"We’re flooded by technology, which is great. Technology is bringing a lot of people together -- we’re connected with people all over the world, and we're connecting faster. However, a lot of the emotion gets lost in this, especially in an email or a text:
'Was it an angry text or was it a happy text? I don’t know...' What I'm trying to do is bring that human component back and have emotionally intelligent communication."
Jenn Choi, founder of Bon Intent -- Photo: Eastwick Digital Brand Lab
"My journey started in late 2010. I was finding that there weren’t any resources for Latino tech entrepreneurs here in the Bay Area. So I went to do my research identifying other community-based entrepreneurship support groups, and there wasn’t one for Latinos. That got me scratching my head thinking, 'How could that be?' You know, we're in California, the tech capital of the world, and we don’t have one group to support Latino tech entrepreneurs. So, we took that upon ourselves."
Jesse Martinez, co-founder @LatinoStartups -- photo: Eastwick Digital Brand Lab
"I wanted to be part of the hippie generation. My then husband and I came across the country in a Volkswagen camper to be part of the San Francisco thing. I was pregnant when I landed in San Francisco. It was the 'me' generation, and nobody was having kids. The media was completely interested in what they called double-income-no-kids, so I felt like a fish out of water. I wanted a community of like-minded people -- people who chose to have a family -- so that’s how Gymboree started. I wasn’t alone ... The hardest challenge for me in building Gymboree was when it was time to let go of my origin team. We’re a very collaborative business, much like a family, so I had people by my side from the very beginning who were roped into the life raft together through thick and thin, through all the speed bumps, through all the hurricanes."
Joan Barnes, founder of @gymboree and YogaStudio -- Photo: Eastwick Digital Brand Lab
Nasdaq's Education Foundation helped launch The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in the fall of 2015. Located in San Francisco, it has quickly become the go to destination for the next generation of risk takers and idea makers who take the plunge into entrepreneurship.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
