Princeton Spark

Our season-long series on Adora Experiences continues. In this episode, we’ll answer the question: how can students take a business from zero to product to multiple enterprise customers? The Princeton Spark is a production of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. The views expressed by our guests on this show are theirs and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, the Office of the Dean for Research, Princeton Innovation, or Princeton University. If you haven’t subscribed to the show yet, please do so wherever you listen to podcasts.  Thanks for listening.

How Adora, universities, and admissions offices (including Princeton’s) were upended due to the pandemic and needed to respond in real-time. Orange Key tours at Princeton's Office of Admission Adora Experiences North Dakota State University Admission Office Coalition for College The Princeton Spark is a production of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. The views expressed by our guests on this show are theirs and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, the Office of the Dean for Research, Princeton Innovation, or Princeton University. If you haven’t subscribed to the show yet, please do so wherever you listen to podcasts.  Thanks for listening.

With Joseph Rubin '22 on board, Adora brought the pieces together to make a "real thing".

Season 3, Episode 2 No entrepreneur truly goes it alone. When Ron Miasnik '22 needed someone to help realize a vision of better campus tours, he turned to his good friend, tour guide and designer Raya Ward '22. This season of the Princeton Spark podcast focuses on Adora, a uniquely Princeton story of a startup that found opportunity even in a global pandemic and achieved a dream exit. With support from the Princeton entrepreneurial ecosystem, this team of student entrepreneurs built a company that disrupted the college tour industry and enabled more lower-income prospective students to access more colleges across the nation. SHOW NOTES Learn more about the Princeton Office of Undergraduate Admission, the Orange Key tours and Outdoor Action. CREDITS Produced by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Sound design and music by Wright Seneres. Theme music by the Treadmills. Engineered by Wright remotely and Dan Kearns at the Princeton Broadcast Center. Edited by Brandon Apter.

Season 3, Episode 1 The origin of the idea for Adora and how Ron Miasnik '22 got here. With support from the Princeton entrepreneurial ecosystem, this team of student entrepreneurs built a company that disrupted the college tour industry and enabled more lower-income prospective students to access more colleges across the nation. This season of the Princeton Spark podcast will focus on Adora, a uniquely Princeton story of a startup that found opportunity even in a global pandemic and achieved a dream exit.   SHOW NOTES Learn more about the Princeton Office of Undergraduate Admission. CREDITS Produced by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Sound design and music by Wright Seneres. Theme music by the Treadmills. Engineered by Wright remotely and Dan Kearns at the Princeton Broadcast Center. Edited by Brandon Apter.

In part 2 of a two-part mini-series, you will learn how analyze a job offer from a startup to see if it is the right offer and the right job for you. From the “You Have a Job Offer from a Startup. Now What?” workshop held by Princeton Entrepreneurship Council and Princeton’s Center for Career Development on February 10, 2020. Listen to part 1 in your favorite podcast app. SHOW NOTES Tom Vander Schaaff ‘96 is venture capitalist who will share his insights about how and why you should evaluate the company as an investor would. This will help you to maximize the likelihood that you are selecting a company that has the right team, the right market, the right product/market fit and the right financial health to ensure that your career gets off to a great start. Rachel Yee ’19 took the entrepreneurial plunge after graduation. She works for True Talent Advisory. Rachel can share her observations as someone who works in the recruiting and talent management field and also has great insights into the startups that work with True. Greg Brooks is a Principal with True Search. He began his career at Vanguard in their Retail Brokerage division before pivoting into executive search. His experience ranges from early and growth-stage startups to public companies, across a variety of functions including Finance, Operations, Human Resources, and Marketing. Recently he has been focusing on Investor roles in Venture Capital and Private Equity. CREDITS Produced by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Sound design and music by Wright Seneres. Theme music by the Treadmills (Wright Seneres, electric guitar and electric bass; John Damond, Jr., drums). Engineered by Neal Bituin on location at the Center for Career Development, and Dan Kearns at the Princeton Broadcast Center. Edited and mixed by Wright Seneres. Special thanks to Alice Seneres, Scott Colan, Neal Bituin, Jason Meyer, Tom Vander Schaaff, Rachel Yee, Greg Brooks, and the Center for Career Development.

