Photo by Andrew Daddio

For Brandon Doby ’18 and Lauren Sanderson ’18, entrepreneurship exists at the intersection of business acumen and creative risk. These two seniors are both artists and business owners: They created ISO Film, a production company, as a Thought Into Action (TIA) venture in 2016, and have been making experimental films together ever since.

“To sustain yourself as an artist and to give yourself the opportunities to create exactly what you want to create, you need to master the business side, too,” said Doby, a studio arts major from Chicago.

Doby and Sanderson’s business venture took center stage during Colgate’s annual Entrepreneur Weekend April 7. The day was packed with pitching and networking, and it contained a few surprises for the pair.

Brandon Doby ’18 gives Jeff Sharp ’89 (left) a tour of Case-Geyer Library’s studio space

10:00 a.m.

While other student entrepreneurs arrived at the Hall of Presidents to set up their TIA booths, Sanderson and Doby had an impromptu breakfast meeting with Jeffrey Sharp ’89. A panelist during the event’s Shark Tank­­–style pitch competition, Sharp is a successful filmmaker who is known for Boys Don’t Cry and Proof.

The pair gave Sharp a tour of the state-of-the-art audio and video studios they use on the first floor of Case-Geyer Library. Before the studios were built, aspiring musicians and filmmakers like Sharp had to get creative with what Colgate had to offer.

“When we wanted to record music or sound for our movies, we would use the rehearsal spaces in Dana [Arts Center], or in the Chapel basement,” remembered Sharp. “When I think about why Colgate is such a great place for the arts, it’s because there are little spaces like that, available to anyone who’s looking for them.”

11:30 a.m.

Doby and Sanderson put the finishing touches on their ISO Film booth. The pair had clips of their previous projects — including music videos and experimental shorts — rolling on a TV screen and copies of screenplays on the table for visitors to look through.

ISO Film has two branches: ISO Works and ISO Labs. Through ISO Works, Sanderson and Doby take on commissioned projects like event coverage and music videos. Those paid projects help fund ISO Labs, which is the more experimental side of the business; through ISO Labs, the pair have directed several short films and recently finished a documentary.

1:30 p.m.

For this partnership, the main event was the Shark Tank-style competition. Doby and Sanderson gave a concise and compelling pitch to the panel of four “sharks” under a strict time limit — an ominous gong sound-effect rang through the Hall of Presidents when were up.

2:00 p.m.

The panel of “sharks” deliberated and awarded $1,000 to ISO. Sharp, however, had his own gift to give the ISO team: The filmmaker announced he would commission ISO to work on a small project for his production company.

Doby and Sanderson also won a $13,000 grant through the Colgate Entrepreneurs Fund. The program awards student-entrepreneurs with a seed grant, incubator space for the summer in Hamilton, and mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs.

“We’re going to take this full speed ahead,” said Sanderson, an English major. “We’re putting everything we have into the film production company, and hopefully the freelance projects coming in will be enough to sustain us, on top of our funding for our next project.”

Added Doby: “Where we’re at is kind of art commerce. And when we approach commerce, it still has our artistic imprint on it. It still has the poetry in it.”

Doby and Sanderson plan to move to Los Angeles together to grow their company, which has recently been incorporated in California. Also, Sanderson has another creative outlet — her book of poems, published through Write Bloody Publishing, comes out next March, which will be followed by a 20-stop book tour.

“I love that feeling of no net. No matter how big the checks get, there’s a no net sense of individual entrepreneurship that I think drives a lot of great art, because there’s a sense of survival in it,” Doby said.

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Student entrepreneur Christina Weiler ’21 pitches her venture to a panel of alumni. Photo by Andrew Daddio

During the 7th annual Entrepreneur Weekend, more than 250 alumni, parents, students, and friends came to campus to celebrate and advance the entrepreneurial endeavors of Colgate student entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneur Weekend is the capstone to the Thought Into Action (TIA) Incubator, a yearlong commitment in which students develop an idea and make it go live with the help of alumni mentors.

Last Saturday, students presented their TIA ventures in hopes of gaining further mentorship and financial support from the Colgate network. These ventures included for-profit, not-for-profit, and campus/community initiatives.

