Excitement, energy, passion and purpose marked the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour’s visit to Elon University on April 14 when three of the nation’s top young entrepreneurs inspired students to think entrepreneurially and pursue their dreams.
The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour is the first-ever national entrepreneurship tour and features the country’s top young entrepreneurs and successful local entrepreneurs. In addition to the keynote speakers, the tour featured a brainstorming workshop, speed networking, a panel discussion and a block party.
“The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour was a sensational event that demonstrated how being an entrepreneur before the age of 25 is possible,” said Elon student Summer Curtiss, president of the Student Entrepreneurial Enterprise Development (SEED) student group. “It is inspiring for students to actually witness both the successes and the lessons learned from the experiences of these young entrepreneurs.”
The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour was presented by the Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and SEED.
Keynote Speakers
Ryan P. Allis is co-founder and CEO of iContact, the leading provider of email marketing tools for small businesses. Allis has built Durham-based iContact from its start in July 2003 to its current size with more than 80 employees, 18,000 customers and $10 million in annual sales. In 2005, Allis was named by BusinessWeek as one of the “Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25.” He is the author of the book Zero to One Million: How I Built a Company To $1 Million in Sales and How You Can Too, published by McGraw-Hill.
Jake Sasseville is the voice of the late-night talk show, The Edge with Jake Sasseville, which debuted on nearly 40 ABC affiliate stations across the country on February 14, 2008. The show currently reaches more than 30 million households, ranging from college towns across America to New York City via WWOR My9. He counts the Ford Motor Company, Overstock.com, Bed Head and Red Bull among his advertisers and sponsors who give him hundreds of thousands of dollars to align their products with his quirky brand and the buying muscle of his loyal fans. Sasseville plans to graduate Marymount Manhattan College in New York in 2009.
Moderator
Arel Moodie is an award-winning entrepreneur, published writer, and professional speaker. Arel’s first company, placefinder.com which is a business that helps college students find off-campus housing, roommates and sublets was started while he was in college. He teaches as a guest lecturer of entrepreneurship at his alma mater Binghamton University where he received his degree in Politics, Philosophy & Law. As an always entertaining and captivating speaker, Moodie’s motivational speaking company, AMI, has already spoken to over 30,000 students at 180 schools in 18 states and two countries. He is widely known as “America’s Top Young Speaker”.
Moodie is also featured in two nationally published books, Student Entrepreneurs: Graduating with a Profit, and Millennial Leaders where he is named one of the top Gen Y leaders in the country. He has also been featured in USA Today, Fox News, ABC News, and NBC affiliates. Always the entertainer, in his spare time Moodie likes to dance and has performed as an opening act for the R&B group 112.
Panelists
Kaitlin Kovary currently manages the complex clinical and business operations of a medically based integrative wellness program, as well as being in the process of starting a photography company. In combination with her high level of energy and entrepreneurial spirit, Kovary’s experience in leadership, nutrition, diet planning, fitness & management has helped drive the wellness company to the next level. Prior to joining the wellness company, she worked at the Blackstone Group, a leading financial services organization, where she received experience in many sectors of the company.
Receiving a degree in Biological Sciences with a nutrition concentration, as well as a minor in the Entrepreneurship program, Kovary was a student-athlete at N.C. State University attending on a NCAA scholarship from the varsity gymnastics team. While at NCSU, she was the President of the Entrepreneurs Club from 2004 through 2007. Kovary has dedicated her life to helping others through leadership, wellness, behavior modification, nutrition, fitness, photography and, most importantly, sharing her faith.
Michael Simmons, along with wife Sheena Lindahl, founded Extreme Entrepreneurship Education, LLC, while attending NYU in 2003. The pair have been named among Business Week’s “Best Entrepreneurs Under 25” in 2006. Simmons and Lindahl are the co-founders of Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour, a collegiate tour bringing America’s top young entrepreneurs to college campuses for a half-day conference to spread the entrepreneurial mindset. Started in fall 2006, the tour has visited more than 60 schools nation-wide and has received the Innovation Award from the National Association of Development Organizations and the Program of the Year award from Northern Michigan University.
Simmons has won three entrepreneur of the year awards and is a former columnist with Entrepreneur.com and a speaker on the topic of student success and youth entrepreneurship.
After college, Joshua Whiton founded TransLoc (www.transloc.com) so people can always know where to find the bus, making it easier to choose riding mass transit over driving. Now, Whiton leads TransLoc and lives and grows food in the city. He started and oversees a community garden downtown, and works to spread the knowledge that a city can reuse much of its own waste and produce much of its own food. He also builds compost bins out of scrap wood for people who don’t know that they want one, but really do. For business advice, Whiton recommends reading Gandhi and Thoreau.