The Entrepreneurial Community

TMP Student Blog by Franklin Ly

My first Executive-at-the-Table (EAT) event with Donna White was a fantastic experience! Donna started the event with general introductions to get a feel for who was in the room and catered her discussion accordingly. She then asked if we had any questions we wanted answered throughout the talk. An amazing part of these questions was that since the group was small, Donna was able to personalize her answers to individuals who asked the questions.

Throughout the conversation, Donna talked about her company, August Venture Talent, which she created to help entrepreneurs find and recruit the best candidates for their companies. She loves the entrepreneurial community and caters her company to assist them in a special way. When she partners with companies, she wants to see that the company cares about the people and culture, strives to build a great company not just to be sold, and pushes for business success instead of individual success. I can see Donna as a potential partner who I will contact once my own start-up needs new hires as her values align with mine.

In my opinion though, the best part of the EAT event was not the questions, discussion, or even receiving her contact information. The best part was spending time with an accomplished entrepreneur who has a strong sense of self-awareness and purpose. Simply being around Donna inspired me to want to do great things in my own life.

Before the event concluded, she left us with this quote by Steve Jobs, “Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

About Franklin Ly

Franklin is from Garden Grove, California and is currently majoring in Mechanical Engineering. He belongs to the International Health Collective and Vietnamese Student Association on campus. Something unique about Franklin is that he is half Laotian and half Vietnamese, and even more impressively a Bill & Melinda Gates Millennium Scholar. Franklin enjoys volleyball, traveling, and volunteering, and is expected to graduate from UCSB this coming June 2017.