“Today is a day that can truly transform the trajectory of our students’ lives,” said Wills Hapworth ’07, a co-founder of TIA and the alumni director. “What you see here is how students turned their ideas into reality and, by doing so, begin to transform lives.”

That afternoon, during the panel discussion “Liberal Arts and Entrepreneurship,” panelists shared their experiences in entrepreneurship, highlighting the importance of establishing a good plan, being coachable, and working through failures. Panelists included: Bob Gold ’80, CEO and president of Ridgewood Capital; Jon Klein, co-founder of TAPP Media and former president at CNN/US; Jeffrey Sharp ’89, academy award winning filmmaker and president/CEO of Sharp Independent Pictures; and Katie Finnegan ’05, principal and founder at Store No. 8 and vice president at Incubation Walmart. Finnegan was also awarded the Alumni Council’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Alumni panelists highlighted the ways their Colgate education allowed them to be successful entrepreneurs.

“The liberal arts teaches you how to think,” said Finnegan, who was a history and religion double major. “It taught me how to dissect a problem and how to learn. I know how to take a situation and break it down into quantifiable parts to understand them.”

Sharp reiterated the importance of a Colgate education in fostering passion and entrepreneurial spirit. “Colgate, as a liberal arts institution and in the physical space we occupy,” he said, “offers these nooks and crannies and these places where you can go off to disappear, create, and explore your resources.”

Students then had the opportunity to pitch their ventures during a Shark Tank­–style competition for funding and other support from the panelists.

ISO Film, a creative content house that specializes in film and video production founded by Lauren Sanderson ’18 and Brandon Doby ’18, earned $1,000 and was given a chance to make a film with Academy Award-winning producer Sharp.

Loophole — a rubber ring phone grip and kickstand — and its founder Patrick Crowe ’18 earned $1,000; also, Gold and Finnegan placed orders for more than 2,000 units of branded products.

Gipper, an automated athletics communications service for high schools and colleges, earned $3,000, and Finnegan offered San Francisco office space to its founders Matthew Glick ’19, Jack Zamore ’20, Ruchit Shrestha ’20, and Abby Waxler ’19.

UCan, a social recycling system for colleges and universities that channels generated funds toward local anti-poverty organizations, earned $4,000 to expand its operations. Finnegan offered to connect UCan’s founder Christina Weiler ’21 with Walmart’s operations team to expand the project in Walmart retail stores.

“This money means so much to UCan, not just as an organization, but as a movement,” said Weiler. “Having this money will allow us to increase the quality of life for people across the country and increase recycling rates. The opportunity to involve communities around the country will help us facilitate that.”

Colgate’s leadership in liberal arts entrepreneurship was powerfully represented by the Thought Into Action student entrepreneurs who continue to illustrate the strong connection between liberal arts and entrepreneurship.

Over the past nine years, more than 500 Colgate entrepreneurs have gone through the TIA Incubator and launched their ventures, guided by more than 140 alumni, parent, and community mentors.

“Today’s economy requires people who not only get answers right, but more importantly, ask the right questions,” Michael Sciola, associate vice president of Institutional Advancement and Career Initiatives, said. “The TIA experience allows Colgate students to identify a problem and then create a solution that works. Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts, together, are powerful partners for future success.”

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If you walk from the center of Hamilton towards the Jug, you might notice a conspicuously laid out space at 20 Utica Street. An open design, akin to a WeWork space, presents itself. It is the home of the Colgate University Thought Into Action Incubator.

Many readers of this article may not be familiar with the Thought Into Action Incubator (TIA) at Colgate. It was the brainchild of Andy Greenfield ’74. Himself a successful entrepreneur, Greenfield approached then Colgate president Rebecca Chopp in 2009 with the notion that he could work with students who might have an idea (the “thought”) that they would like to turn into reality (the “action”).

TIA was born. Eight students worked with Greenfield that year. The following year, Greenfield was joined by Bob Gold ’80 and Wills Hapworth ’07, and TIA started to take a significantly larger form. I was lucky to join them in 2011, and am now part of a legion of 147 mentors who collectively have worked with students for over 22,000 hours.