The various people that make up the Princeton entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem have long been at work, taking risks to bring transformational ideas and companies to the world, in the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity. These are the stories of Entrepreneurship the Princeton Way. Welcome to the Princeton Spark. I’m your host, Wright Seneres, social media and marketing specialist at the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Listen and subscribe to the Princeton Spark, wherever you get your podcasts. Music by the Treadmills (Wright Seneres on guitar and bass, John Damond, Jr. on drums)

Learn how analyze a job offer from a startup to see if it is the right offer and the right job for you. From the “You Have a Job Offer from a Startup. Now What?” workshop held by Princeton Entrepreneurship Council and Princeton’s Center for Career Development on February 10, 2020. An abbreviated version of the content presented here was originally released as a two-part mini-series. You can find Parts 1 and 2 at our Episodes page. SHOW NOTES Jason Meyer ’80 is both an entrepreneur and a venture lawyer. He will help you understand the non-cash components of the offer such as the different types of equity, options and vesting. He will also address key issues such as non-compete clauses, which may impact your ability to work elsewhere and your status as an employee or a contractor. Tom Vander Schaaff ‘96 is a partner at Edison Partners who will share his insights about how and why you should evaluate the company as an investor would. This will help you to maximize the likelihood that you are selecting a company that has the right team, the right market, the right product/market fit and the right financial health to ensure that your career gets off to a great start. Rachel Yee ’19 took the entrepreneurial plunge after graduation. She works for True Talent Advisory. Rachel can share her observations as someone who works in the recruiting and talent management field and also has great insights into the startups that work with True. Greg Brooks is a Principal with True Search. He began his career at Vanguard in their Retail Brokerage division before pivoting into executive search. His experience ranges from early and growth-stage startups to public companies, across a variety of functions including Finance, Operations, Human Resources, and Marketing. Recently he has been focusing on Investor roles in Venture Capital and Private Equity. Produced by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Engineered by Neal Bituin on location at the Center for Career Development. Edited and mixed by Wright Seneres.

In part 1 of a two-part mini-series, you will learn how analyze a job offer from a startup to see if it is the right offer and the right job for you. From the "You Have a Job Offer from a Startup. Now What?" workshop held by Princeton Entrepreneurship Council and Princeton's Center for Career Development on February 10, 2020. SHOW NOTES Jason Meyer '80 is both an entrepreneur and a venture lawyer. He will help you understand the non-cash components of the offer such as the different types of equity, options and vesting. He will also address key issues such as non-compete clauses, which may impact your ability to work elsewhere and your status as an employee or a contractor. CREDITS Produced by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Sound design and music by Wright Seneres. Theme music by the Treadmills (Wright Seneres, electric guitar and electric bass; John Damond, Jr., drums). Engineered by Neal Bituin on location at the Center for Career Development, and Dan Kearns at the Princeton Broadcast Center. Edited and mixed by Wright Seneres.

In this episode, we’ll explore mentorship. Even if you’re a solo entrepreneur, it takes a range of people around you to make an impact. Building a strong network of advisors and mentors is critical for any entrepreneurial endeavor, because no one does it alone. And so, how do you develop a good, productive relationship with a mentor? What kinds of questions should you be asking? What should you not do? We’ll get into all these questions and we’ll explore both sides of the table with Lynda Clarizio '82, Laurence Latimer *01, and Ashanthi Mathai '95. SHOW NOTES Lynda Clarizio '82 and Laurence Latimer *01 are active mentors on PEC's OfficeHours startup advice platform. Lynda is an attorney who has been president or CEO of several companies and sits on the boards of several public and private companies. She is the co-founder of Brilliant Friends (with Joy Marcus '83), an investment group that invests in women-led businesses. Laurence Latimer *01 is Head of Ventures at tech company IEX. He is also an active member of Princeton Alumni Angels. Ashanthi Mathai '95 is the CEO of Pocket Naxolone Corporation. This startup is answering the US Food and Drug Administration's call for an over-the-counter naxolone product to fight the opioid crisis. CREDITS Produced by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Music by Wright Seneres. Theme music by the Treadmills (Wright Seneres, electric guitar and electric bass; John Damond, Jr., drums). Engineered by Dan Kearns at the Princeton Broadcast Center and Wright Seneres on location in New York City. Edited and mixed by Wright Seneres. Promotional ad by Pilar Castro-Kiltz '10 and Aaron Landsman, engineered by Jonathan Sweeney at the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University.

