Startup Princess Launches first “Chapter” in Utah County Sponsored by Orem Small Business Development Center

It’s official!! Startup Princess is no longer a “cottage business” and we couldn’t be happier (the thought of 40 women in my living room seems a bit too cozy!) It’s a beautiful thing to ‘grow up!’ We launched our first Chapter “officially” (we’ve been informal/by invitation only group since July 2006) and had our first public Networking Tea Party on Wednesday evening at the Historic Provo Academy Library…the perfect place locally for us! The library was restored about 7 years ago and it’s about as close to Provo, Utah comes to a castle!! Isn’t it beautiful? The room we met in had a pretty stained glass window! I also appreciate that it’s a symbol of learning and development.

How was this event possible? Our Utah County Chapter of Startup Princess is now being sponsored by the Orem Small Business Development Center, an extension of UVSC!

Details of the sponsorship: The center shares their amazing, talented administrative assistant, Laurie Ann with us to help us produce local events and extends invites to their client base. When Ken Fakler, managing director extended the sponsorship to me I felt as though I had won a business plan competition. Laurie Ann has put in countless hours in our behalf to produce our first event…with their help we can now make events bigger, better, and more professional! They are also helping us to produce a full-day conference for Utah County Oct 12…details coming very soon!

Goals of forming Chapters for Startup Princess: The primary goal is networking and mentoring. We feel that while the web and email help to network…when possible IN PERSON networking is the best way to form relationships to help you propel your business. Also this group, specifically allows young babies to attend (when appropriate) and no one would wince if a mom wanted to nurse her baby either. We are absolutely supportive of the woman entrepreneur and are aiming to meet her needs!

While Utah County is the first Chapter, it won’t be the last!! We have another city on the East coast (not telling where yet) that is forming and anxious to start their chapter and we have already identified a Fairy Godmother to lead the group there.

Here’s a quick summary: Our events always start off by welcoming new members and since we had 30+ in one night, it was extra fun! The Fairy Godmothers present gave each new member a magic wand as a symbol that they can “make a wish, make it happen” as a Startup Princess.

We also featured a presentation by Fairy Godmother, Nancy Cadjan, Sign Babies Founder/President who shared how to “Transform Your Idea into a Business” and we recorded her lecture for podcast later…so stay tuned for that! Nancy did a fabulous job and everyone loved her presentation–perfect for this audience mostly filled with women writing a business plan. She wrote a post previously about this topic, click here to read it.

We also had a fun “speed networking” activity for 20 minutes; meeting 10 people fast and furiously exchanging info and sharing a magic wand tip of how to manage life better. Mine was “hire a babysitter on occasion!”

My goal for the event was that participants who had never heard of Startup Princess would walk away knowing we are a fun, social, empowering women entrepreneurial organization with excellent business training and support.

We had 38 people there, 30 of which had never been to a Startup Princess event previously and most had never heard of this site. It was such fun to see the connections made and new friendships formed. The speed networking was a great conclusion to our event. Someone emailed me today and said “THANK YOU SO MUCH! I found a trademark attorney last night!” That’s great for both of those members. And I’m sure other great referrals and resources were shared…At the end, women literally had to be “kicked out” because the library was closing and they wanted to keep talking more. So, we feel it was a tremendous success! We have now reached a new audience and hopefully they’ll be back…!! One of the things that was so great was to see the age range of women at our event, we had some college students and retired women as well. Women of all ages to offer depth and life experience is awesome!

We’ll use this experience and see how we can refine it to do even better next time! *If you attended* do you have any feedback? Suggestions? Comments? Please post a comment!

Thank you to the Orem SBDC for believing in us and fulfilling our dream to expand our network and have the resources and support to do it! Thank you also to my husband Matt who helped us figure out how to record the event for podcast and found the technology to do it! (iMic and a small mic clipped onto the podium mic).

We look forward to growing the Startup Princess Utah County Chapter and beyond! The payoff for me? Seeing the passion and drive to succeed in these Startup Princesses! I couldn’t help but get teary-eyed when I thought of their bravery to start a venture late in life, while raising a family, while going to school… Feeling the energy in the room–intense! And, at the end of the night when I had a moment to “be still”, I was pleased with what we accomplished. We’re making progress–Startup Princess is writing a new chapter to our Startup Princess Fairytale in Utah County.