So, what does TIA actually do? Again, the incubator serves to work with student entrepreneurs who have an idea that they would like to turn into reality. The entrepreneurs, upon acceptance into the program, commit to working relentlessly on giving life to their ideas. To quote the TIA website, “participating requires hard work, passion and perseverance as entrepreneurs refine their ideas, learn the art of the pitch, solve problems, deal with failure, build teams and attract investors and assets for growth.” What makes TIA unique is that it takes potency from parent and alumni entrepreneurs who volunteer to come up to campus once a month to spend a Saturday coaching student entrepreneurs. The mentors have deep experience in building companies, running non-profit organizations and draw from their experience in guiding the students.

For the entrepreneurs, it requires a sizable commitment of time. Entrepreneurs are cautioned that the time commitment might feel like a fifth course. We are clear that the academic load at Colgate takes absolute priority, which means TIA will require that an entrepreneur will have less free time. Most of the entrepreneurs would anecdotally add that the time is well spent.

The footprint of TIA has quietly grown large. Over its nine year life, 490 entrepreneurs representing 320 ventures have taken advantage of TIA. Those ventures can take the form of a for-profit business, a Colgate campus enrichment program or a non-profit enterprise. In addition, many of TIA’s entrepreneurs have made good use of the Colgate Entrepreneurs Fund, which gives grants to student and alumni ventures to come to Hamilton for a summer, use the incubator space on Utica Street and take advantage of the advice and counsel of 40+ mentors. To date, 27 teams have benefited from the “eFund”, and the results are impressive. By our count, those ventures have created over 100 jobs. 17 ventures are still up and running. The ventures have benefited from $375,000 of seed grant capital, and have raised close to $12,000,000 in follow-on capital!

When I describe TIA to friends and alumni, one of the immediate reactions is for them to thank me for donating my time. While I appreciate the sentiment, I take issue with any notion that my mentoring is a charitable activity. I am taking at least as much away from TIA as I am giving. The relationships with students and alumni of every age cohort are invaluable, and the excitement of watching entrepreneurs hatch their ideas gives all of us at TIA an incredible sense of fulfillment.

So, if you pass by 20 Utica Street, take a good look at the facility. If you have an idea, and want to do something about it, check out TIA on the Colgate website. Then, don’t hesitate to take action, apply and hopefully we will see you come September.

(The above article appeared in the February 18 issue of the Colgate Maroon News and is reprinted with permission.)

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While a student at Colgate, Alex Montgomery ‘11 worked as a volunteer firefighter with the Hamilton FD and during the summers worked as a Wildland Firefighter in Tucson, AZ. In both capacities, Alex became very familiar with the typical daily tasks of a firefighter. One particularly painstaking process involved checking all of the apparatus and equipment using pen and paper for reporting. The process was old-fashioned and time-consuming and given how annoying it was, inevitably resulting in either: not happening in the first place, getting oil on the report, forgetting to submit the report to an administrator on duty . . . or some other variation of things falling through the cracks – putting the safety of the firefighters at risk.

After Colgate, Alex began a career as a software engineer developing enterprise and SaaS software. Leveraging the skills and knowledge he developed in these roles, he wanted to revisit that nagging problem of the firefighter’s ‘truck check’ and see if he could develop a software solution for the ‘first response’ industry. He began talking to a few fire departments, and to his surprise, the problem of outdated reporting systems still existed, and actually went much deeper. It didn’t just affect the firefighters themselves, but also affected the administrative systems as a whole. At a base level, department administrators lacked easy access to actionable data about the status of their fleet and equipment.

Determined to finally do something about the problem, Alex recruited two trusted Colgate partners, Alex Krill ‘11 and Adam Pratt ‘18, and the Halligan team was born. They immediately got to work on rolling out the initial product while going through the TIA incubator. Then, using resources from the Colgate Entrepreneurs Fund grant, they launched the initial product in beta in Q3 of 2016.

