Quick Look

Words of Wisdom
A message from OwnTrail
What’s next for Lizelle?
Moonshots Podcast
New product Test - Giide
You are not too old
Pathways to Capital, Denver Event
New Music

Words of Wisdom

"When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak." - Audre Lorde

Do what scares you because the risk is too great for you not to.

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What’s Next & what I’m working on …

In my last post, I mentioned that I’m a free agent and looking for and figuring out what’s next. Take a peek at my wish list of things to work on next if you missed that.

One really cool discussion that jumped out at me this week was the idea around a Venture Studio for the ages in Denver, Colorado. Here’s the idea, let me know what you think.

Here are the things I’m noodling on; what would an innovative startup studio based in Denver, Colorado look like today? What is needed to truly disrupt venture in a sense where thousands more ideas get reviewed and credited to people who don’t know how to enter the entrepreneurial world, and how could we get innovative and connect great founders to more capital much faster?

These are some fun questions I’m chewing on with some friends. I would love to know what you think. How would you create a venture studio today?

Moonshots Podcast Update

The Moonshots with Lizelle podcast is being created and a beautiful revelation came to me over dinner with my wife, Michele. I’m drawn toward people’s inner moonshots as well as what they’re working on.

The moonshots podcast is certainly going to cover the journeys of entrepreneurs and what they’re building so we can all learn from them but what strikes me to be a key exploration of our conversations is “what’s your inner moonshot?”. Most of us don’t realize that sometimes what we seek outside of ourselves is likely something we seek within ourselves. Our work and work ethic is an interesting map to our minds, don’t you think? And if we can unlock that inner work we could unleash those external goals on a bigger level.

I’m curious, what is your inner moonshot? (hit reply or leave a comment)

I’ll share with you that mine is inner peace. And inner peace requires surrender, doesn’t it? And vulnerability. And why is it hard to be vulnerable? Well, therein lies the work and part of what I’ll unravel for myself and with my guests on the podcast.

Testing a new product - Giide

Say hello to Giide. A super interesting new content creation tool that is kind of like a podcast but with a clickable video component.

You have to see it to understand it. I’ve never played with a content creation tool where you can literally click on the video as you’re consuming information. This could be really interesting for so many use cases for content creators and enterprise users alike.

Click here to experience my first giide.

How you create a giide:

When you first get on the platform - which is not publicly accessible yet - you can Create a giide. This giide is created in 2 simple steps.

You record your thoughts, ideas, instructions, and whatever it is that you want to share.

And then giide transcribes your audio so that you can click on any word you said and add visual components.

When you click on any word from your recording you can add a visual element! I’ve never been able to do something like that. As you can see below you can add all sorts of visual or interactive elements; an image, video, or link!, Definition is like a little written blurb you can add or a profile card - you’ll see mine at the opening of my giide.

And that’s it. You then publish your giide and get a unique link to share on social, in email, on Slack or wherever and soon you can embed that video on a webpage.

I’m really curious about what use cases you can think of for new giide’s. What kind of giide’s would you create?

If you want access all you have to do is comment on my tweet where I introduce Giide and comment with “I’d love access to Giide!” and I’ll make sure Allison the Founder & CEO sees it to send you an invite.

Lizelle van Vuuren @heylizelle

Testing a new product that hasn't launched yet. It's called @giide and it's a content creation app but unlike anything I've used before. It's like a podcast mixed with visual guidance and the published video itself is clickable. Can't wait to share what I publish. Colorado-based… https://t.co/ET4KltKpmW

You are not too old.

Ageism is nothing new, especially for women. And in entrepreneurship, there is still a significant misconception about how old entrepreneurs are or need to be to have what it takes to build a successful company.

Guess what age is the average age of a successful entrepreneur?

It’s 45.

Feel free to read the entire article which was published back in 2018 by Harvard Business Review.

You are never too young or too old to build. If an idea is keeping you up at night, do something about it. The best possible outcome is that you learn something new about what you’re building and most definitely about yourself.

Go for it!

In Denver on March 29, 2023?

Join us for this powerful event hosted by Ladies Who Launch, founded by Sarah Friar the CEO and Founder of Nextdoor. I am a speaker and here are Free Tickets

New Music

There’s one universal language I know we all speak and it’s music.

Okay, we’re going way back in time with That’s Life by Frank Sinatra because it was a hell of a week and these lyrics really spoke to me today.

I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself
Flat on my face
I pick myself up and get
Back in the race

That's life

Thanks for reading.

As always — Keep Climbing.

Until next time,

Lizelle

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About Lizelle

Moonshots with Lizelle van Vuuren

A venture studio for the ages