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YEC Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is a vibrant invitation-only community
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Young Entrepreneur Council is a community of the world's most passionate, driven entrepreneurs. Founded by community-building and business experts Scott Ge**er and Ryan Paugh, YEC is on a mission to empower young founders. YEC’ers make meaningful connections and support one another through the challenges and triumphs of growing impactful businesses. They have unprecedented access to concierge-level service, business resources, and media exposure via major brands. The first seeds of YEC were sown when Scott, now a serial entrepreneur and internationally syndicated business columnist, started a business while still a college student. He says he made “every possible mistake one could make as a rookie entrepreneur.” He realized that candid advice and support from fellow Gen Y entrepreneurs who’d been there and done that could make all the difference. This led to the first iteration of Young Entrepreneur Council: an informal brain trust of like-minded peers who wanted to help one another grow. Meanwhile, Ryan had co-founded Brazen Careerist, a career-management site for young professionals. It quickly became one of the top social networks for Gen Y, and Ryan was lauded by Mashable as “something of a cult legend in the online community-building world.”

When Scott and Ryan met, their complementary expertise led to the foundation of YEC as it exists today: an invitation-only, elite group of successful entrepreneurs who share a pay-it-forward mentality and believe that doing well and doing good are not mutually exclusive. Scott says, “Everything we do at YEC is meant to fulfill a social need, promote free enterprise, and curate meaningful connections among our generation’s most successful entrepreneurs.”

A board of directors for your life.Networks collect contacts. Councils solve problems. A seat at YEC is not a directory ...
10/09/2026

A board of directors for your life.

Networks collect contacts. Councils solve problems. A seat at YEC is not a directory or a feed. It is a small circle of peers who act as a mirror and tell you what they see.

The 2026 Founding Cohort is seating now. A seat is earned, not bought, and a person reads every application. Membership is decided through a short application, a conversation, and a review by YEC leadership. We are reading for fit and contribution, not credentials.

Comment altitude and we will send you the application.

Most AI use stops at the first step: a one-off prompt, typed and forgotten.There are four steps. A one-off prompt. A sav...
10/08/2026

Most AI use stops at the first step: a one-off prompt, typed and forgotten.

There are four steps. A one-off prompt. A saved prompt. A project that knows your business. An automation that runs without you. Most of the value is in the last two.

On October 29, Drew Golub walks through each step using the tools YEC actually runs on.

Put AI to Work. Thursday, October 29, 1:00 PM ET, on Zoom. Open to all.

Comment aiwork and we will send you the registration link.

https://yec.co/events/put-ai-to-work-what-we-use-at-yec-and-what-we-teach-our-members/

Augustin Sayer, General Partner and Co-Founder at OVNI Capital, San Francisco. A member of YEC's founding cohort."I'm Au...
10/07/2026

Augustin Sayer, General Partner and Co-Founder at OVNI Capital, San Francisco. A member of YEC's founding cohort.

"I'm Augustin Sayer, General Partner and Co-Founder of OVNI Capital, a transatlantic seed-stage VC firm with offices in San Francisco and Paris. We specialize in investing $250k to $2M in European deeptech startups, particularly in semiconductors, quantum computing, cybersecurity, energy, and healthcare innovations and help them scale into the U.S. market.

My journey started in banking before transitioning into venture capital, where I previously invested at Newfund Capital. Outside of investing, I enjoy writing about entrepreneurship, AI's societal implications, and the nuances of startup funding."

We asked: What is taking most of your attention right now?

"I'm currently in San Francisco connecting with every possible Series A fund based in the Bay Area."

We asked: What is the most expensive thing you have learned?

"My biggest takeaway since I started investing at the seed stage is that success often comes from behaving in a way that still makes sense ten years later. Overnight success is possible over many years.

When I moved to France in 2017, I was a nobody. I worked hard every day, stayed consistent, and in all humility became a household name in the French VC scene a few years later."

We asked: Tell us something that has nothing to do with the company.

"I run a debate club called Fault Lines in San Francisco, where we have dinner once every two months and the rules are Jefferson/Chatham. Meaning, only one person can speak at a time, and nothing that is said during the dinner is recorded or held against someone.

We strive to organize the dinners at unique places. The last one was done at Sharon Stone's former house on Baker Beach."

Comment altitude and we will send you the application.

No keynote energy.That is the standard for a YEC session. Small and specific. Led by someone who has done the exact thin...
10/05/2026

No keynote energy.

That is the standard for a YEC session. Small and specific. Led by someone who has done the exact thing you are working through. The kind of talk you would want over dinner, built to send you home with something you did not arrive with.

Every session is recorded and lands in the member library, so the weeks you cannot make it, the table waits for you.

Some sessions are open to anyone. Come sit in, hear what the table sounds like, and see who is around it. The next one: Put AI to Work, Thursday, October 29, 1:00 PM ET, on Zoom.

Comment altitude and we will send you the application.

Brett Farmiloe, Founder & CEO at Featured, Scottsdale, AZ. One of YEC's original members.We are glad to welcome Brett ba...
10/02/2026

Brett Farmiloe, Founder & CEO at Featured, Scottsdale, AZ. One of YEC's original members.

We are glad to welcome Brett back to YEC, an alumnus returning to the table.