During this time, the Halligan team constantly iterated on their go-to-market strategy and gained incredible insight from TIA mentors on how to find product-market fit. In January of 2017, Halligan made its first sale and hasn’t looked back. With nearly 170 paying departments, large strategic partners in the space, and a best in class software solution, what started as an annoyance about the ‘truck check’ process has turned into the dominant fleet and equipment management platform for first responders.

With the continued support of TIA, Halligan continues to improve the lives of first responders around the country by making their work easier, safer and more effective.

2017 Highlights
• 165 paying customers
• $160,000 booked of Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
• Strategic partnership with Emergency Reporting
• Negotiating with purchasing department for first large Metro customer

2018 Plan
• Deepen Emergency Reporting Partnership
• Investment in product to continue to push into EMS space
• Explore product fit for police departments
• Explore strategic partnership with another big player in the space
• Grow bookings to $550k ARR
• Raise a round of capital to capitalize on this opportunity and aggressively grow the business.

Thank you to everyone that’s supported, advised, critiqued, connected and more…we wouldn’t be where we are without you!!

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The TIA Summit Series is a workshop and speaker series for the entire campus, covering entrepreneurial topics. The series was developed by a TIA student three years ago to supplement the curriculum of the monthly TIA workshops. We’ve hosted workshops on building a website on a shoestring budget; how to make a Kickstarter video; how to conduct surveys for market validation; and how to 3D print. Speakers have included Sian-Pierre Regis ’06 on how to build a personal brand; Deborah Tutnauer ’81 on how women can demand their worth; and Cindi Bigelow of Bigelow teas on running a successful family-owned business. We partner with clubs, academic departments, or offices such as when TIA students present at department brown bags or similar events. Students have presented to the Women’s Studies brown bag that is typically attended by over 100 students each week. Other examples are students with technology-driven ventures who have presented at Computer Sciences; ventures with a social component at the Center for Outreach, Volunteerism, and Education (COVE); and ventures around sustainability or are environmentally conscious at Environmental Studies.

One current goal of the series is to highlight our belief that entrepreneurship is not just about starting a business; but rather is about identifying a problem and creating a solution for that problem. Through the Summit Series we are able to demonstrate how entrepreneurship can be applied to just about any academic or personal interest.

Startup Experience – NYC
January 13 – 17, 2018

As part of the TIA Summit Series, we are excited to bring the Startup Experience 2-day entrepreneurship program to Colgate University! The Startup Experience is an intensive hands-on workshop for future entrepreneurs and social innovators.

This is a unique opportunity to learn what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur. Students will hear from experienced global entrepreneurs and will work in a team to transform a big problem into a new opportunity for a startup company. During the program participants will learn what it means to have an entrepreneurial mindset, how to be more creative, how to test innovative ideas, and how to build a real viable company in just two days.

The workshop will be led by serial entrepreneur Henrik Scheel who grew up in Denmark but now lives in Silicon Valley, California. Henrik brings a wealth of experience from the startup ecosystem in San Francisco and has worked with entrepreneurs in 25 countries around the world.

This program is for anyone interested in being a change maker – the skills learned can be applied in all industries and in all careers.

The workshop will be followed by an immersion trip to New York City. Students will spend one full day visiting startups in the city capped off by a Colgate Professional Network event in the evening. This is a perfect opportunity for students to experience first hand the fast-paced and exciting world of startups at every level.

The workshop and immersion trip are sponsored by Thought Into Action, Entrepreneurship at Colgate and the Fox Leadership Endowment. Thank you to all who support these initiatives so that we are able to provide these experiences for our students.

REGISTER

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Students gather to watch Ryan Diew ’17 on Shark Tank, October 1. (Photo by Andrew Daddio)

Much has happened since Ryan Diew ’17 stepped in front of cameras in early June to pitch his travel app, Trippie, on ABC’s Shark Tank.

Investors on the season nine premiere that aired October 1 pulled no punches in their criticism of the app, but Diew says he took their advice to heart, and he has been hard at work making Trippie the best airport navigation tool available on the Apple Store.

“I really have taken heed of a lot of their advice,” said Diew. “I think that I let my emotions get the best of me toward the end. I am really passionate about this, and I broke down, and that’s something I’ve learned from. I’ll never do that again.”