We do something a little different in this episode: We turn the mic around and answer the question: “What does the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council do?” To help us answer this question, we talk to several Princeton alums whom PEC has helped, and more.  For more Princeton Spark, follow us on Twitter @PrincetonSpark and Instagram @PrincetonSpark, and check us out on the web at princetonspark.com.  SHOW NOTES Lauren Bender is the Princeton AEF Program Manager. You can reach her at labender@princeton.edu. Read more about AEF at entrepreneurs.princeton.edu/aef. Get in touch if you’re interested in career opportunities with these exciting startups.  Vaidhy Murti ‘15 and his startup Friendsy was in the first Princeton AEF cohort. Check out his new app Wit at the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. Friendsy does still exist! Check it out at friendsyapp.com. Vaidhy appeared in our first and in our third episodes.  Allan Amico ’13 founded DonorUP, a giving platform that helps you connect with causes you care about. You can get DonorUP at the Apple App Store.  Princeton AEF’s Bryton Shang ‘12 is the founder of Aquabyte, which uses computer vision, machine learning and AI to help make fish farms more sustainable.  Princeton AEF’s Vivian Wang ‘15 is the co-founder of Friendshop (gofriendshop.com), a beauty e-commerce site where friends get deals on makeup and skin care products. She obtained funding from Nassau Street Ventures, headed by Tom Meyer ’87. Along with Chaac Ventures (led by Luke Armour ’13) and FitzGate Ventures (led by Jim Cohen ’86 and Mark Poag ’93), these venture funds are focused on Princeton startups.  Marcus Stroud ‘16 of TXV Partners appeared on the first episode of the Princeton Spark. Matthew Quilter ’74 is partner at Fenwick & West. Both participated in a panel discussion on capital fundraising at the 2019 Bay Area Tiger Entrepreneurs Conference.  Princeton Alumni Angels are located in San Francisco and New York City.  Before PEC, there was the “E-Club” (Princeton Entrepreneurship Club) and the Keller Center.  The strategic framework adopted by the Board of Trustees gave rise to the Princeton Entrepreneurial Advisory Committee (PEAC). As recommended in their report, PEC was created. A member of PEAC, John Diekman ’65 is founder of 5AM Ventures.   Nikhil Basu Trivedi ’11 is managing director at Shasta Ventures.  Princeton Innovation Center BioLabs is the University’s wetlab an...

The Princeton Spark went to Thrive: Celebrating and Empowering Princeton’s Black Alumni in search of number #1 tips for networking for startup founders. Entrepreneurial alums Carla Vernón ’92, Kareem Maddox ’11, Hank Boyd ’86, Ian Thomson ’09, Theola DeBose ’96 and Kwanza Jones ’93 gave us some tremendous networking advice.   For more Princeton Spark, follow us on Twitter @PrincetonSpark and Instagram @PrincetonSpark, and check us out on the web at princetonspark.com.  SHOW NOTES Carla Vernón was the subject of an excellent profile by The Alumni Society in 2018. Fun fact: her mother Cynthia was one of NASA’s “Hidden Figures” in 1963. Carla is @CarlaInspired on Twitter and the creator of Tiger Sisters.  Kareem Maddox is a producer at The Pitch, an entrepreneurship podcast by Spotify/Gimlet Media. In his spare time, he’s only just a gold medal-winning Team USA 3x3 basketball player. Check him out on Twitter at @kareemmaddox.  Dr. Hank Boyd, Esq. is a clinical professor of marketing at the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business, attorney, writer, and consultant for clients such as the NFL, Verizon, and Stanley Black and Decker.   Ian Thomson has been all around the world and then some – you’ll just have to read this profile in “the Prince” to take it all in. Get in touch with him for his bespoke executive search services at OneBridge Partners.  Theola DeBose once went from the Metro desk directly to Iraq, all covered in this recent Washingtonian profile about her life after journalism. You can get in touch with Theola on Twitter at @myjskills or @theolita10. Kwanza Jones, a self-professed catalyst, is the Founder and CEO of SUPERCHARGED, a lifestyle brand and development app. You can find her on Twitter at @thekwanzajones.  Read more about Thrive: Celebrating and Empowering Princeton’s Black Alumni at thrive.princeton.edu and our recap of the entrepreneurially-focused programming at the PEC website.  CREDITS Produced by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Music by Wright Seneres. Theme music by the Treadmills (Wright Seneres, electric guitar and electric bass; John Damond, Jr., drums). Engineered by Dan Kearns and Dan Quiyu at the Princeton Broadcast Center, and Wright Seneres on location at the Thrive conference. Edited and mixed by Wright Seneres. Promotional readings by Megan Donahey '20. SHARE Twitter: @PrincetonSparkInstagram: @PrincetonSpark Facebook:

