PEC: Working at Entrepreneurial Speed with Lauren Bender, Don Seitz, Diane DeLorenzo, Anne-Marie Maman, Wright Seneres, Neal Bituin and Vaidhy Murti, Allan Amico, Bryton Shang, Vivian Wang, Marcus Stroud, John Diekman, Nikhil Basu Trivedi Hello podcast listener, before we get started, I have a favor to ask. If you enjoy this show, please share it with someone that you think would like it too. We’re on social media @princetonspark. Or you just want to send a link to the website, it’s easy to remember: princetonspark.com. Now on with the show. From the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, this is the Princeton Spark. I’m Wright Seneres. (theme music) 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 this episode of the Princeton Spark, I’m going to do something a little different, and turn the mic around. Because the question I get the most when I’m out in public is “What does the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council do?” Now a few seconds ago, I just said: (rewinding tape sound effect) “At PEC, we support Princeton-connected startups and help to build the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem in New Jersey and beyond.” So what does that really mean? We’re going to explore the first part, supporting Princeton-connected startups, right now. Our guides for this journey, is the PEC staff itself. (musical transition) If you visit us at PEC headquarters at 34 Chambers Street in downtown Princeton, the first office on the right is Lauren Bender’s office. My name is Lauren Bender and I run the Alumni Entrepreneurs Fund. We are a donor fund that invests in early career alumni entrepreneurs. So the Alumni Entrepreneurs Fund was really designed to help jumpstart a community of young Princeton alumni founders who are connected to each other, and to Princeton, and really giving them the support of not only the university but the whole alumni network to help them succeed, not only in their businesses, but also in their personal careers. One of these young Princeton alumni founders was Vaidhy Murti. We heard from him in the first and third episodes of this podcast, so if you haven’t heard those episodes, I highly recommend you listen to them. But if you really want a good story timeline, listen to the first episode, and then come back to this one. I’m going to go have a snack and wait for you to catch up. (bag of chips opening sound) Okay. Vaidhy was in the first cohort of AEF. When I asked him about what impact the Alumni Entrepreneurs Fund had on him and Friendsy, his startup, he had this to say: I mean, specifically, like the AEF money? It was life changing. Like it was the, I would say like that is like one of the single biggest things that there's like altered my life, like where I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing right now, if not for that. And I'm super, super grateful for that. Because not only was that validation in December, right? Like, from my perspective, as a, as a graduating senior, I'm graduating with no money to pay anybody, and I'm trying to find a way to raise money. And then like December of 2014, like, you know, Princeton has this program where, you know, we can apply to get funded to like work on this. And, you know, we eventually work, they told us that we were selected, and I was over the moon because that I think it was like 90K, like 92 and a half or something like that. But that amount of money would have basically no matter what bought us a good amount of time after graduating to take a real shot at this business. And if you want the dramatic conclusion to the Friendsy story, listen to the third episode of the Princeton Spark. I’ll go get another snack, and wait for you to catch up. (another bag of chips opening sound) As Lauren said, AEF was also intended to jumpstart a community of early career Princeton founders. Like with this founder: Hi, I'm Allan Amico. I was Princeton class of 2013. I'm the founder of a company called DonorUP. We’re a giving platform that rewards donors for giving back. We match individuals with nonprofit organizations based on your background and interests, and it’ll allow you to more seamlessly manage your philanthropic activity, starting with donations in one place. And as you do that, you can earn rewards for things like discounts to popular ridesharing apps, fitness classes in the city that you live in, or popular retailers. Before Allan and DonorUP was selected for the Alumni Entrepreneurs Fund, Lauren made a critical introduction that brought a key team member to DonorUP. And been fortunate to have the backing of Princeton AEF, both financially and also just the network. Met my other founding team members, primarily my CTO, Vaidhy Murti, you know, through introduction that was made in the Princeton network from Lauren Bender. There’s that Vaidhy Murti again! As Vaidhy was developing the idea for his second startup Wit, he had kept his technical team together, taking on outside client projects, and he himself joined DonorUP as Chief Technical Officer. These are the sorts of connections and sparks that typify the Princeton network. Here’s Lauren again: AEF has been an absolute success. We finished investing our fund, which we're really excited about. We've invested in 30 early stage companies with Princeton founders and the community has really grown. Not only do we have the AEF founders being mentored by other alums, but now the AEF founders themselves are mentoring other students and alumni, and there's a much more active alumni entrepreneur network, and we're excited that the AEF founders are both part of that and at the heart of that. One such AEF founder mentoring other students and alumni is Bryton Shang. Hi, my name is Bryton Shang and I was class of 2012 at Princeton. My company Aquabyte builds machine learning software to be able to make fish farms more sustainable. The technology we’re developing here allows fish farmers to better understand how fish grow, which allow for more sustainable fish farming, and ultimately better food production for