Trippie has expanded from four to 16 airports since the Shark Tank episode was filmed in June, and it now covers locations that account for 82 percent of all U.S. domestic air travel.

Ryan Diew ’17 (Photo by Mark DiOrio)

Despite being chewed to pieces by the “sharks,” Diew said that in the hours after the episode aired, Trippie was downloaded nearly 12,000 times before the web server he rented to keep up with demand crashed from the traffic. Even with technical problems, Trippie ranked 21st in travel on the App store on Monday, Oct. 2, and Diew expects his Android version to launch later this week.

“This was the chance of a lifetime, and I don’t regret any of it. The progress that we’ve made since my pitch has been amazing,” Diew said. “We’ve expanded and added functionality, making the app better. I’ll just continue to keep pushing.”

Colgate Associate Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Career Initiatives Michael Sciola said he admired Diew’s willingness to put himself in front of an audience of millions in pursuit of his entrepreneurial dream.

“At Colgate, we teach our students that it is impossible to win a game if you are afraid to take a shot,” Sciola said. “I admire that Ryan took the chance to move his business forward and know that he will use this as a learning experience. I cannot wait to see what happens next!”

Thought Into Action Alumni Executive Director Wills Hapworth ’07 said he’s been impressed with Diew’s grit and resilience. “His response to Shark Tank and Mark Cuban’s tough questions was to double down on product development and growth so he would be prepared for the bump he expected after the episode’s airing. He was laser focused over the past few months. That is the heart of a true entrepreneur. I know these are traits that have served him well in the classroom and on the basketball court, and now hopefully in business as well. It will be one of the marks of his life going forward. We are proud of Ryan.”

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Ryan Diew ’17

A fledgling idea, born during an airport layover and cultivated with the help of Colgate’s Thought Into Action Entrepreneurship Incubator, has landed a recent alumnus on the two-hour season premiere of ABC’s Shark Tank, this Sunday, October 1, at 8 p.m.

While a press embargo restricts what exactly happened when Ryan Diew ’17 plunged into the tank to ask for funding from America’s most beloved — and sometimes reviled — venture capitalists, he promises the appearance is one to remember.

“I think they liked the idea, they liked my hustle, and they liked my grit,” said Diew, who graduated with a degree in computer science and played Division I basketball while at Colgate. Diew said he expects to appear during the show’s second hour.

Diew came up with his business, a phone app called Trippie, when he was a sophomore traveling from Colgate to his home in Oakland, Calif. During a long layover, he wanted to grab some food, but he also didn’t want to lug all of his carry-on baggage through the airport. So, he let a stranger watch his bags. He also didn’t want his quest for food to result in a missed flight.

Ryan Diew on the court

He thought there had to be a better way. So, he invented one.

“Trippie is essentially an airport mapping service that allows travelers to explore a detailed interactive map of the airport to immediately get the lay of the land,” Diew explained. “It displays menus, reviews, hours, and even calculates how long it takes to get to your favorite food spot or restaurant so you don’t miss your flight.”

Trippie wasn’t always about helping travelers quickly locate food or stores in airports. When he first brought his idea to the TIA incubator, Diew was hoping to develop an airport food delivery app.

“If I really wanted this idea to be a thing, TIA was the place to go,” said Diew, but the experienced alumni entrepreneurs in the group quickly poked holes in his plan. “They pushed back immediately. When you’re in college and you have no experience, how are you going to hire the employees in the airport? How are you going to do this, do that? There’s was so much red tape, but I didn’t want to give up.”

Diew taught himself how to code Swift, one of the most popular app development languages, and he has worked to refine the product ever since. He also worked with former Colgate student Samantha Braver, and the two pitched Trippie at the 2016 TIA Entrepreneur Weekend, where they took away more than $22,000 in funding. Braver later left Trippie for a job at Apple.

In 2017, Trippie was selected as a TIA Entrepreneurs Fund recipient, which gave Diew $15,000 toward his venture and workspace in the downtown Hamilton incubator to work full time on his product. He was contacted for the Shark Tank opportunity after his business appeared in an Inc.com Coolest College Startup competition.

