The Next Great Founder May Just Be Next Door

This year my husband and I celebrate a few significant milestones in our lives; most of the kids are off our books, we moved south and will mark a meaningful wedding anniversary. We decided to celebrate by booking a trip to our favorite places across the French and Italian Riviera.

Of course, as sometimes happens, the timing ended up being far from ideal professionally, as I had just started a new role and could not completely disconnect, so we adapted.

A few days ago, I was sitting on our balcony finishing a call when, almost immediately after I hung up, I heard a voice coming from the bushes that separate our balcony from the one next door. A young man staying next door had apparently overheard enough of my conversation with a potential partner and decided to inquire with a, "Hey, what do you do?" I was startled and a little annoyed at first that he chose to eavesdrop, but what stood out most was his tenacity.

He didn't hesitate to engage and took the opportunity that presented itself. Within seconds, he had introduced himself through the bushes, handed me his business card and delivered his founder pitch. In less than 15 seconds, I knew what he did, the very specific market he was pursuing and why he thought I should know him.

Then he managed to blow my mind again when he shared his age, 21. This 21-year-old founder had a 10-employee operation with proven ARR, and I couldn't help but smile.

He was here on holiday, overheard a business conversation on the balcony next door and thought, essentially, this is someone to connect with. Was eavesdropping and peering through the bushes onto my private balcony a little bold? Absolutely. But I was much more interested in knowing him in return. In fact, the first thing that sprang to mind was, how do we recruit him to memoryBlue ?

Over the years I have seen my fair share of remote workers who prioritize work-life balance in a way that sometimes can impact the business they serve, so coming across a young entrepreneur who clearly is enjoying life but is still rooted in how he funds that life, was inspiring.

Curiosity. Confidence. Commercial instinct. The ability to communicate clearly. A willingness to be uncomfortable. The courage to approach someone you don't know. And perhaps most importantly, the drive to create an opportunity rather than wait for one. Those things matter to me.

We tend to talk about successful entrepreneurs after we know the outcome. Zuckerberg, Jobs, Gates and countless others are easy examples because we know what they eventually built. But there was a time when nobody knew their names. Someone had to see something in them before the track record existed.

Funny enough, on our way to one of the beautiful little resort towns over the weekend, our boat guide pointed up to the magnificent home on the cliffs that Gates bought. I thought back to that as I looked at this kid and thought, did he take that ride and consider, yeah, I will have a similar villa too?

That encounter on the balcony reinforced for me one of the many reasons that brought me to memoryBlue. The ability to work with the next generation of confident, curious, commercially driven potential entrepreneurs is what I am exposed to every day.

We are constantly looking for potential before the résumé catches up. Many of the people who come into memoryBlue are at the very beginning of their professional careers. We aren't expecting them to arrive with years of sales experience and a perfectly developed commercial skill set. That would miss the point. We are looking for the raw ingredients.

Are they curious? Are they coachable? Will they pick up the phone? Can they communicate? Do they have the confidence to ask a question, and the humility to listen to the answer? What happens when they hear no? Do they retreat, or do they want to understand why? Do they wait for an opportunity, or do they create one?

Then comes the part I think is particularly powerful. We give that raw potential structure.

Through the memoryBlue Academy, coaching, methodology, technology, real client exposure and the sheer repetition that comes from doing the work every day, young professionals get an opportunity to accelerate their development in a way that would be difficult to replicate on their own. They aren't learning sales from a textbook. They are learning how companies grow.

They learn how to understand an ICP, articulate value, prospect, conduct discovery and navigate objections. They learn how to use data and technology intelligently, how to communicate with executives and how to be accountable for an outcome. And they do it across real companies, real markets and real buyers. That experience compounds quickly.

It is one of the reasons I don't think of sales development as simply an entry-level sales job. Done correctly, it can be one of the most valuable commercial training grounds for someone at the beginning of a career. Some of these young professionals will become exceptional sales leaders. Some will move into marketing, partnerships, operations or investing. And some will become entrepreneurs themselves.

That is exciting to me because you aren't simply filling a role. You have the opportunity to identify people with something special and help fast-track the professional experience around it.

Which brings me back to my neighbor in the Riviera. I have absolutely no idea what his company will become. I don't know whether I happened to meet the next great technology founder or simply a very ambitious 21-year-old who is going to learn a tremendous amount from trying. Either outcome is worth respecting.

But I kept his business card. Not because he had the perfect pitch, but because I recognized the instinct behind it. After more than 30 years in this industry, I have learned to pay attention to that.

Sometimes the experience comes later. The drive usually shows up first.

So, to the young innovators, founders and motivators: stay curious, be confident and never be afraid to engage.