Meet a Sandboxer: Jordan Milne
August 3rd, 2010 by Katrin Winiarski
Jordan Milne, 26 is Canadian but has been living in France, England and Denmark for the past 3 years. He is one of 9 students in the Advanced Diploma in Entrepreneurship program at The University of Cambridge. Jordan is also a Contributing Editor at NYC based financial magazine Asset International 5000, for which he writes and performs ‘’interrogations’’ with heads of Pension and Sovereign Wealth Funds. Most recently Jordan interviewed Yngve Slyngstad, CEO of NBIM that manages Norway’s $457billion Government Pension Fund. He is writing a book on work/life balance in entrepreneurship (how to be a successful entrepreneur while living a balanced life) with Martin Bjergegaard from www.rainmaking.co.uk, through which he had the opportunity to interview many leading entrepreneurs across the world. Jordan is also part of starting a social venture based around making recreational sports more accessible, launching early 2011. His main focus currently is as Co-Founder of EquityLab, which will be launching fall/2010. Jordan on LinkedIn.
Tell us the story of your latest project.
My latest project is EquityLab. In a start-up, your team is your most important asset. One of the greatest problems my Co-Founders and I had experienced ourselves as well as witnessed in the greater entrepreneurial ecosystem was early-stage entrepreneurs having trouble building their teams. High quality Co-Founders and employees are hard to find and if they can be found the start-ups rarely have the budget necessary to recruit them. For recruitment, the reality is that most entrepreneurs don’t have an extensive professional network to tap into. As far as budget is concerned, the vast majority of start-ups never get funding and if they do it generally comes after the core team is assembled. This combination of a limited recruiting reach and modest budget is enough to kill many great ideas and start-ups dead in their tracks.