“Above all else, Ryan is insanely passionate about Trippie, and all of his mentors have seen this and admire this about him. In his view, the world will cease to exist without the app, and that’s exactly the mentality that every entrepreneur needs to have,” said TIA Alumni Executive Director Wills Hapworth ’07. “As we say in TIA, passion is the fuel for action, and that’s exactly what has kept Ryan coming back to the challenge of Trippie, despite setbacks and pivots. We are very confident he will figure out how to thread the needle and make Trippie a huge success that helps millions of people!”

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When I flashback seven years ago to the day I joined TIA, I remember a know-it-all freshman, showing up to every meeting late and showing up to the TIA demo day during eWeekend with a cardboard slab and some pictures sloppily glued on. Joining TIA in freshman year to support my band (Shav & Mentos), I naively thought TIA could be a shot at connecting with someone who could help us quickly “blow up” in the music industry.

Fast forward four years, and that same weekend I was facing Jessica Alba and MC Hammer on stage in front of the entire school pitching a prepared presentation on indify, a startup that helps music professionals discover the top up and coming artists using a proprietary algorithm. That eWeekend, indify received $25,000 in grant money from TIA and a workspace for the summer.

After the TIA-style shark tank, I learned that we had not even crossed the starting line on our journey.

Our team started work on indify full-time and spent over a year in my basement simply building the indify product. Matt Pavia, our CTO, was our only software engineer and the person building the product day in and day out. Over the course of the two years, Matt spearheaded massive moments for indify such as our first artist addition (45,000 artists), iteration of our proprietary algorithm, and a redesign of the entire indify product. He singlehandedly coded the platform.

Meanwhile, our Chief Content Officer, Connor Lawrence built an editorial campaign around the artists doing well on our platform that slowly became the backbone for music discovery in the music industry. The slow grind of adding valued music professionals to the editorial list over two years and proving that indify’s predictions are accurate via the content we sent to them (Khalid, DRAM, Post Malone, Maggie Rogers, Desiigner, Amine) led us to moments like our Pigeons & Planes collaboration, our NME collaboration, our Cycle Collaboration, and most importantly our building trust with the top companies in the music industry.

During this time, I learned to pitch to investors/raise funds, sell/excite music professionals about our product, and direct and manage our team towards a set vision. A major moment on the business front was raising funding from Ash Pournouri, Avicii’s former manager and Symposium co-creator who believed in the indify vision and invested pre-seed funding at a crucial time. Now, more than two years after working on indify full-time, we’ve closed our first two deals with major record labels.

What I’ve learned since being a TIA freshman is that there is no such thing as a quick “blow up”. It has been two years since starting work on indify full-time, and I feel like we are now just crossing the starting line. While the TIA shark tank was a key spark for indify, it was the lessons I learned over the course of my time at TIA that I’ve carried with me and will continue to carry with me on the journey of building indify.

Conviction in vision, personal brand, product testing, smart pivots/adjustments, unwavering resilience, and relentless execution are a few of the many values that TIA taught me. TIA gives us founders the blueprint needed to build the foundation of a disruptive startup. Wills [Hapworth], Andy [Greenfield], Mary [Galvez], and the rest of the TIA mentors & staff, I cannot thank you enough for your continued support and coaching. We could not have done it without you.

As indify continues to grow, we ask for your help in connecting us with anyone you feel may add value to our business (shav@indify.io). For continued updates on indify and the artists we love, feel free to sign up for our newsletter here.

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eFund 2017 (l-r) Rob Carroll ’15, Pat Crowe ’18, Grace O’Shea ’11, Matthew Glick ’19, Jack Zamore ’20, Cody Semrau ’14, Nick Freud ’15, Mary Galvez & Wills Hapworth

Hello Colgate Entrepreneurship Community!

We are excited to share that we just wrapped up another high-energy summer of the Colgate Entrepreneurs Fund (eFund); we are also sad to see the teams go! Here are the ventures that made up the 5th eFund cohort and with whom we had the fortune of working over the last six weeks.

