Real Talk with Founders Returns
A casual, honest conversation with Pittsburgh-based founders, Emily Wazlak and Dennis Guy.
Earlier this year, Ascender launched a new event, Real Talk with Founders, as part of our free Community Education Series. As Pittsburgh’s Community for Entrepreneurs, we understand the importance of being around and learning from other entrepreneurs. Real Talk is a lively, virtual conversation that allows participants to connect with small business owners and discuss pressing questions that entrepreneurs face right now.
We invited two past Ascender Incubatees, Emily Wazlak, Founder of Shine Registry, and Dennis Guy, Co-Founder of First Sip Brew Box, to our second Real Talk. Before the Zoom Room opened, Emily and Dennis asked, “How real do you want us to be?” Our answer: really real! The hour-long conversation flew by, but both founders kept returning to the topics of self-awareness and the roller coaster ride that starting a business can often be. Like their businesses, the conversation with Emily and Dennis didn’t disappoint.
Here are some of our favorite quotes from Real Talk:
- “The mantra of our business is the ‘best fan for small business is another small business.’ We built our company on collaborations and relationships.” — Dennis
- “The question you want to ask yourself before you spend any of your very, very slim resources early on is, ‘Can I do this organically?’ And, if the answer is ‘yes’ figure out what would it take to do it organically.” — Dennis
- “[Being successful] takes a lot of listening. It takes a lot of actively reaching out, and a lot of self-awareness to ensure that you’re being reflective of the community’s wants and needs, and not just doing things without that information or are purely informed by what you’re excited about.” — Emily
- “We keep preaching self-awareness, but that’s so incredibly important to entrepreneurship because if you’re not self-aware, you’re going to end up spending a lot of time on tasks that are going to drain you so much of your energy.” — Dennis
- “I personally believe videos are the way forward. . . . You can do a long-form video, and then you can cut pieces of that down, and you take one hour interview, and you now have 60 pieces of content that you can distribute on seven different platforms throughout the month.” — Dennis
- “I think there’s a lot about entrepreneurship that gets compared to a roller coaster, either an emotional one or otherwise. It feels like the rest of the world has joined us on this roller coaster of uncertainty lately. . . . It’s low lows, but it’s extremely high highs.” — Emily
- “You’re not on an island all by yourself, contrary to how you might feel when you get started. Skip straight to where we were two and a half years in, and actually ask for help. Get out there and learn with others.” — Dennis
Watch the full conversation with Emily and Dennis below.
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