This is the Summary of our Second Webinar, which took place on Thursday 29-07-2010

A huge Thank You to our three panelists for sharing their experiences with us and to all community members who participated and contributed to the meaningful conversations during the session!!!

Topic:  Entrepreneurship Now! What it takes to set sail.

Focus: The internal process that makes people become entrepreneurs!

We had the pleasure of hosting three young entrepreneurs from around Europe:

Chrysosthenis Taslis from Greece, who had just started an olive oil production and retail business on his home-island Lesvos. He is aspiring to be The Best Oil Producer, in the full sense of what we call green on our website: responsible in the environmental and social sense.

Silje Grastveit from Norway. She is the founder of the HUB in Bergen, bringing this global network of people, ideas and spaces into a society where the need for social entrepreneurship is a relatively new idea yet. In sync with our efforts, a HUB serves to inspire and support people realizing their idea and business.

Jonathan Klodt from Germany. He is the co-founder of the Malamut Team Catalyst consultancy, assessing and matching the entrepreneurial and collaborative talents of individuals and working teams. The start-up just won the support of the EU and german government for research spin-offs.

Agenda:

-       Check in

-       A definition of green entrepreneurship

-       How did you find the green entrepreneur within yourself?

-       What where the external factors?

For 1,5 hours we had an insightful and interesting dialogue with our young entrepreneurs and the participants from the community. These are the main insight we would like to share with you, for a more detailed understanding you can review the Webinar-recording  online…

A definition of green entrepreneurship:

Our preliminary definition: A “Green Entreprneur” sees opportunities and connects/creates Alternatives/Innovations to address the needs in all 4 spheres: People, Planet, Profit, Person

Having the “Person” perspective added to the triple bottom line was very important to us. To add the person to the picture, we have to ask our self, how do you stay connected to your values? How do you discover your values? How do you become entrepreneurial? How do you sustain yourself? How do you lead yourself?

It´s about the inner authenticity of the entrepreneur (and even the employee), it´s about your “Calling”. A fiths “P” could be introdued for “Passion”.

How did you find the green entrepreneur with yourself?

Thinking of entrepreneurs, its easy to see what they have build and created. But we are wondering what came before the creation. What made them the entrepreneurs that they are today? What where the choices they made and the experience they had that lead to entrepreneurship?

Listening to all three entrepreneurs we discover some patterns between, some main point that where important for all of them.

Education:

One being bored out of his mind at school, which made him travel the entrepreneurial path.

One experienced an alternative business and leadership school (the kaospilots) that unfold her entrepreneurial spirit. And the last one found his natural entrepreneurial values being challenged during university.

And all three experienced that learning journey of life was much more important for discovering there entrepreneurial strengths than the conventional schools and universities.

An other dimension to the entrepreneurial journey is the soul searching, finding out who am I? What do I want? Where do I go? What is my passion? What is my purpose?

Values that our entrepreneurs find essential for their own entrepreneurship:

Silje:

-       Trust

-       Curiosity

-       Transformation

For the Hub

-       Imagination

-       Courage

-       Conviviality

Jonathan:

-       Love

-       Authenticity

-       Curiosity

Chrys:

-       Integrity

-       Customer orientation

-       Relation building

External factors that supported them in their journey to become an entrepreneur:

-       Network, for inspiration, connections, feedback and support

-       Colleagues that are willing to give feedback and support

-       Family and friends that believed in them and gave support

-       Finding funding programs that helped them financial survive during the beginning of the initiatives.