Isabelle Kent is the CEO of Philly Startup Leaders, a 501(c)3 nonprofit connecting, convening, and navigating the largest early-stage startup community in the region. She’s an avid believer that innovation can be a tool for self-determination and economic development, while building critical solutions for a whole world of challenges.

In addition to coaching founders, leading accelerators, and organizing networking & educational events, she serves on the Rowan University’s Rohrer School of Innovation & Entrepreneurship’s Entrepreneurial Advisory Committee, is a former Co-chair and now Leadership Council member of Philly Global Identity Partnership, and recently participated in the State Department’s Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative (YTILI), fostering innovation trade relations in Tartu, Estonia.

Prior to PSL, Isabelle started a growth strategy consulting company working with early-stage Canadian startups expanding to the US market, worked on a startup helping transitioning talent explore new career paths based on soft-skills and intrinsic motivators, oversaw over 100 communications clients in the Philly region for Cision PRNewswire, and worked on the White House Tech Hire Initiative and building a startup practice during her time at Randstad Technologies. Originally from Crimea Ukraine, she’s a frequent traveler having visited over 40 countries. When she’s not on the road, you’ll find her cooking and gardening, with her cats and Elkhound nearby.

Key Moments:

• 11:47 – Hope and optimism are essential in the startup world for long-term success.
• 11:32 – The most important thing to carry with you at all times is not knowing what’s up forever.
• 07:27 – From novice to expert: The journey of a startup executive director.
• 10:45 – Overcoming challenges in Philly’s startup scene and finding hope for the future.
• 05:00 – Mastering precision communication cloud for emerging startups.
• 15:36 – Special podcast announcement and recommendations from Isabel Kent.
• 12:11 – Hope is the new favorite ingredient for success in the startup world.
• 10:27 – Balancing work and personal life as a small nonprofit.
• 10:00 – Celebrating 15 years in the startup industry.
• 10:45 – Fundraising and finding support as major challenges for startups in the current economic environment.

Find Isabelle Online:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabellekent/

https://phillystartupleaders.org/

https://connect.phillystartupleaders.org/

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Transcript (Provided by CastMagic.io)

Seth [00:00:00]:

Entrepreneurs Enigma is a podcast for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. With the wins and the fails that we all face be entrepreneurs. How we learn from adversity. Every week I talk to a different entrepreneur with a story to tell. I’m Seth Goldstein, come with me on the journey. This is Entrepreneurs Enigma. Let’s get started. You. Hey everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneurs and Nigga podcast. I’m your host as always, Seth. And today I am with Isabel Kent, the CEO of Philly startup leaders. She has been in the startup ecosystem for a while now on her own, done different kinds of things, and now she’s running one of the bigger startup incubator in Philadelphia. Hey, Isabelle. How’s it going?

Isabelle [00:00:56]:

Hey Seth. It’s going so well. I’m such a summer person and so I’m in my season.

Seth [00:01:00]:

How are you guys? It’s going to be hot this summer, though.

Isabelle [00:01:03]:

It is hot today.

Seth [00:01:05]:

Yeah, I know. It’s going to get hotter and hotter and hotter. We had no snow in Philly, so it’s like I’m a little worried about the summer. It’s going to be a hot. It’s already 90 deg today and we’re just in the beginning of June.

Isabelle [00:01:19]:

Yeah, it was like the first day of summer and it’s been 90 degrees.

Seth [00:01:22]:

Since go big or go home, right?

Isabelle [00:01:25]:

That’s right. Yeah. Listen, we got to get used to the global warming, right? Got to flip our wardrobe.

Seth [00:01:29]:

We have a choice in the matter. Exactly. We do have a choice. We can work on it, but I don’t know how much we can change at this point. We’ll leave that to the side there. But anyhow, Isabelle, welcome. We got you on it’s been a journey. It’s been a journey, exactly. So you’ve been in the serpent economic strategist for a while now, and then you came on PSL. It was right before the pandemic, right?

Isabelle [00:01:58]:

Oh, in the middle of the pandemic, yeah. So let’s see, February 2021.

Seth [00:02:07]:

You were like in the thick of it.