the world. Some of the ways I’ve engaged and given back to the Princeton community include being able to mentor other Princeton people interested in entrepreneurship. We’ve hosted some Princeternships here in Norway and as well as in San Francisco. I’ve had the opportunity to go back on campus and give lectures and engage with the broader Princeton community. Although the AEF fund is fully invested, new programming to support Princeton alumni entrepreneurs under the AEF banner is in the works, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, the AEF companies are always looking to staff up, so if you’re interested in a career with one of these exciting startups, get in touch. Lauren’s contact information is in the show notes, so send her a note. When we come back, a story about how one young alum, Vivian Wang and her startup, Friendshop, came to one of our conferences, and left with something big. (musical transition) (advertisement theme music) Hello again podcast listener. I would love for you to send this podcast to a friend, but if you’re like me, and I know I am, I’m probably washing the dishes as I listen to this podcast. So you probably can’t quite send this to your friend right this second. That’s okay, just remember this handy dandy acronym and send it when you’re done the dishes. Ready? Here’s the acronym: S-P-A-R-K. Spark. Send Podcast Along; Recommend Kindly That’s: Send Podcast Along; Recommend Kindly. And send the Princeton Spark to a friend. Now back to the show. Welcome back to the Princeton Spark. Facilitating access to funding is a major part of the mission of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. Making connections is what we do, especially between alumni. If I had to distill it all down to a two-word explanation of what PEC does, it’s making connections. And a lot of these connections, between founders and funders, happen at our events. The man at PEC who leads the planning of these events is an alum himself. Hey I’m Don Seitz, assistant director of alumni engagement. Well you know, alumni, particularly those with orange and black blood have a strong penchant for connecting and reconnecting, and learning, and engaging. And entrepreneurship is a great pillar to also engage alumni. Our programs are heavy on the learning, and on the education. This is Princeton after all. And it’s a big part of PEC’s mission. I can speak both as a person managing programs to engage alumni but also as an alumnus. It's a source for continual learning, but it's also a great opportunity to meet new people, reconnect with friends and alumni that you engaged with previously, and often those connections and conversations lead to interesting new personal relationships or potentially even professional relationships. One of these connections started at our spring 2019 Tiger Entrepreneurs Conference in San Francisco. Hi, my name is Vivian, and I'm the co-founder and CEO of Friendshop. We are a beauty e-commerce site where friends get deals on makeup and skin care by buying together. I’m Princeton class of 2015. The Princeton community has been just immensely helpful because it’s this — it’s this powerful knowledge base of incredible advisors in every single different industry in the world. And if you have any question or any problem, there’s always someone in the network that you can reach out to. (musical transition) I remember that during the conference in San Francisco in April, Friendshop – was that the origin of the connection that they made with Tom Meyer and Nassau Street Ventures? Yeah, that's a great... that's a great example – Friendshop, started by a young alumnae, great, great concept in the consumer space. And at the Bay Area conference, she was introduced to Tom Meyer, who’s one of the principals of three different venture firms now in existence that focus almost exclusively on Princeton startups. And Tom’s firm, Nassau Street Ventures, made an investment in Friendshop. We’ll hear from Tom from Nassau Street Ventures, Luke from Chaac Ventures, and Jim and Mark from Fitz Gate Ventures in future episodes. Another connection that came out of that Tiger Entrepreneurs Conference, well, I will let another previous guest from our first episode, Marcus Stroud, tell that story. At the Princeton entrepreneurship conference, I was very fortunate to sit on the panel with some extremely renowned Silicon Valley figures. You know, from partners, head partners at Fenwick and West to, you know, partners at Google Ventures. And you know, this week in San Francisco alone, I spent the entire week staying with that partner at Fenwick and West, I stayed at his house with him and his family. We met. And the relationship that Brandon and I have built with his family has just been so incredible. They are family to us now. They'll be coming down to Texas in two weeks for the Texas vs. LSU game. And then we're gonna have some barbecue and tacos, and we're gonna have a good time. That partner at Fenwick and West is Matthew Quilter, from the great class of 1974. Here you have Marcus and his partner at TXV Ventures, Brandon Allen, both 2016 graduates, having barbecue and tacos with Matt Quilter and his family. Now that’s quite a connection. But you know, to get that type of mentorship from a guy who's been at the most storied tech law firm, for the longest time, of anybody in the firm, and to have that personal friendship has just been so incredible. And the list goes on and on and on. (musical transition) It’s not just the connections that happen spontaneously at our conferences that can result in access to funding for Princeton startups or new and exciting relationships. We have programs that specifically connect founders and funders. Here’s Don again: The other initiative that PEC has is to really connect, founders with investors. There is a Princeton Alumni Angel network that's now been put in place both San Francisco and New York City. We put people in touch with PAA, Princeton Alumni Angels. We also run showcases for startups generally outside of those cities to give them a