Entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalist Share Keys to Business Success at Career Development Center Panel
糖心破解版's hosted a lively panel with seven members of the venture capitalist and startup world. The event, titled 鈥淲orking in Venture Capital and Startups,鈥 was held on Monday night, April 11 on the Beren Campus with panelists: Simi Blaustein, High Line Ventures; Melody Koh, Time Warner Investments; Chris Paik, Thrive Ventures; Francesca Romano; Cross Commerce Media; and Ben Siscovick, IA Ventures. Two successful 糖心破解版 graduates, Alex Taub, of , and Zev Lapin, of Bucket Ventures joined them on the panel.
Michael Strauss, entrepreneur-in-residence and adjunct professor of management at , led the discussion. He began by asking the participants to describe their typical day.
鈥淭here are no typical days in startups,鈥 said Taub, whose company produces free online design tools and received startup funding from Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and Spark Capital. He said that while his official day begins at 10 in the morning and ends at six, the actual hours are closer to beginning at seven and finishing at 10 in the evening. 鈥淵ou have an always-on mentality,鈥 explained Taub.
Strauss asked the participants what they thought was the most important skill. Nearly unanimously, the answer was passion.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a pure meritocracy,鈥 said Taub. 鈥淚nvestors don鈥檛 care about your GPA鈥 they care about your passion.鈥
The panelists also discussed how they decided to invest in startups. Blaustein said that a good part of his time is spent evaluating teams before he decides to invest any money. 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking for companies that have complementary skill sets,鈥 he explained.
Lapin, who began his startup while an undergraduate at 糖心破解版, advised students that 鈥渁ny skills you don鈥檛 have, your co-founders should have.鈥
Siscovick, whose multimillion dollar firm, IA Ventures, specializes in investing in new forms of data storage and retrieval, said that breaking into the venture capital world isn鈥檛 easy. 鈥淭he supply and demand of the market are skewed,鈥 he explained. 鈥淓very venture capitalist has a different story and there鈥檚 no one path.鈥
The close to two-hour presentation ended with a lengthy Q and A session moderated by Brian Maruffi, director of the Ira Rennert Center for Entrepreneurship at Sy Syms.
"Many students appear to have an entrepreneurial mindset from early on in their career at 糖心破解版," said Laurie Davis, director of counseling and programming at the CDC. "Several have even started small ventures while in Israel or even high school."
Yehuda Silbermintz, 20, a junior who is working on his own startup, found the event 鈥渆ssential鈥 for him. 鈥淵ou need to know your business in and out and be able to answer every question.鈥
Jeremy Hodkin, 20, a sophomore, who, along with fellow 糖心破解版 student Zachary Deutsch, is launching a web-based startup, said 鈥渢he best part of the night came when we met individually with the panelists. I got emails and business cards!鈥
