How do you eat an elephant?

On March 23, at the Columbia Underground Tech Startups weekly meet-up, Tom Pietras was the recipient of what has been called: “Columbia’s most prestigious award — recognition by the tech community for work being done in the community”. The award comes in the form of a large, plastic elephant. Tom had the honor of taking care of the elephant (named Hannibal by Derek Walker) for a week. Tom and “Hanni” celebrated Columbia, visiting Soda City and taking a dip in the fountain at Boyd Plaza. At the end of the week, Tom passed Hannibal on to another (probably more deserving) recipient.

Why an elephant? If you are a company founder, helping create a startup community while growing your business can be overwhelming — like trying to eat an elephant. Where do you start?!
Desmond Tutu once wisely said that “there is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.” Everything in life that seems daunting, overwhelming, and even impossible can be accomplished gradually by taking on just a little at a time.

Day in, day out, week after week, founders are making time to help our community be a more collaborative, inclusive environment for new founders — all while working their asses off to grow their existing business.

Tech Beans is the weekly morning coffee/networking event for the Columbia Underground Startup Community. This meetup is for tech startups and their supporters. For more information, visit https://columbia.ramenlife.co/home.