Isabelle [00:02:09]:

Oh yeah, no, I was like middle of lockdowns. We were doing this for a year, so when I came in, I had to decide whether we want to do Entrepreneur Expo, but of course it would be digital. And then when we finally got around to doing Entrepreneur Expo last year, it was when Philly went back into mask mandates and it was like the seven days leading up and I was like, should we cancel? I don’t know. And then they dropped the mandates and it worked out okay.

Seth [00:02:30]:

But yeah, we’re sending you masks. It’s not terrible, but it’s like hard to talk in those things.

Isabelle [00:02:36]:

Well, and it’s tough when you have like 1000 person event, right? Because you’re like, oh, definitely a super spreader. But luckily that didn’t happen and everyone was really good about social distancing and wearing masks. It was good.

Seth [00:02:45]:

It helps when it’s in Philadelphia. We do the right thing, whereas I can’t say so much about where I’m up, just north of Philly, and it’s questionable up here, it’s questionable. So I’m going to leave it at that. So before fully startup leaders, you were doing the chief strategist at Deadikova. I can’t say it.

Isabelle [00:03:05]:

Yeah. Dedicova Consulting. So it’s actually my original last name. So we changed our name when we moved over from Ukraine. It’s a whole thing, but yeah, Dedicova.

Seth [00:03:12]:

I’m sure it’s a lot longer. Something like that.

Isabelle [00:03:16]:

Yes, when I do the whole thing, it’s quite a lengthy name. And now we have Isabelle Kent and there’s a whole story behind that too, but we won’t get into that yet. But yeah, so I was a growth strategy consultant for Dedicoba, which was my own consulting company. I was working on my own startup at the time for Transitional Talent, too, but obviously the Pandemic was a tough time to start an HR startup.

Seth [00:03:38]:

Yeah, a little bit.

Isabelle [00:03:38]:

Yeah, it was wild and I was mostly consulting in the HR tech industry, talent acquisition technologies, some robotics, like a random mishmash of companies. And so, yeah, it was a bit of a journey, but I was working mostly with Canadian companies, some in Europe, some across the US. And then before that, I was with Cision PR Newswire. Ronstad Technologies here in Philadelphia.

Seth [00:04:01]:

They own Harrow now, don’t they? Help a reporter out.

Isabelle [00:04:03]:

Yeah, it’s the best kept secret. If you’re emerging startup Harrow is a great way to get in front of.

Seth [00:04:07]:

It’S, a great one. But don’t select too many of the newsletters because you will get overwhelmed. It’s great, but choose selectively, choose a sector, go with that for a few months and change it. Don’t do it. I did them all and I’m like, I can’t do it, I can’t do it.

Isabelle [00:04:26]:

Oh, yeah. Used to be like four times a day. My entire inbox was just like, Harrow requests, so I had to take a breather. But it is a great tool and I got to say, I really love Decision Communication cloud. I got to plug them. I think they’re a great company.

Seth [00:04:38]:

Exactly. You had to go out, you had to itch, you had to go out on your own.

Isabelle [00:04:41]:

I did. That’s the tough part, right. Once you work in startups, it’s part of you like you feel it in your bones and so I had to go back to something that was a little bit more fast moving, chaotic. Yeah. You give up the stability and the support structure, but it’s really nice to be employee number one externally at a startup again and go through all those challenges and create and break and mess up and fail and start all over. And I just loved it. It really is an addiction for me, I think, to be in this environment.

Seth [00:05:08]:

Now. You’re ahead of isn’t it like the largest in the area out of New York of startups and, I mean, Sarah Bucks is catching up slowly. It’s also talking about a city versus a county that’s disparate and stuff like that. I’ve left Fully Startup Leaders for a while now and I’ve tried to get involved where I can, but it’s tough when I’m out of the city. I can’t just drop everything and get to an event very fast. Takes an hour, takes me an hour. I’m 20 miles. I’m an hour from the city.

Isabelle [00:05:39]:

Are you in costco?

Seth [00:05:40]:

20 miles? No, I’m just north in Doylestown.

Isabelle [00:05:43]:

Oh, no way. So I grew up in Doylestown, so I have a very near and dear thing to Bucks County and that’s why they’re actually a great partner of ours. Shout out to John Mercer and Glenn.

Seth [00:05:53]:

John Mercer is fantastic. John’s a nut. I love John. Yeah, he’s a riot. And we can bash on John constantly, but he’s awesome. I love John.

Isabelle [00:06:04]:

Yeah, they do great work.

