Thursday June 18, 2015 brought another fun and productive evening networking and sharing and laughing with my fellow Entrepreneurs here at historic venue NOVA 535 Unique Event Space in downtown St. Pete, affectionately referred to as the ESC, aka the Entrepreneur Social Club. We were celebrating birthdays, of my personal long time amigo Ted Plaskon of Quantum Payroll Services (June 18), over in Tampa (Teddy and I were roommates at UF – TEDDY!!) and our long time ESC member Bill Cason. Bill is one of the nicest and funniest people you’ll ever meet, he was born on June 17th.
So if I had to sum up the Thursday June 18 2015 meeting of the Entrepreneur Social Club, it’d be Birthday Boy Bill a Brainstorm and Coastalyfe. Read on!
If you enjoyed the ESC here at NOVA 535, please be so kind as to leave us a nice review via http://nova535.com/recommend THANKS!! Plus it’s good Karma.
RULES: No Religion, Politics, Liars, Bullies nor Thieves. When seated, phone ringers off and only ONE person talking at a time.
PITCH: Everyone has 15-20 seconds to make their pitch, while seated (this is a social club where we get business done NOT some boring ass networking meeting), while we pass around business cards. We review pitches and business cards, family style. Family style? Yes we tell you the cold harsh reality of your effort and we are here to HELP YOU and guide you to a continuously improved everything. All you have to do is be a good student, get your ego out of the way and do the work / listen / hire the appropriate professionals to handle that for which you don’t want to do, for you. For those who have listened, say Troy Peterson of Properly Equipped, the improvements are TREMENDOUS!
My pitch = Hi I’m Michael Novilla. I love traveling the world and connecting with Entrepreneurs. I found that we all need help and support, so I created a system called the NOVA way and in 2005 I build St. Pete our own world-class event space called NOVA 535 and in 2009 created the Entrepreneur Social Club. Now 1000 successful events later NOVA 535 is the #1 rated venue in Tampa Bay. Thanks I’m Michael Novilla.
MEMBERS in ATTENDANCE:
Michael Novilla http://downtownstpete.com Experience the unique excellence of Downtown St. Pete
Debbie Hammond, founder http://brellabag.com A Better hands-free experience. Welcome, Debbie!!
Erika Cain is also occasionally onstage as the fabulous Gypsy Allure http://gypsyallure.com. She’s the mistress of magic
Bill “Birthday Boy” Cason of Cason Marketing (below) love ya Bill!
John Abbruzzese, Nextology Welcome John!
Chris “Brainstorm” Roberts – artist and entrepreneur! Welcome BRAIN!!
Krystle Pinzker, the excellent bookkeeper of NOVA 535 and other local professionals – Fluent Bookkeeping
Sheri Kendrick photog extraordinaire and founder of Charity Little Light of Mine
Beverly Gower and Victoria Evans (founder) Victoria’s Tender Care Your Personal Home Assistant
Kim Jenkins of the deliciously fabulous V-Spicery
Chris Jenkins, our web and tech guru – I’m Their Web Guy
Hillary Busby and Cliff Nees of http://coastalyfe.com Your boat’s a cash machine, on-demand boat rides. (Think UBER for Boats!)
Sage Davis Real Estate Broker, Mr. Super cool himself, SAGE!
Bill Boyce, my longtime Real Estate Attorney was back in St. Pete, WELCOME BACK BILL!
Bruce Burke and founder Jodi Kalan of Peak Reputation.com, welcome back Bruce and Welcome to the lovely Jodi!!
Jodi McLean, the hilarious super-duper “make it happen” star of Key Person of Influence (Many ESC members have taken and LOVED the KPI program)
Vishnu Reddy cyber security futurethreats.com, great guy. FEEDBACK – card needs to look / be ultra-professional and trustworthy, card doesn’t inspire trust. Vishnu is finding his way here, he’s brilliant and will be successful, he’ll listen and adapt based on the advice we give that works best for him.
NEW STUFF – APPS, ETC
State of California finds uber drivers as employees not as independent contractors.
Acorns = App, rounds up your change
Slack – team messaging and file sharing
TECH QUESTIONS:
#1 Which do you prefer and why? Google drive OR Dropbox (DB works same on mac or PC)
Drive is more collaborative, safer, more robust, real time chat, revision, control integrated media players
mature sharing paradigm, and so on. Drive is the clear winner!
#2 Which platform for crowdfunding for health and beauty?
Go fund Me, indiegogo – is top overall. Why crowdfunding? ESC answered that in this instance CF was NOT the path to take, focus on better marketing and advertising. Suggestions by Chris Jenkins was to check out Reddit – MyMakeupAddiction
The two Jodi’s make friends, quickly taking over the universe! Even Bruce gives his approval! The guys below, cool and posing for a quick photo. Yup I take all the photos on my Samsung NOTE 4, so they are decent but certainly not professional, so cut a me bit of slack. =D
Likely Erika is busted for texting or as usual I’m just hilarious. April 1st Birthday does force me to joke, well, all the time. Not all my jokes work, as Big Nick stares me down from afar. Anyhoo back to the meeting…
After the meeting ends, right around 8pm we hang out for a bit to enjoy a final drink and for those who do, smoke, then we make our way downtown for dinner.
DINNER = Carrabba’s 4th Street, which is a national chain, I know, we always support the local unique businesses here in Downtown St. Pete. Keep reading though as we were supporting local, as my high school friend Steve Ware, a native of St. Pete, works there and messaged me about their ribeye special. So we could support a local guy and get a vino and some delicious ribeye all at the same time? BRILLIANT!!
During dinner Erika Cain, aka Gypsy Allure shows Birthday Boy Bill a spooning magic trick, well kinda, while they are goofing around. Dinner, always following the ESC meeting, is a time for us to further loosen up, continue conversations to a deeper level and start new ones. Here we create new bonds, make new friends and enjoy some time with OTHER PEOPLE LIKE US. Entrepreneurs are a different breed, the risk takers, the adventurers and the pioneers; which can get lonely. The ESC is a great place to remind ourselves that we aren’t alone. Plus a lot of real business, revenues and wealth is generated here. JOIN US!! Remember it’s FUN and PRODUCTIVE.
She did make is face disappear, just for a moment….WOW!!
Hope to see you soon at the Entrepreneur Social Club! It’s EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT, most always at NOVA 535. Remember the rules FORBID religion and politics, that’s our secret sauce on how we get along! Join is on FACEBOOK and Join us on GOOGLE+ See you next Thursday!