Entering into the day, I was unsure what to expect from the Lowe Foundation. I only knew what I had researched the night prior to the trip: it was a retreat/learning program foundation offered to second stage startups with a vast amount of acreage. That is only the tip of the iceberg.
A siting of antiques in the bathrooms
Almost immediately upon arrival, I noticed two things. 1) It seemed official, but almost had a cool “summer camp” feel to it. 2) The entire area was surrounding by beautiful land for as far as the eye could see. We were given name tags and directed to the building of our meetings, which was beautiful inside and out. Mere minutes of looking around inside was all it took to recognize how well kept the facility (and then assume, by extension, the entire foundation) was. The dining area was outfitted with a full kitchen, plenty of chairs and tables, an island, and was covered with giant windows to get a good view of the land. It was definitely one of the nicest places we’d been in…and then I entered the bathroom. Oh, the bathrooms. Over the course of the trip, the immense quality of the bathrooms has turned into a running joke, but I’m not joking when I say these were the nicest bathrooms I’ve stepped foot into. They weren’t even stalls, more like individual powder rooms. Anyway, moving on.
We went into a conference room where we met Dino, our host for the day. A powerpoint presentation was already hooked up and waiting for us and I couldn’t help noticing how official everything seemed. Despite this, as we went around and told a bit about ourselves, the conversation was very relaxed and full of laughs. Dino described Edward Lowe, his roots, successes, and failures and I gained a lot of respect for the entrepreneur and his drive to get his newly discovered kitty litter into consumers’ hands. More than this, however, I respected the story told about how Lowe, upon his passing, left the Lowe Foundation and its land the way HE wanted, not the way his children wanted and pushed for. That says a lot about how much Lowe really cared for the Foundation he’d built.
After introductions and the Foundation’s history, we moved on to an activity that can only be described as an icebreaker, but it was actually really enjoyable. It got us to talk to one another, ask things that wouldn’t generally come up in conversation, and learn new things about people we already knew quite a bit about. Following this, we got into the meat of the foundation and who they worked with.
It was really interesting to learn about startups in the second stage of their life cycle as we’d really only seen first stage startups before. The differences between first and second stagers were fairly straightforward, but not something that I would’ve initially recognized as a defining line. We were shown a flow chart of entrepreneurs and the different roles they have to play as they grow before heading to the dining room for another activity.
Here we were instructed to sift through different colored cards that were meant to loosely define the type of person we would be, especially in regards to our business mentalities. I was skeptical at first because I seemed to identify with all of the colors but when we began the next step of the activity, it all made sense. We were given two rules and a wooden dowel and then disaster struck. Eventually, three leaders emerged and each one provided almost exactly what would’ve been expected from their card color. I was convinced.
Later, we learned about the concept of “economic gardening“, which is a term that is being used more and more but I really had no basis for its meaning. It has to do with “growth from within” and is gaining a lot of steam in communities, not just startups, around the US. They then went through all of the programs they offer for second stage startups and I was very impressed with all of the different options. In addition to all of the retreat options they offer, they also have roundtables and a free online platform called Youreconomy.org designed to offer insight into various economic data metrics.
After discussing all of the programs and learning more about what the foundation does, the rest of group headed outside for another activity while I took my leave. I sincerely wished to be able to stay for the final activity as the entire retreat was very enjoyable (and lunch was delicious, too).