Seth [00:06:05]:

Yeah. So now you’re now you’re the CEO of fully startup leaders. So what does that entail besides ripping your hair out all the time, trying to get things organized.

Isabelle [00:06:15]:

That’s like 80% of my day, to be honest. And then the other 20 is mostly just consuming copious amounts of coffee. So that’s part of the job? No, but I startup. As executive director, I’ve been a member of this community, which is the largest early stage shard community in the region. And so I started out ten years ago, just didn’t know anything about startups, fell into this world, really needed a place to go meet people and understand what was possible and what this even was. And so fast forward to today. A lot of my day to day is really meeting with startup founders, giving one on one advice, very similar to how I would engage with them when I was consulting, help them really break through that next milestone. A lot of that’s usually around commercialization validation, defining their audience, finding fundraising, and then some of these tactical business advice of just trying to find the right service providers or the right consultants or mentors that can help move them forward. So that’s the bulk of what I do that touches the community. But a large part is also managing our ecosystem partnerships, putting together programming, putting together events, getting involved in consulting projects, real estate stuff, all sorts. Do you sleep? Not enough.

Seth [00:07:19]:

You also have a good team. So I mean, you got shout out to your team, you have a good team, but still you’re the best. You’re busy to say, I have a.

Isabelle [00:07:26]:

Lot of energy too, so it helps. This is like the best role for someone with super critical ADHD because you.

Seth [00:07:33]:

Just go and have fun. Exactly. It’s different all the time. We’re going to take a quick break here from our sponsors and get right back to the show.

Isabelle [00:07:43]:

Yeah.

Seth [00:07:43]:

And exciting, you’ve done the entrepreneur thing. You’re doing the entrepreneur coaching thing more as kids will kind of lump Fully Startup Leaders into that. What is the best thing about being an entrepreneur and being the head of Philly startup leaders, man, I think the.

Isabelle [00:07:59]:

Potential is the best part of being an entrepreneur, right? Like you see the world as possibilities and that’s so cool because literally all you do is see opportunities and try to move towards them, right, and try to solve problems and I love that mental tinkering aspect. I think one of the challenges of being an entrepreneur is of course it’s not super stable. There’s a lot more no’s and there are yeses. And so you got to be kind of a bit like masochistic in that sense because you’re going to get beat up a lot, but at the same time that possibility really keeps you going. So it’s like where you could be really fulfilled and passionate and you don’t always get that in other types of jobs and being able to control your own destiny is great. Best thing about Philly startup leaders, the energy. This is the easiest community to work with in so many ways because you go to our networking events and they’re just bustling. They’re not these boring networking events where people are super transactional. People find their friends here, they find their co founders, they share information. And so everyone’s in this boat together and for all 15 years that we’ve been around, that’s always been the case that it’s been a well swing community.

Seth [00:08:56]:

It’s only been 15 years? Wow.

Isabelle [00:08:58]:

Yeah, this September. It’s not crazy.

Seth [00:09:00]:

15 years. Wow. It feels like it’s been a lot longer than that. Startup leaders started when I started Goldstein Media in 2000 and no way. Yeah.

Isabelle [00:09:10]:

Well, you’ve been around the halls for a while, right?

Seth [00:09:13]:

Yeah, I’ve been around all over the place. It’s kind of the one of those things. So been trying to get active and it’s just family and stuff like that. It’s like, what am I going to do with my ten year old now? Now he can stay home so I.

Isabelle [00:09:24]:

Can actually bring him.

Seth [00:09:26]:

He actually may have fun, but he is a nut. So on the flip side, what keeps you up at night?

Isabelle [00:09:35]:

Oh, God. So many things. So being a really small nonprofit, we live on a ramen noodle budget, so like fundraising and finding the support, especially in this economic environment, always overwhelmingly one of our largest challenges. But that’s starting to change and there’s a lot more people like defrosting from the pandemic. So that gives me hope. I struggle with the fact that Philly sometimes can be two steps forward, one step back. And I think that we still have so much potential, and I hope that we move forward. And sometimes I worry about that. But then I’ll have an amazing meeting, like the ones that I’ve had this week, and then that hope is restored, right? We see. We meet new people that have that energy. They’re moving things forward and so yeah, I mean, it’s a challenging space. Right. Like, that’s entrepreneurship. That’s what it is. But at the same time, you meet these people that are like, yeah, I mean, you’re going to be in the rapids. It’s going to be tough, but it’s going to be possible and we’re going to get there. And that’s always incredible, right, because nothing’s a forever now.

