At age 24, Gelie Akhenblit found that she highly disliked her job, and set out on a journey to find her true passion.

“I am freakishly in love with networking,” Akhenblit says. And so she made it her career. In 2008, at age 27, Akhenblit founded Networking Phoenix, an online platform for professionals to connect with other professionals and meet at mixers and events. Her self funded startup has boomed into a massive business with 500 events listed monthly, 33,000 members in the Phoenix area, and plans to expand both nationally and globally.

“The whole entrepreneurial endeavor,” Akhenblit explains frankly, “it is brutal. It’s devastating in many ways to your life because you have to give your all.”