By: Hunter Mylek
Who is Gillian Vendittelli?
Gillian is a 3rd-year student at Grand Valley State University. Her majors are management and entrepreneurship and her minors are Spanish and hospitality and tourism management. She has been dancing since the age of two and is in a dance club at GVSU. She was born in Chicago and moved to Michigan in 2010.
What is Grand and Wells Events?
“Grand and Wells Events is the name of my business. It is an event planning company that focuses its efforts on flexibility and taking the stress out of event planning.”
What Inspired your ideas?
“I wanted a name that had meaning behind it and could grow with me and the business. Grand and Wells are the crossroads I grew up on in Chicago, and now the name I will grow my business on. For the longest time, I was going to be a professional dancer. After some injuries, and one major one, I came to the realization that it was not smart to pursue dance as a lifelong career. Coincidentally at that time of my career path change a family member was getting married. I saw their stress and their planner fall through a lot and I ended up helping. In helping I realized I could do this so much better, event planning doesn’t have to be this stressful, and I really enjoyed the process. After this realization, my mom pointed out how I had been planning every family event since she could remember and it was always in me.”
What do you hope to achieve through the 77 idea lab?
I hope through the 77 idea lab that I can build a strong foundation to start my business and be able to make mistakes in a safe environment that facilitates growth and learning from them.
If you are interested in joining the 77 Idea lab in the future all you need is a passion for a problem that is worth solving. The 77 Idea Lab will help develop the idea and business around the problem through one-on-one mentoring, workshops, with a chance to get a $1,000 grant.
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