echo presents: FYSO Friday - For Entrepreneurs. By Entrepreneurs.

About this event:

We are super pumped to bring "FYSO" (Figure your sh*t out - founder-focused events and resources focused on helping you figure your sh*t out) to Durham in partnership with echo, a non-profit with a mission to transform lives through entrepreneurship.

FYSO Friday is a new engagement-focused event that will make space to have an unpretentious, interactive experience where you meet and connect with other entrepreneurs tackling the same challenges you are.

What's the goal?

Let's explore how we - a community of entrepreneurs - can create an ecosystem that works for us, leveraging our own talents, skills, and knowledge to harness the power of community to remove barriers and building thriving businesses.

The event is going to kick off with networking & brunch, including mimosas and other treats! 🥂🍓🎉

We believe there is power in community, so the core part of the event will be focused on two different interactive topic-focused breakout sessions where you'll get to meet with a small group of fellow entrepreneurs interested in talking shop about the same topic, facilitated by an expert as an additional resource to the conversation.

👉 To make sure your time is well spent, we'd love for you to tell us what your biggest pain points are right now and what breakout discussions you'd be most interested in having in this 2-minute Google Form.

All entrepreneurs are welcome - from early-stage to serial entrepreneurs.

If you're a creator, initiator, side hustler, innovator, developer, designer, artist, author, small business owner, maker, creative, restauranteur, product creator, or any other term that describes someone who brings ideas to life - then this event is for you.

Agenda:

11:00 - 11:30 am - Check-in & casual networking

11:30 am - 12:30 pm - Kickoff & Brunch

12:30 pm - 1:30 pm - Breakout #1 - Topic-focused networking facilitated by experts (ex: marketing, cashflow management, access to capital, etc.) and industry (ex: retail, e-commerce, services firm, makers, SaaS, fintech, AI, healthcare, CPG, etc.)

1:30 pm - 2:00 pm - Snack Break

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm - Breakout #2 - Topic-focused networking facilitated by experts (ex: marketing, cashflow management, access to capital, etc.) and industry (ex: retail, e-commerce, services firm, makers, SaaS, fintech, AI, healthcare, CPG, etc.)

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm - Keynote from Chisa Pennix-Brown & final reflection on takeaways from the day

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm - Still want to hang out? Join us at Durty Bull for an after-party. 🎉

You can expect to walk away from this event with:

✅ New connections with entrepreneurs tackling the same challenges you are

✅ New insights on what free and/or trustworthy resources you can tap into

✅ Knowing you shared exactly what you're looking for when it comes to future workshops, resources, and events for entrepreneurs

✅ New headshots (if you'd like)!

Other Details:

All profits from this event will go to support echo, a 501c3 non-profit that transforms lives through entrepreneurship. Traditionally echo offers cohort-based training and workshops for adult entrepreneurs and small business owners with ongoing support through 1:1 mentoring along with year-round programming for teens and young adults interested in social innovation, entrepreneurship, and startups.

echo is exploring the need for a new program: Entrepreneurs Building Entrepreneurs - a collective of our own network for shared resources, talents, knowledge and skills. As entrepreneurs, can WE add to the larger ecosystem and formalize pathways of support that work for us?

Is the ticket price cost prohibitive?

Let us know by emailing hello@fysoaccelerator.com. We have a limited number of scholarship tickets available and also we're giving all volunteers free tickets to attend. Since echo is a non-profit, it's especially important to us to make sure our events are accessible.

PS - Based on your feedback - if you would like more space to "figure your sh*t out" with other entrepreneurs, we'll likely make different topic-focused FYSO Friday events happen either monthly or quarterly. 🙌