hosting slightly larger version of the same series offered for the first time last year. However, if this was my business, I would spend more time and resources trying to expand the potential market. Currently, the business only applies to undergrad business students with time available during spring break. I would try to expand this to include corporate employees, college students during the summer and winter breaks, and students within other majors. The general concept for Startup Island is very strong, and with minimal tweaking, I think it could be applied to a variety of different seminar retreat possibilities. However, Startup Island is still a very new company with great potential for growth in the coming years in these