Persisting Through Failure with Stuart Ahlum '13, Vaidhy Murti '15 and Pilar Castro-Kiltz '10 SHOW NOTES: Check out Thousand Fell's circular and sustainable sneakers at thousandfell.com. Early mailing list subscribers will have access to Thousand Fell's first 1000 pairs! Check out Friendsy at friendsyapp.com and Wit at getwit.app. Check out Princeton Arts Alumni at ptonartsalumni.org and More Canvas Consulting at morecanvas.com. CREDITS: Produced by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Music by Wright Seneres. Theme music by the Treadmills (Wright Seneres, electric guitar and electric bass; John Damond, Jr., drums). Engineered by Dan Kearns and Dan Quiyu at the Princeton Broadcast Center. Edited and mixed by Wright Seneres. Promotional readings by Megan Donahey '20. TRANSCRIPT: From the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, this is the Princeton Spark. I’m Wright Seneres.  The various people that make up the Princeton entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem have long been at work, taking risks to bring transformational ideas and companies to the world, in the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity. These are the stories of Entrepreneurship the Princeton Way.  At PEC, we support Princeton-connected startups and help to build the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem in New Jersey and beyond.  In our series-opening three episodes, we are exploring three important aspects of entrepreneurship. If you haven’t heard the first episode on taking risks, or the second episode on thriving under uncertainty, they are available now at princetonspark.com or wherever you get your podcasts, so please check them out.  It’s a widely held notion that most startups fail. Depending on whom you ask, it’s somewhere between 50 to 90 percent. That’s a lot.  But it’s also a common phrase that investors like to back the jockey, not the horse. That is to say, the person and team executing the idea can be more important than the idea itself. In this episode of the Princeton Spark, we will talk to entrepreneurs who quote-unquote failed in their first startups. They got back on the entrepreneurial horse, and now are on to their next startups and endeavors. We’ll explore how they persisted through failure, on their way to success. Our first one today is Stuart Ahlum.  My name is Stuart Ahlum, I’m Princeton class of 2013. I’m an entrepreneur, and I run a company called Thousand Fell.  Stuart is the co-founder of Thousand Fell, a completely circular and sustainable sneaker company. His first startup, a sneaker company called House of Future, received an investment from the Princeton Alumni Entrepreneurs Fund in 2017. Normally, after funding from Princeton in the form of AEF, a company would be on their way.   Fast forward a year, and Stuart wound up leaving House of Future. During our interview, he wasn’t able to get into the specifics of why he left. But more importantly, he could talk about what he learned from the process.  I think when you're in it, and when things aren't going well, it feels like an epic failure. And it's hard to separate yourself, you're so close to these projects, you're pouring all of your time and energy into it. And it's hard to take a step back. I think what I've learned is when I've kind of cleared those hurdles, and finished with projects, we've finished with companies, and had an opportunity to sort of really decompress and figure out what I've learned. It's just fantastic learning opportunities. And you're able to kind of pick up a really important set of skills a...