The teams worked 24/7 on their ventures at the TIA Incubator in Hamilton and during that time we witnessed numerous accomplishments, including: celebrating their first sales; making hard and critical decisions about their product based on customer feedback; aggressively hunting down leads from the Colgate/TIA network; making their first hires; learning the do’s and don’ts of effective selling; sharing best practices on business operations with one and other; and more. Here is a bit more on what transpired while the teams were in Hamilton:

5th Year of the Entrepreneurs Fund by the Numbers

• 5 new teams participated this summer from June 5th – July 14th
• $65K in grants awarded to the ventures, many putting these funds to work on digital marketing, product development, hiring, legal and more
• 40+ mentors engaged more than 100 times
• Mentors (alums, parents, faculty, staff and community members) collectively gave over 450 hours of their time mentoring both in person and remotely

We heard first-hand how much the teams benefitted from the Colgate community and the hours of mentoring they received, and how immensely grateful they are for the experience. The teams now continue on in their journeys to build profitable and high growth businesses, buoyed by TIA and the larger Colgate entrepreneurship community, which we repeatedly say is a membership for life. We are extremely proud of all that they accomplished this summer, and thrilled to see them join the eFund legacy, which has had an impressive impact since its inception. Here is a little more on what the eFund has accomplished over the past 5 years:

Entrepreneurs Fund Inception to Date

• 27 teams awarded a seed grant to date
• ~7 highly qualified Colgate alumni/parent entrepreneurs have screened the applications every year
• $375K of seed capital deployed through generous gifts from alums and parents, with funds supporting product development, digital marketing, key hires, legal, and other growth functions
• $11.9MM+ of investment capital subsequently raised by eFund teams
• 17 ventures still currently operating; batting well over .500 which is great for startup odds
• ~100 full-time jobs created and still filled by eFund ventures, and many more part-time positions created
• 2,200+ hours of time donated by mentors, on average about 40+ mentors engaging more than 100 times every summer

Thank you to all the mentors that accelerated these ventures, to Colgate for fostering such a collaborative environment, to the entrepreneurs for their tireless work and making us all look good, and to the TIA team that keeps things running smoothly. Let’s keep the energy high and continue turning thoughts into action!

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Founder Grace O’Shea ’11 (second from right) and her colleagues from room2learn, a company that provides custom-design solutions for school communities. She developed the idea for the company when she was working as an 8th grade science teacher and realized the need for more flexible classroom space.

If Grace O’Shea ’11 could describe her perfect work environment, there’s a good chance it would look something like Colgate’s Thought Into Action Incubator located in the heart of downtown Hamilton. After all, its spacious layout, flexible seating options, and co-working environment are exactly what her spatial design company, room2learn, creates for its clients.

Luckily enough, O’Shea spent the beginning of her summer in the incubator working to grow her company as one of the 2017 Colgate Entrepreneurs Fund winners. She belongs to one of five teams that each received a $12,000 grant, mentoring, and use of the incubator space for the summer.

The other winners included Patrick Crowe ’18, founder of Loophole; Rob Carroll ’15 and Nick Freud ’15, co-founders of CampusReel; Matthew Glick ’19 and Jack Zamore ’20, co-founders of Gipper; and Cody Semrau ’14, founder of BetterMynd. The fund was established in 2013 with a lead gift from Dan and Linda Rosensweig P’15, ’17 to support the business ventures of action-oriented start-ups that have at least one Colgate member on their founding team.

Although O’Shea and her team are still determining how they will allocate their funding, she says that the intellectual guidance they’ve received is priceless.

“Colgate has an alumni network like no other,” O’Shea said. “All the human capital that Colgate has to offer and the way that people lend their ears and advice to the TIA community — I think that’s pretty amazing.”

Successful entrepreneurism draws heavily on ways of thinking that are integral to a liberal arts education, explained Meg Blume-Kohout, visiting assistant professor of economics and TIA faculty mentor. “The TIA student-entrepreneurs throw their hearts, time, and effort into creating something new, and for many of them, their venture is an expression of their own identity and social consciousness.”

As for O’Shea’s secret to success? “Figure out if you have something valuable to offer,” she advised hopeful entrepreneurs. “Talk to people about it. Put a prototype in the hands of someone else. Don’t be afraid to take the first steps toward putting your thought into action.”

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