Launchpad’s Post

When your community shows up for the community that you are building ❤️ For my first networking event as the CEO of Launchpad, I had 2 goals: 1. Actively respond to our members' needs - the most asked question so far has been: how does one leverage Launchpad to receive maximum value - and by extension, other communities and networks that we are part of. This became the theme of our event. 2. To show the world that genuine collaboration is possible - there is a popular narrative out there that female founders, communities of female founders, women in general - are always competing, there is a lot of negativity, they can't work together - all of which I know from personal experience is not true! So I reached out to my people - Alya Annabi, ELIKA TASKER, Lavania Rosie and Rebecca Downie, shared my vision with them and asked them to do this panel event for me. They all said yes, immediately - and I am so so so grateful to them and for having them in my tribe 🙏 Last night what happened in the room was truly magical! We tried a new event format where a very short panel was followed by breakout group discussions facilitated by the panelists. ✅ New and genuine connections were made - amongst people who would normally not talk to each other at a networking event. ✅ There was laughter and tears as people shared openly and vulnerably - a real sense of catharsis. ✅ Participants received solutions to their burning questions - through the benefit of groupthink. Most importantly, everyone was engaged, interacting, giving and receiving value - rather than pulling out their phones half way through as usually happens at panel events! This is the true power of a thriving community! At Launchpad, every day we strive to live up to our slogan - Kind Heart, Bold Spirit. I truly believe that Ambition and Kindness can coexist and that is my North Star as I build and scale this community. Huge shoutout to my rockstars - Faherah Begam, Lord Dennis Joplin Acuña and the Trehaus events team - I threw them a curve ball with the new format and they just rolled with it to deliver "a seriously well executed event" as one of our members said! There is so much to do - I have a grand vision for Launchpad - and now I know for sure, I will pull it off because my community is rooting for me and is showing up for me 🙏