Is YEO Worth Joining?
March 18th, 2005Two friends have told me I should join YEO--Young Entrepreneurs Organization. If you are a YEO member, please comment on how valuable it has been to you, on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest).
While surfing, I just came across a Bay Area group with called Alliance of CEOs (www.allianceofceos.com) that looks interesting--only there isn't a chapter in Utah. Colorado's CXO.org also looks interesting.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Posted in: My Hobbies
March 19th, 2005 at 02:03 AM
Can I comment as someone that looked into joining but decided not to? I met all of the qualifications but felt as though the cost of membership vs. the benefits was too high. In addition, at the time I was 29 years old (I am now 30) and felt a strong sense of skepticism that I could actually qualify. That turned me off a bit on putting forth an application. They wanted tax returns as well which I thought was a bit intrusive for a group I did not yet know. Having said that, I will likely revisit an application when I have more time as I do think it is a fairly involved group (which is a good thing). The opportunity to meet and get to know people that are in similar situations with their businesses is intriguing to me - I always enjoy learning how others run their companies. I can see myself doing it down the road (assuming I was accepted of course).
March 23rd, 2005 at 16:03 PM
I actually was previously a member of the Atlanta chapter and I had the same skepticism as Alex because of the cost to join (the Atlanta chapter wasn?t as intrusive in requiring documents when I joined ? that may have changed). BTW, I joined when I was 27 and left when I was 29 (I'm 31 now). On the advice of a former colleague, I took the plunge. The biggest benefit of YEO is Forum. Basically you meet with 8-10 other YEO members monthly (usually) and discuss, openly and honestly, any issues you have - personal, professional, whatever. Everything is strictly confidential. My forum was a great bunch of folks and I learned a lot from all of them. Especially since I'm in a VC funded Internet company and none of them were. Unfortunately, my forum started disbanding because, frankly, we ran out of things to talk about and keeping to a monthly meeting schedule is tough to do when you?re traveling, trying to run a business, spend time with your family, etc. So I ended up leaving YEO as well because without a forum the cost just wasn?t worth it. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the Atlanta chapter seems to have taken a turn towards elitism. That isn?t me so I?ll likely never rejoin or at least not in the near future. I will say that I still keep in touch with my forum-mates and we recently had a lunch to catch up. Funny thing is we basically talked about what was going on just like in forum, without having to pay a large yearly membership fee.
March 23rd, 2005 at 19:03 PM
I have a friend who is a member of YEO. It appears the local chapter spends more time partying together than discussing business topics.
Post new comment