Thriving Under Uncertainty with Brooks Powell '17 and Pilar Castro-Kiltz '10 SHOW NOTES: Watch Brooks Powell pitch at Shark Tank. Find alcohol-related health from Cheers at cheershealth.com. Learn more about Princeton Arts Alumni and their "Alumni in the Arts" programming. Learn more about More Canvas Consulting: Business Management for the Arts. CREDITS: Produced by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Music by Wright Seneres. Theme music by the Treadmills (Wright Seneres, electric guitar and electric bass; John Damond, Jr., drums). Engineered by Dan Kearns and Dan Quiyu at the Princeton Broadcast Center. Edited and mixed by Wright Seneres. Promotional readings by Megan Donahey '20. TRANSCRIPT: From the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, this is the Princeton Spark. I’m Wright Seneres.  The various people that make up the Princeton entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem have long been at work, taking risks to bring transformational ideas and companies to the world, in the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity. These are the stories of Entrepreneurship the Princeton Way.  At PEC, we support Princeton-connected startups and help to build the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem in New Jersey and beyond.  In our series opening three episodes, we are exploring three important aspects of entrepreneurship. If you haven’t heard the first episode on taking risks, it is available now at princetonspark.com or wherever you get your podcasts, so do check that out.  The very nature of entrepreneurship is doing something new and innovative, and so there is always some uncertainty involved. Navigating this uncertainty is something all entrepreneurs need to do if they want to thrive. So how do they do this? For one answer, we turned to Brooks Powell.  Brooks is the founder of Cheers Health, which used to be called Thrive Plus. So in an episode on thriving, I thought I’d go to an expert.  My name is Brooks Powell. I graduated from Princeton in the class of 2017. And I founded a company called Cheers, which we like to call an alcohol related health company. I came across an article that just been published in 2012. I was reading this a few months after it being published, titled "Dihydromyricetin as a novel anti-intoxication medication". And in this article, they showed that DHM, which is a chemical extract, like caffeine to coffee, or THC is marijuana, is basically the active ingredient that makes the plant work. Well, basically, in Asian countries, people will steep this leaf in hot water and drink it after consuming alcohol. And evidently, it made them feel better in the moment. And then it also made them feel better the next day. A team at UCLA, they took that, they took the chemical extract, dihydromyricetin, injected it into rats, and they found that they can instantly sober up rats. They can prevent rats from becoming alcoholics. They can cure alcoholism and rats and oh, yeah, rats given DHM show no sign of hangovers. Basically, I took this study, I found it really compelling. I brought it straight to my neuroscience professor, he thought it was compelling. He scrapped the planned class lecture and lectured on this instead. Within a month or so all of my sort of post graduation career ideas, and totally transformed to me basically thinking, you know what, I'm gonna try to start a company off of this dihydromyricetin.  Starting an alcohol related health company is sure to have much uncertainty around it.  I think our uncertainty is really sort of related to the market that we're in. So, you kn...

Taking Risks in Entrepreneurship, with Vaidhy Murti '15, Daphne Earp Hoppenot '10, Marcus Stroud '16 and Brandon Allen '16. SHOW NOTES: Try Vaidhy Murti's new app Wit at the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. Friendsy does still exist! Check it out at friendsyapp.com. Visit The Vendry on the web or check out their très chic Instagram account. As of this episode release, they are also hiring! Contact Daphne. TXV Partners can be found on the web at txvpartners.com. For partnership and investment opportunities, reach out to connect@txvpartners.com. TechCrunch profiled Marcus and Brandon late in 2018. CREDITS: Produced by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Music by Wright Seneres. Theme music by the Treadmills (Wright Seneres, electric guitar and electric bass; John Damond, Jr., drums). Engineered by Dan Kearns and Dan Quiyu at the Princeton Broadcast Center. Edited and mixed by Wright Seneres. Promotional readings by Megan Donahey '20. TRANSCRIPT: From the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, this is the Princeton Spark. I’m Wright Seneres.  On your way up the main staircase at the Frist Campus Center at Princeton, if you look to the right as you go, there’s a marble bust of a man named Cyrus Fogg Brackett. Legend says his classroom was the first classroom anywhere with electric lights, which he rigged up himself, sometime in the 1870s. Brackett was the first Joseph Henry Professor of Physics at Princeton, named for that large, looming figure in American science. Based on Joseph Henry’s work in electromagnetism at Princeton, the unit of electrical inductance is called the henry. From Princeton, Joseph Henry went on to be the first leader of the Smithsonian Institution, in 1848. All of which goes to show that the entrepreneurial spark has always existed at Princeton, at least that long ago. The various people that make up the Princeton entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem have long been at work, taking risks to bring transformational ideas and companies to the world, in the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity. These are the stories of Entrepreneurship the Princeton Way. Hello and welcome to the Princeton Spark, a production of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. I’m your host, Wright Seneres, social media and marketing specialist at the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council.  At PEC, we support Princeton-connected startups and help to build the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem in New Jersey and beyond.  In this first season of the Princeton Spark, we’ll explore what it takes to succeed in entrepreneurship from experienced Princeton startup founders, investors, mentors, and more. We’ll look at their experiences in different industries, but we will likely see that these experiences...are not so different. Through these shared experiences, we will illuminate some aspects of the startup journey for the benefit of early-career and first-time founders.   No matter what kind of entrepreneurial pursuit you’re involved in, you will be taking risks. This is true whether you have a Princeton degree or not. Meet Vaidhy.  I'm Vaidhy Murti. When I was a sophomore, I wanted to build a better way to help college students on campus connect with each other. And I felt that when...