Recap by Simone Sparrow ’18
Billy Shore and Rosemary Jordano visited campus to talk to the 11th and 12th grade entrepreneurship class about their companies. Shore the co-founder (along with his sister) and executive chairman of Share Our Strength and Jordano founder of ChildrenFirst shared their insight of running a nonprofit and for-profit organization. They encouraged students to think outside the box and not be afraid to take risks.
Shore gave the class three pieces of advice when starting a company. “First: Think about whatever happens to move you the most, and go in that direction as fast as you can. If you want to do something significant, it will take some period of time. Second: There are no rules. Third: When most people start something there is a tremendous amount of emphasis that goes into getting the plan right, that is much less important than focusing on how to adapt your plan afterward.”
Jordano told students when starting a company, “It’s important to hear what people have to say and internalize what that means to you.” She went on to explain how when starting her company she made sure to use investors who “knew her.” Shore built off of her comment and told students to “bring your critic inside and learn from them.” To be able to understand other people’s perspective on your idea and be able to take their advice on how to improve your knowledge.
They ended the talk by hearing students ideas for their potential projects and gave advice on how to further their ideas.