True Grit: EO Members Band Together to Help Entrepreneurs Facing Tough Times

Late one night, ruminating on months of conversations with entrepreneurs who were struggling to secure financing or to maintain positive cash flow in their businesses, Ami Kassar (EO Philadelphia) opened WhatsApp and, without realizing it, started a movement.

It only took a few moments to create the new group. The initial name — “Members who are having a tough time” — was inelegant, but spoke to the heart of the issue he hoped to address. It was born not of a strategy memo, nor a roadmap, nor an ambition to build a global community. He had simply realized that something essential was missing — and knew he was uniquely positioned to help.

Ami is the founder and CEO of MultiFunding, which helps business owners find creative funding solutions, and knew firsthand that the difficulties his fellow Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) members expressed were not the result of insufficient effort or skill. They were wrestling with broader economic headwinds, liquidity issues, and the quiet panic that hits when the bottom line turns red. “My business was sucking wind; we were struggling like hell, and I knew many other EO members were sucking wind because we were getting many phone calls,” he says. “It dawned upon me that there was a piece of the puzzle that was missing.”

That missing piece — and the name of the WhatsApp group — soon transformed into EO Grit.

Ami Kassar (EO Philadelphia) 

Today, EO Grit is an active WhatsApp community of more than 800 EO members spread across continents, industries, and stages of business. It exists inside the broader EO ecosystem, and is built around sharing vulnerability, nuanced expertise, and hard truths.

Through word of mouth, members worldwide flocked to the group. They shared stories. Sought help. Lent knowledge. The first priority was not scale, but safety. “We were trying to build and let people know that they are safe to be vulnerable,” Ami says. As EO Grit grew rapidly more than 20 sub-groups formed that helped members find the specific information they needed even faster. Akin to Forum, “it is culturally okay to say what you are really struggling with,” he says.

Digital learning events soon followed: There have now been well over a hundred. No speakers or presenters are paid, and no credentials are required beyond real-world experience. “If you have something you want to offer, offer it,” Ami says. “And if people want to come, they will come.”

Pop-up “Grit Circles” emerged next—small, ad hoc groups formed around specific challenges. A founder struggling with a business partner conflict. A CEO staring down a cash-flow crisis. A member thousands of miles from home who had just lost a major client. In that instance, within minutes, other entrepreneurs “had encircled him with support and encouragement,” Ami says.

Not every problem is visible to the larger community. “There are tons and tons and tons of side conversations that go on,” Ami says. “Sometimes I hear a story, ‘Oh, I met these people through Grit, and they saved my life.’”

“We were trying to build and let people know that they are safe to be vulnerable. It is culturally okay to say what you are really struggling with." 

- Ami Kassar (EO Philadelphia) 

The WhatsApp feed itself moves “100 miles a minute, all day long,” Ami admits. Mixed in with practical guidance, he posts daily several daily reflections and motivational sayings — “do not forget to imagine the best-case scenario, too” or “if you are too big to do the small things, you are too small to do the big things”— to encourage his peers to keep pressing forward. He is stunned that, for some, quick missives like those have made a lasting impact. “Some people write me from around the world,” he says. “They say, ‘I live by those things. They keep me going.’”

EO Grit does not pretend to be a panacea. “There is no way you can help everybody,” he says. “Not everyone is helpable.” But its ethos — raw, practical, sometimes messy — resonates, no matter the outcomes. What Ami once assumed would be a response to domestic economic difficulties has transcended borders. “I thought it would be very local, like these were U.S. problems,” he says, “but some of the beauty of it actually comes from the global perspectives.”

The organization has taken notice. To his surprise, at the 2025 Global Leadership Conference last April, Ami was called onstage and recognized with the Mark Lincoln Volunteer of the Year Award, given annually to an EO member who embodies servant leadership and generosity. He says the honor belongs to the entire EO Grit community rather than himself.

EO Executive Director Jamie Pujara presents the
Mark Lincoln Volunteer of the Year Award to Ami. 

That sort of recognition and broader participation among EO members has propelled EO Grit out of the digital world. In late April, the EO Grit “Unconference” will take place about an hour south of Atlanta. There will be no keynote speakers. No fixed agenda. The event can accommodate more than 100 attendees, and the plan will be simple: An empty whiteboard and an engaged group of entrepreneurs. Ami says the format is modeled on the same principles that animate the WhatsApp group. Participants will decide what problems matter, then work on them together. Demand has already outpaced expectations, with applications arriving from multiple countries. “There is so much to teach each other,” he says.

Long term, Ami resists defining EO Grit’s future. “I do not have one specific vision,” he says. “What I have learned over the years is you have to follow the flow of the community.”

For now, the center of gravity remains the same late-night impulse that sparked it all — a willingness to unite to untangle complex issues rather than ignore them, and a belief that entrepreneurs, given the chance, will show up for one another.

“I'm not the leader,” Ami says, “the community is.”

Interested in becoming an EO member like Ami? Learn more here.