Nearly seven years ago, the local Endeavor office was preparing to send its first Louisville area entrepreneur to an international selection panel in Morocco.
The problem? There weren't enough spots available.
Adrian Garcia-Aranyos, then managing director of Endeavor Spain, offered to give up one of the spots he had reserved for a Spanish company to make room for Joey Rivera, founder and CEO of Rivera Group.
Now, Rivera Group is one of four local companies that are considered "outliers" for Endeavor — the top entrepreneurs within the prestigious global network based on revenues, growth rates, valuations and capital raised — alongside AppHarvest, El Toro and Rabbit Hole Distillery. They join 120 other top performers out of Endeavor's 2,200 high-impact entrepreneurs from across the world.
"That tells you a lot about the quality of entrepreneurs here," Garcia-Aranyos said. "If you do the math, that's quite impressive in proportion. And the other local entrepreneurs [in Endeavor's network] are nothing short of amazing. We've always been about high-quality entrepreneurship outside of the normal San Francisco, Boston, New York, London — innovation can come from anywhere."
Garcia-Aranyos, now president of the global organization, flew into Louisville from New York on Thursday for an annual celebration of the region's entrepreneurs. I spoke with him before the event to catch up on how Endeavor coped during the virtual environment created by the coronavirus pandemic and what's next for the organization in 2022.
Endeavor was able to get a primer on Zoom ahead of the start of the pandemic, thanks to board member Jason Green, one of Zoom's first investors. So when the world shut down four weeks later, the organization was able to shift its international selection panels (ISPs) and other events to a digital format rather seamlessly, Garcia-Aranyos said.
"It's gone pretty well — we've adapted to the world that was given to us," he said. "Our entrepreneurs were able to interact with amazing people from halfway around the world that maybe they wouldn't have in any other way. It opened up the possibilities of doing something a bit different."
But Endeavor will shift to a hybrid format in 2022, with both in-person and virtual events, including in-person ISPs in July and November. The organization will have a total of six in-person events next year, which happens to be its 25th anniversary.
Garcia-Aranyos credited the nearly 40 local Endeavor offices across North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia with being able to keep up with the rapidly-evolving landscape.
"Right now, things are happening at a pace that we haven't seen before. There's more capital than ever — there's a buzz around entrepreneurship so there are more entrepreneurs than ever, which is great. It's a good thing," he said.
"We just need to be able to identify the ones that are going to have the most impact... The ones that have the craziest idea — in a good way — who can scale that idea, who can put together a team to be able to make it work and how we can actually be the ones to help them."
Our tri-state region's Endeavor office includes managing director Jackson Andrews, Raechele Smalls, manager of entrepreneur selection and growth (Louisville), Jake Budler, manager of entrepreneur selection and growth (Indianapolis) and Tim Barr Jr., associate, entrepreneur selection and growth (Cincinnati).
The region's 20 entrepreneurs from 16 different companies have created more than 1,650 jobs, raised more than $504 million in capital and generated $250 million in revenue.
