Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
The conversation at the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center’s Milestone Summit kept circling back to one question: what impact are you actually trying to make, for your community and for yourself? Founders and program leaders talked candidly about looking past venture capital to alternative funding, treating community not as a nice-to-have but as infrastructure, and why "mission has to matter, and be measurable" if it's going to survive the hard stretches of building a company.
It's a look at what founders don't always say on stage: the real cost of going it alone, and why access to capacity matters as much as access to capital.
Ayris Scales
SVP Social Responsibility & Global Initiatives, Nareit
Kamy Taylor
Director, U.S. SMB Entrepreneurial Programs & Volunteerism, Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center
Edna Martinson
Co-Founder & COO, Boddle Learning
Brian Westbrook
Host, GeekWire Studios
Learn more at nasdaqcenter.org
The conversation at the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center’s Milestone Summit kept circling back to one question: what impact are you actually trying to make, for your community and for yourself? Founders and program leaders talked candidly about looking past venture capital to alternative funding, treating community not as a nice-to-have but as infrastructure, and why "mission has to matter, and be measurable" if it's going to survive the hard stretches of building a company.
It's a look at what founders don't always say on stage: the real cost of going it alone, and why access to capacity matters as much as access to capital.
Ayris Scales
SVP Social Responsibility & Global Initiatives, Nareit
Kamy Taylor
Director, U.S. SMB Entrepreneurial Programs & Volunteerism, Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center
Edna Martinson
Co-Founder & COO, Boddle Learning
Brian Westbrook
Host, GeekWire Studios
Learn more at nasdaqcenter.org
