Ella Laverne Rucker

Ella Rucker is a mentor and idea generator who works with minority entrepreneurs. She infuses her wealth of experience and expertise into startup businesses by converting “aha!” moments into actionable steps towards sustainable and successful enterprises. She builds blueprints for entrepreneurs to grow and enrich their businesses and their lives through mentoring, masterminding and coaching.

Ella is the co-founder of Weekend Startup School, a two-day intensive, live event for entrepreneurs to learn and network as they set goals and strategies for their businesses. She is also the producer and director of operations for #MentorMonday, a live, interactive web series featuring world-class entrepreneurs.

Quoted in The Wall Street Journal and Crain’s New York Business, Ella studied entrepreneurial journalism at Tow-Knight Center and marketing at Wharton online. She is a sought-after speaker on the topics of entrepreneurialism, social media and blogging. She is a contributor to several online publications the most notable of which is Black Enterprise online in the area of small business.

An author, Ella has written The Beauty Of An Ugly Start: 12 Simple Reasons To Get Over Yourself And Take Your Idea To Market TODAY which is a motivational and instructional book for entrepreneurs based on Ella’s ability to go from welfare to speaking at Walt Disney World to co-founding Weekend Startup School. She also penned a best-selling ebook for Blogalicious, a premier blogging conference.

Ella became an entrepreneur in 2011 after a 20-year career in telecommunications and a five-year college career pursuing a biology degree at Wright State University.