Hello fam,
Take a peek at our Incubate 1 crew. Amazing turnout. Registrations are open for Session #2. See you there.
One of the most exciting parts about our job is the requirement to switch hats on the fly. From professor, to friend, to advisor, to investor and operator in a matter of seconds. Our team's day is always packed with meetings and tasks that require each of the above. That's what keeps us plugged into reality. It also gives us the joy of celebrating our student and alumni successes.
Today, we are proud and excited to share our first Accelerator exit. All the credit goes to this amazing founder. Read our take below.
“It's a good day to have a good day”
Karly Pavlinac
🚀 When Karly got selected into the Andrews Launch Accelerator, I couldn't help but think about how her journey started. 8 months before her pitch to the Andrews committee, she came into the Clinic to tell us about her idea. She had ran it by Lewis but I still needed to see what she was working on. The meeting was straight forward. When it ended, I was skeptical. I thought ‘thinking she could start a successful platform in the fitness space? Hmm Too hard’. Little did I know I had just chatted with the grittiest founder in the building. To shed some light here, in that first meeting I gave Karly a couple tough validation tasks to complete by the following week. 24hrs later she shoot me a text saying “I'm done, what else now?” That's when I knew she was serious. Between then and her pitch to Andrews she managed to build demand, get ripped off by a dev shop, and had found a developer (who'd later sue her!). So two weeks ago when I saw her in the Clinic signing acquisition papers, I was not surprised at all. From our side, we know the road was not easy or straight forward or maybe not even as sexy as some may have wanted. But if you ask me, her journey was pure success and can't wait to see as her growth explode as she joins The St. James and sooner than later launches another company. You can read WAAM's exit announcement here.
🦄 Imagine a university with infinite small synchronous classrooms that teaches only the most relevant skills to its students. To a certain degree that's what's on deck for On Deck.
📈 “11 Marketing Channels That Consistently Work for Founders” is a good primer on how startups should start proving demand. The road is much harder than it seems, but it doesn't hurt to start here.
🎯 Ah pricing. That mystic concept that no one can ever tell you how to determine. Well, the reason is most likely the inability to understand the need-based cause for price. Seth Godin, has a the simplest framework I've seen. Check out “Price, wants, needs and the perils of urgent”.
💰 "It's Madness That We Don't Pay College Athletes". Prove me…and Chris Bosh wrong.
Events
INCUBATE Session 2 - Learn and get coaching on what you specifically need to do to validate your idea and business potential.
Mentorship Meetup - Our last one for the semester.
eGames - Awards Ceremony
Our Full Calendar - 🤷🏽♂️
The Scoop
A couple teams are hiring, take a look:
Qlair
Looking for Business Development Intern
Amazing opportunity to get into tach. Check out the company here. Ping me and I can make a relevant intro if a fit.
BioMason
Required Skills and Interests:
Drive bioMASON’s market research
Proven ability to research creatively on cutting edge and disruptive technologies
Collect and disseminate market assumptions with evidence based approaches
Provide multiple fast paced research-based memos and reports to the various groups within the company, including Executive, Board and Investor level
Monitor trends and developments in the markets of competitors and current states of the art
Required Skills and Interests:
MBA or MS degree in Finance/Accounting/Business
At least 7 years of Finance / FP&A experience
Proven financial model capabilities utilizing Excel
Strong analytical abilities
Proficiently work with large data sets to draw conclusions and summarize findings
Proven communicator to senior leadership as well as to non-Finance audiences
Continuous process improvement mindset
Ability to execute under aggressive deadlines
Respond quickly and decisively to changing circumstances
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