Seth [00:10:31]:

No, exactly. And here’s the question of the ages. Everyone who listens to the podcast knows this question, but what is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

Isabelle [00:10:43]:

Hope.

Seth [00:10:44]:

I love that.

Isabelle [00:10:45]:

Yeah, I think you got to be hopeful. If you don’t have hope and optimism, you could be a cynic and all these things. But if you don’t have hope and optimism in this industry especially, you’re going to have a really rough time and you’re not going to last very long.

Seth [00:10:58]:

Oh, it’s awesome. Surprisingly, no one said hope.

Isabelle [00:11:02]:

Really?

Seth [00:11:03]:

In 150 something episodes, people come up with some pretty wild things. And people have also said their phone, wallet, key, phone. Seriously? But people have also gone deep with why they chose their phone. Yeah, because that’s not where I was going with that. But I’m like wherever you want to go with it. But hope, I hope. I think that’s my new favorite. So thank you. And then online, where do you hang out the most?

Isabelle [00:11:29]:

Hate to admit instagram. Like, I spend way too much time on Instagram. I finally cleanse my soul of Facebook. So slowly I’ll move away from that. But I just like the fact that I can get news and I can get travel inspiration and I can I you can really hack the algorithm to get the sort of information that you want in that moment. And I really do like that. I feel like I learn a lot. It’s like those nuggets of knowledge, and then I have the opportunity to go dive deeper. And then sometimes you’ll find me in the comments being a menace. But I find that helps you. If you’re going to argue with someone, you really need to know what you’re going to say on the Internet. And so I find that that also gives me these breadcrumbs I could follow to learn more about certain topics like AI and things like that. And it challenges you to be more of a critical thinker because you know a lot of that’s kind of clickbait. But as you dive deeper, you really get to be more informed. So, yeah, lots of times I’m on Instagram, but also, like, PSL, Connect. I’m on my email constantly.

Seth [00:12:19]:

I got to say you’re very accessible, which I love. You’re very accessible.

Isabelle [00:12:23]:

All that.

Seth [00:12:24]:

Exactly. It’s the best thing. And so people can find everything about phillipsarupleaders@phillystartupleaders.org you can also.com it redirects because I keep typing.com for some reason and it keeps redirecting me. So I’m like, I’ll eventually remember it’s. Org Phillipsarupleaders.org. Connect phillystarpleaders.org is their community over there, and there are some people still hanging out on Slack. Shockingly.

Isabelle [00:12:51]:

Yeah. I got to say. So the Slack is great, but during the pandemic, there was like a little bit of a leadership gap. And when we came in, we admittedly did not do a great job of maintaining it and it just got inundated with Bots. We are coming up with a strategy and sourcing volunteers to clean it up because everyone’s on Slack, right?

Seth [00:13:05]:

And everyone’s still there.

Isabelle [00:13:06]:

It’ll come back.

Seth [00:13:08]:

Ever since you were to Connect, I’m like, is PSL still on Slack? And people are still in there. People are still in there. People are holding on for that. For your life.

Isabelle [00:13:16]:

Yeah, that’s all right. We’re going to clean it up. We’re going to meet the community where it is. But the reason why we moved to PSL Connect is because we wanted a living archive of all that information. Startups, investors, tool suite, discounts, job boards, all that. And we have an amazing back end partner with Ramen Life that provides all that.

Seth [00:13:31]:

Ramen life. I love it. You work on a Ramen budget and you’re using Ramen Life love.

Isabelle [00:13:35]:

And I eat a lot of ramen.

Seth [00:13:36]:

There you go. You got some great Ramen restaurants in Philly, too. So there you go. Isabelle, thank you for being on and we will see everyone next time.

Isabelle [00:13:46]:

Sounds great. Thanks for having me, Seth. Talk to your audience soon.

Seth [00:13:55]:

That was a great show. If you’re enjoying entrepreneurs Enigma, please view us in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps other podcast listeners find our show. If you’re looking for other podcasts in the marketing space, look no further than the Marketing Podcast Network at marketingpodcast. Nether. Hopes you have enjoyed this episode. This podcast is one of the many great shows on the MPN Marketing Podcast Network.