It was a trip down memory lane
Three participants in Launch Tennessee's "The TENN" program share how it impacted each of them.
Three of the participants in a former Launch Tennessee program named “The TENN” shared their growth that came, at least in part, from the program that was billed at the time as a master accelerator. It was one of the sessions at Tuesday’s “3686” event.
The three were:
- Platt Boyd, Founder of Branch Technology, the Chattanooga-based company that has a patented process for combining additive manufacturing, prefabrication, and digital technology at construction scale.
- Courtney Jones, Founder of the then Knoxville-based MomSource Network, a company helping moms reenter the workforce after stepping away for family. It was acquired in January 2022 by Birmingham, AL-based Boulo Solutions.
- Teja Yenamandra, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nashville-based io, a company that helps other businesses scale their software engineering teams seamlessly by tapping a global network of elite hired guns.
Boyd shared how he moved Branch Technology from Montgomery, AL in 2015, less than a year after being part of The Company Lab’s “GigTank” program. By 2016, he was in the first cohort of “The TENN.”
Three years ago, Boyd said he approached his board of directors with a proposal to hire a growth-focused CEO to take the company to the next level.
“I spent 80 percent of my time doing things I did not enjoy,” the architect-turned-business executive said. That process took 18 months, and Boyd took what he described as “a sabbatical to rejoin the living. I came back energized.”
Today, he’s Chair of the board and Chief Innovation Architect.
For Jones, we always thought selling MomSource was bittersweet.
“I thought I would be a serial entrepreneur by now,” she said. Well, nine months ago, she achieved that goal when she joined with others to found BE LABS. The company’s purpose is to provide essential knowledge, tools, and confidence to advance inclusion and belonging within organizations.
All three offered solid advice to those who attended the panel discussion.
- For Boyd, it was to “find your community . . . your mentors.” Also, he talked about the importance of identifying the next generation of leaders. “It doesn’t just happen; you have to be purposeful,” Boyd noted.
- Jones offered two pieces of advice: “Say yes as much as possible and raise at least double the amount you think you need.”
- For Yenamandra, he noted that “differentiation matters at the customer level.” He added, “It’s lonely to scale a company.”
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