"I'm Brett. I run Featured, the AI co-pilot for PR, from Scottsdale, Arizona, and we own Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and Connectively. We help experts get featured and journalists find people worth featuring.

It all traces back to an RV. I quit auditing in my early twenties and drove 16,000 miles with three friends, interviewing 300 people about their work. The lesson stuck: everyone is an expert in something, and almost nobody has an outlet for it. After ten years running an SEO agency for small businesses, I sold it and started Featured in 2022 to be that outlet."

We asked: What is taking most of your attention right now?

"Featured News. The problem I picked for this quarter: when an expert answers a question on HARO or Connectively and the journalist doesn't use it, that answer sits in a database forever. Most of them end that way, because a reporter uses a handful of quotes out of forty. I've come to believe that no knowledge somebody bothered to share should go to waste.

So we're building a wire."

We asked: What is the most expensive thing you have learned?

"I tried to launch an iPhone app company a few years out of college. The business built apps for minor league baseball teams, and we launched more than ten of them. Every app meant paying a developer, because I wasn't one, so the margin on each was awful. Teams paid a one-time fee, so nothing recurred. And there were only about 300 minor league teams in the country, which meant that even if I won every account, the ceiling was low enough to touch. It failed fast."

We asked: What can another member come to you for?

"The sign would say: Getting featured, and reviving brands.

Getting featured: if you want to be in the press or cited by AI engines, come find me. More than two million pitches went through HARO last year, so I know what lands and what gets someone banned. The ones that land are helpful to the journalist, authentic (a human wrote it), relevant to the exact request, and on time. Bring your website and I'll show you whether AI engines mention you today and what to do about it."

We asked: Tell us something that has nothing to do with the company.

"I've kept backyard chickens for about ten years, which in Scottsdale means fresh eggs and a running fight with the summer heat. Weekends are minivan life with three kids.

Also, Hot Pockets. When we were trying to fund the RV trip, a buddy's mom was the VP of marketing at the company that makes them. She couldn't cut us a check, so she handed us a stack of vouchers, and two of us ate Hot Pockets three meals a day for 30 days straight. Picture Supersize Me without the hospital visit. A week after we threw away the Hot Pocket vouchers, we found our title sponsor a block from my house. I haven't eaten a Hot Pocket since."

Comment altitude and we will send you the application.

The YEC member portal is open.Starting today, the member experience lives on a home we built ourselves, around the reaso...
10/01/2026

The YEC member portal is open.

Starting today, the member experience lives on a home we built ourselves, around the reasons members sign in: press, events and each other. Built for your phone first.

Members: Member Login on yec.co takes you there. Sign in with the email address your membership uses. No password.

Not a member yet? Comment altitude and we will send you the application.

The table is set, and seats are being taken by people who decided to stop climbing alone.See if one of them is yours.Com...
09/30/2026

The table is set, and seats are being taken by people who decided to stop climbing alone.

See if one of them is yours.

Comment altitude and we will send you the application.

Most founders have tried AI. Few have it doing real work in their business.Drew Golub, YEC's Head of Strategy and Techno...
09/29/2026

Most founders have tried AI. Few have it doing real work in their business.

Drew Golub, YEC's Head of Strategy and Technology, walks through the tools YEC actually uses and how we built with them, then teaches three things you can use in your own business the same week. It is a preview of what members work on in Operator Labs.

Put AI to Work. Thursday, October 29, 1:00 PM ET, on Zoom. Open to all.

Comment aiwork and we will send you the registration link.

https://yec.co/events/put-ai-to-work-what-we-use-at-yec-and-what-we-teach-our-members/

Three sessions. A founding cohort seated. A month of founders deciding to stop climbing alone.October is already being b...
09/29/2026

Three sessions. A founding cohort seated. A month of founders deciding to stop climbing alone.

October is already being built.

Aline Hanle (), founder and CEO of Experience Extraordinary. She creates transformational retreats, experiences, and too...
09/28/2026

Aline Hanle (), founder and CEO of Experience Extraordinary. She creates transformational retreats, experiences, and tools that help people move beyond knowing who they want to be and actually embodying it. She splits her life and work between Texas and France. One of the founding cohort of YEC.

We asked what is taking most of her attention right now. She said:

"Right now, most of my attention is on expansion. Bringing Experience Extraordinary into more rooms, more communities, and more meaningful collaborations across North America and Europe.

After years of building through intimate mentorships and retreats, I'm intentionally widening the circle. I'm developing partnerships with women's communities, leadership networks, and organizations where I can bring experiential workshops around sovereignty, intuition, emotional freedom, and conscious leadership.

The question taking most of my attention is: how do I scale depth? I'm not interested in becoming bigger just for the sake of growth. I want to expand the reach of this work while protecting what makes it powerful. Real connection, intimate experiences, honest conversations, and transformation that is actually embodied."

We asked what the most expensive thing she has learned was.

"The world is as safe as you find yourself to be."

We asked what someone can come to her for.

"Come find me when you're at a crossroads and the logical answer isn't necessarily the right one. I love helping people cut through the noise, separate fear from intuition, and see what they already know but may not yet trust themselves enough to act on.

And come to me if you're building something meaningful but starting to feel like your success is costing you too much of yourself."

Aline Hanle. Experience Extraordinary.

Comment altitude and we will send you the application.

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Boston, MA

Telephone

+16177120447

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