About The Purpose is Profit

Ed “Skip” McLaughlin Ed is the founder of four businesses and is currently running Blue Sunsets LLC, a real estate and angel investment firm. He bootstrapped his first business, United Systems Integrators (USI) Corporation, a corporate real estate outsourcing firm, and grew it into an Inc. 500 company. In 2001, Ed earned Entrepreneur of the Year honors from Ernst & Young. In 2005, he sold USI to Johnson Controls, a Fortune 100 company, and at that point, became CEO of JCI’s Global Workplace Business for the Americas. A member of the Board of Governors for Tufts Medical Center, Ed founded its David E. Wazer Breast Cancer Research Fund. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross, where he is a member of the Board of Trustees. Active in philanthropy, Ed lives with his wife in Connecticut and has three adult children. Email: Ed@ThePurposeIsProfit.com LinkedIn: www.LinkedIn.com/in/EdSkipMcLaughlin Twitter: @purposeisprofit --- Wyn is the founder of Upstart Business Planning, where she works with entrepreneurs to develop plans that answer the questions investors ask most often. Previously, she was Managing Director of Business Plans International in New York and Co-Director of the Small Business Resource Center at Norwalk Community College. Wyn has an MBA in finance and marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She serves on the board of a local nonprofit she helped found, At Home In Darien. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and has two adult children. Email: Wyn@ThePurposeIsProfit.com LinkedIn: www.LinkedIn.com/in/WynLydecker

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill By Omar Douglass Contributing Writer for The Purpose is Profit Blog If at first you do succeed, count your blessings because you’re way ahead of the curve. However, if you’re like me, and the vast majority of entrepreneurs, then your [...]

By | October 8th, 2014|

The 7-Step Angel Funding Process vs. the 2-Minute “Cattle-Call” Pitch

Originally Posted On LinkedIn By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker Within the past week, I met with two different entrepreneurs seeking Angel Funding for their ventures. The businesses are completely different: one is a social media application with a transactional business model, and the other is a construction management startup with a fee-based business model. [...]

By | October 6th, 2014|

Take The Shot!

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." -Wayne Gretzky   By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker  This blog is about a highly successful entrepreneur who started on an unlikely playing field but always took the shot. His name is Brandon Steiner, and Richard Sandomir calls him  "The Man Who Spins Pinstripes Into Gold" [...]

By | September 26th, 2014|

A Generation Of Innovators Won’t Wait

By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker A new generation of solution seekers who have grown up with nonstop technological innovations are now challenging the mindset of tradition when they hit college. When these young adults encounter inefficient online registration on campuses, they want to fix the kinks or find a way around the old legacy [...]

By | September 22nd, 2014|

PITCH IT FORWARD

By Omar Douglass Contributing Writer for The Purpose is Profit Blog In my last blog, I identified 6 Tips for Attracting Startup Funding that I gleaned from a workshop on raising startup capital. As #4 on the list contends, an important piece of the startup puzzle, quite frankly, is for entrepreneurs to “nail the pitch” [...]

By | September 18th, 2014|

Disruption in the Classroom

By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker  There is deliberate disruption taking place in thousands of classrooms across the United States. But this time the students are not the ones causing a break in the status quo. Rather, the entrepreneurs who founded Panorama Education identified an alternate window of opportunity for innovation in schools, and they [...]

By | September 16th, 2014|

Seeking Your Editorial Feedback On Our Book, “The Purpose is Profit.”

Originally published on LinkedIn To Our Followers and Friends: We are finalizing the last chapter of our book, The Purpose Is Profit. We value your editorial input. To get the ball rolling, we’d like to send you Chapter 10: The Ten Commandments of Startup Profitso you can share your opinions with us. Please click here to get Chapter [...]

By | September 12th, 2014|