announcing meet up no. 6! *SOLD OUT!*

UPDATE! What a response! After selling out of our original set of tickets, and then adding 20 more, we are now SOLD OUT for good. We wish we could add more tickets but there's just not enough space in the building. We're so excited to see everyone who signed up. And if you couldn't get a ticket in time, sign up for our mailing list to hear about upcoming meetups and events!

Hello there everyone! We hope that this reaches all our friends far and wide. As we've been transitioning we hope that no one fell between the tracks. We will be shutting down our facebook page in favor of a closed group that we'll start up after this next meet up where everyone can have the freedom to share privately. We're hoping that this new freedom will help foster transparency and a community of friendship where everyone feels comfortable being themselves and also asking questions and sharing stories.

In other news, we are SO EXCITED to announce our 6th meet up. It's been far too long! We are having our 6th meet up at the Rifle Paper Co. offices in Winter Park on August 30th at 7:30 in the evening. We hope you can make it! There are so many new faces and businesses that have arrived in town over the last months and we are so excited to get everyone together again.

(click the image above to rsvp)

Please RSVP on the eventbrite page. Reservations are mandatory so we can get an accurate headcount. We'll have refreshments handy and lots of ways for you to connect and catch up with everyone as well as ways to break the ice for those of you who haven't met each other yet.

Dress is business casual, feel free to bring business cards or other marketing materials to leave with us at the door. Everyone will get a take home bag with everyone else's cards so if you want yours added into the mix, make sure to bring a bunch.

Can't wait to see you! Click here to RSVP.
Click here to join our mailing list to find out first about future events!

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the it's better together meet up method

We hope that you are excited for our future meet ups. In preparation, we thought we'd explain a bit about the method we use at our events and why we think you'll love it. 

If you've ever been to one of our events in the past, you know the system: you arrive, check in, and then hand over any and all marketing materials you brought with you. That's right, we rob you of your networking paraphernalia right at the door. Why? Because that's not what this is primarily about. Let us explain...

At It's Better Together, we put a lot of time into building a community of likeminded young artists and business owners. We aim to be an oasis in a sea of boring networking gigs. We want your authentic self. The you that you are when you aren't trying to make a killer first impression for your business. We want you to form relationships based on common interests and personality instead of on who can help you with your career the most. That way, no one feels taken advantage of or pressured. Feel free to talk about your business, your passions, what you do and why. We want you to truly CONNECT.

When you leave, we will have little "goodie bags" put together with everyone's business cards in them. So don't worry, you'll get everyone's info and they will get yours. Aim to bring about 30 copies of your card or marketing piece just to be safe and if you're really ambitious about it, check the eventbrite page the day before the event to see how many people are singed up so you know how many cards to bring. 

That is the It's Better Together method of networking. We love it and it has worked so amazingly well for all our past events that we plan on carrying this happy little tradition on to future events as well! 

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looking back | how it's better together started

So much has happened since that first fateful get together of just a few Central Florida creatives. It's crazy to look back at these old photos and remember how we all met and how this group started. In case you're curious, here's a history lesson...

There was a business seminar held in town. It was about blogging and it was led by the ever-amazing Liene Stevens of Think Splendid. There were all kinds of people there with one thing in common, they wanted to learn how to leverage social media in a new way. And as luck would have it, a bunch of us were there. Friendships were formed over coffee and soon we were all chatting about how we should "do this again". 

We decided to meet up again and to invite some friends. Anna Bond, of Rifle Paper Company had just opened up shop in a small studio in Winter Park next store to a print shop called Mama's Sauce and together they hosted a tiny group of young professionals over snacks and letterpress. 

Anna designed the gorgeous logo as a surprise at that first meeting not thinking it would ever become the cornerstone belief of an entire group of young artists and business owners but over frozen yogurt shortly after the idea was formed... this group needed to exist because running your own business is hard, but it is better together. 

Since then the core group has grown and changed. Founding "members" have started on new endeavors, launched dreams bigger than they'd ever have imagined, had babies, moved into bigger studios, opened shops, and more. It's been an amazing ride, one we hope to continue as we move forward into a new generation of It's Better Together. 

We hope you will help us write the next chapter!

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recap | social and sweets

A huge thank you to Jennyfer from The Sugar Suite for so graciously hosting our 5th meet up. Jennyfer not only offered her lovely bakery storefront as a place for us to meet, but also made the most DELICOUS goodies for everyone to partake in. It was hard not to try one of everything! 

This was the first meet up where we got to debut our newly branded stickers and goodie bags! You'll be seeing them more at future events as well. We had a lot of new faces at this meet up and everyone had fun mixing and mingling over cupcakes and mini desserts. Thank you to Ashley Brooke from Ashley Brooke Designs for these photos of the night!

Wanna learn more about Jennyfer and her bakery, The Sugar Suite? Watch this "minimentary":

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meetup no 5 | social and sweets

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recap | shop talk and tapas

A week ago we had our 4th official meet up. It’s so crazy to see how far this little group has come in just under a year. We started last summer with just about 10 people and a vision for a community. It’s very exciting to see all the new faces, and all the old ones. The community and relationships that have grown organically from our little group have been wonderful and we are so excited for all the future holds.

Our last meetup was a round table style discussion time. It was the first time we’d done anything like this. Since our group has so many new faces we wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to speak up and share. When you’re young and running or starting a business there are tons of questions that you have and sometimes it’s hard to track down the answers.

We wanted this meet up to be a place where attendees could get their questions answered without having to be worried about what others would think if they asked them. So… everyone was able to submit questions anonymously for discussion after dinner. While everyone snacked on tapas from mi Tomatina in Winter Park, we pulled questions out of a jar one by one and opened up the floor for discussion. Some great topics were discussed from “what is success?” to “how do you balance customer satisfaction with your own artistic vision?” to “is it normal to get only 4 hours of sleep a night?”.

  

We hope everyone had an amazing time, we know we did. We can’t wait to see you all again over the summer! Stay tuned to the blog and twitter for upcoming meet ups and get togethers! And if you’d like to use this image for your own blog post about the meet up, you can download it here courtesy of Studio222 Photography and It’s Better Together. Please make sure you link back to us if you use it.

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meet up no. 4 | shop talk and tapas

We hope you can join us THIS Thursday, April 29 for our next meet up, a chance to get to know other It’s Better Together members better over drinks and tapas at mi Tomatina in Winter Park. We’ll be hosting a “round table panel” where everyone is the panelist and the everyone can ask the questions, opening up the conversation to whatever you’d like to talk about. 

Everyone has questions about starting and running their own businesses and sometimes we just don’t know where we can get the answers. It has always been the goal of our group to support and help each other so we’re excited to open up the conversation and talk about the ins and outs of life and business here in Central Florida for young, creative pros. Attendees will be able to write questions on cards anonymously for discussion during dinner. We’ll pull cards at random and open up the conversation to discuss the answers. This will be the perfect place to ask that question about business or life or art that you’ve been afraid to ask. Come hungry, with a few questions and with an open mind.

Click here for more details and to RSVP (reservations are mandatory) (registration is closed)

Hope to see you on Thursday!

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