Boot camp is no longer just for the military

Guest speaker from CEO Space enlightening students on how to create a business and make money. (Photo by Paige Denholm)

Cash, greenbacks, dollars, and money. Kicking off the Entrepreneurship Boot Camp on April, 25 at 9 a.m., money is the topic of conversation on the Saddleback College Campus.

The sold-out boot camp is the first ever event put together by the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Learning Center, bringing together several speakers from CEO Space to talk about money and business for an audience of students and community.

“We have people who have been on TED talks, Oprah, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, so these are the talking head people that you see on those shows, talking about all of these kinds of things,” said Dr. Scott Fredrickson, entrepreneurship professor and executive director of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Learning Center at Saddleback.

All seven of the speakers at Entrepreneurship Bootcamp are members at CEO Space, a company that is in the business of entrepreneurial collaboration by connecting business professionals to its members. The speakers included Chella Diaz, Alan Tratner, Laura Rubinstein, Nadine LaJoie, Dave Phillipson, Brian Brinson and Scott Duffy. Members spoke on subjects ranging from finance to business networking.

The first speaker of the morning was Chella Davis speaking about financial literacy. She has 20 years of experience in banking and financing, and now focuses her energy on educating women and teens to correctly manage their money by keeping personal and business money separate.

Davis gave three specific tips to her audience: have a business account, keep track of expenses and have one place for all business documents.

“Know what questions you need, do regular audits for your personal so you don’t end up a story on the newspaper because you lost everything you had,”Davis said. “So definitely have a solid plan for your personal finances and keep your business separate so you don’t get into IRS trouble.”

Executive State Director for CEO Space, Dave Phillipson, also spoke later in the day about the importance of business networking. He has worked alongside Saddleback to connect CEO Space and bring the speakers in for the boot camp.

Phillipson also collaborates with the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Learning Center in an effort to support budding entrepreneurs not only at the college, but in the community as well.

“We want to do a lot of great things for entrepreneurs,” Phillipson mentioned while discussing the program.“I’ve found that out unfortunately in my business life, that the things that you don’t know, those are the most expensive.”

The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Learning Center put on the boot camp, bringing together students from Saddleback, Fullerton and Irvine Valley College along with members of the surrounding community.

The goal of the center is to bring people interested in entrepreneurship to the college and make it a place for people to exchange ideas, collaborate and support one another.

“It takes working together, in this day and age and this environment with everything we have, the internet etcetera, It takes people really working together and collaborating to make these things successful to provide services beyond our walls,” Dr. Barbara Cox said, Chair of the Business Department at Saddleback.

The Entrepreneurship Boot Camp is just one of the events that the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Learning Center will be putting on in hopes of becoming a resource for the county and those interested in entrepreneurship.

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