platform. And we also run roadshows with VCs for more established startups. And in those cases, the way to engage is to reach out to us and we'll make sure that connections with the VC community or the angel community are established so that you can hopefully find some funding for your company. We’ve only scratched the surface of all the programs that PEC runs to connect and engage the Princeton entrepreneurial ecosystem. We’ll explore more of them in future episodes. But without the connections enabled by PEC and strengthening of the alumni network during PEC’s four years, we may not be able to point to examples of Vaidhy and Allan, and Vivian and Tom, and many others. So how did we get here so fast? That’s after the break. (musical transition) (advertisement theme music) TigerTalks is Princeton Entrepreneurship Council’s popular panel discussion series on entrepreneurship. The new season of TigerTalks events in New York City kicks off on December 10th at New York Presbyterian Hospital, so save the date. For more information about this and our other excellent programs, visit entrepreneurs.princeton.edu/ tigertalks. Welcome back to the Princeton Spark. A main thesis of this podcast is that people in the Princeton ecosystem– both on-campus and off– have been in entrepreneurship for a long time. The Princeton Entrepreneurship Club and the Keller Center are two examples. But it was only recently that the Board of Trustees really hit the accelerator on University support for entrepreneurship. (car engine revving sound effect) Five years ago, the Trustees undertook a new strategic framework. A key part of that was entrepreneurship and a number of recommendations were made by the Trustees to accelerate the activities for students, faculty, alumni, in the entrepreneurial areas. I'm John Diekman, class of 1965, a retired charter trustee, advisor to the Entrepreneurship Council, a entrepreneur myself and a longtime venture capitalist in the life science area. PEC was one of the things that came out of that strategic framework. In the four years of PEC’s existence, we’ve quickly ramped up our programming to serve hundreds, even thousands of Princeton alums with education, mentoring, and funding. We move at entrepreneurial speed. We’re always looking to try new things to serve the Princeton alumni, refining things that work, and shelving things that don’t. With our many campus partners, Entrepreneurship the Princeton Way is that much stronger now. It’s wonderful to see the number of things related to entrepreneurship that are now happening on Princeton’s campus. Hi, my name is Nikhil Basu Trivedi. I'm a Managing Director at Shasta Ventures. Nikhil graduated in 2011, so he pre-dates the birth of PEC. But he is certainly one of those Princeton people who had always been in entrepreneurship. Princeton entrepreneurship is very, very close to my heart. I ran the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club when I was a student. I started multiple companies while I was an undergrad, and have benefited tremendously from the Princeton network as an alum. Princeton may not have been full throttle on entrepreneurship until recently, but now Princeton is moving at entrepreneurial speed. From day one of PEC’s existence, this next member of the PEC staff has helped in the rapid growth. My name is Diane DeLorenzo. I was administrative assistant to start, morphed into an event coordinator position. (car door closing, car engine start and rev sound effect) Think back to the first day of PEC, what was that like? Wow. It seems like time flew by. Starting up this department was like putting wheels on a sports car while it was going 100 miles an hour. (race car sound effect) The driver leading this growth effort is another Princeton alum. My name is Anne-Marie Maman, and I'm the executive director of Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. There are so many exciting things being developed and implemented here on campus, and out with our alumni, and others around our world, to improve our world, and our lives. We can’t help ourselves, really, at the Entrepreneurship Council in our desire to make things happen quickly, because we want them to reach the world. It comes back to the “In the Service of Humanity” – the service of humanity, it’s a rush to get them to be a service. Another reason that Princeton Entrepreneurship Council is working at entrepreneurial speed is that Princeton is really catching up in this area. A lot of other schools–MIT, Stanford, all the other big names in entrepreneurship–they’ve been doing this a long time. And Princeton’s been doing it four or five years officially, after the PEAC Report. Of course the Keller Center has been working longer than that, and the faculty have been entrepreneurial, innovative really. And the alumni are extremely entrepreneurial. But the focus on entrepreneurship is relatively new, so now we have this feeling we need to catch up with the others. (musical transition) What impresses me most about the alumni community, and it's something I knew, but it's still astounds me and warms me is the devotion that Princeton alumni have back to other alumni. (musical transition) If you’re a Princeton alum listening to this and haven’t taken advantage of our programs and events yet, welcome! There’s plenty of room in this entrepreneurial sports car. (race car sound effect) And if you’re not a Princeton alum, there are still ways for you to get involved in the Princeton ecosystem. Central New Jersey, there's a lot of entrepreneurship and innovation going on and there's lots of people that are actively involved. There's lots of events on campus that the public's invited to attend. There's also many events, out of the Princeton Innovation Center BioLabs that are all open to the public. And those are broadly based topics such as patenting strategies to how to bring a biotech from the bench to the clinic to new types of fundraising or different types of fundraising. We’ll get into more of PEC and the regional ecosystem in future episodes, but for now, you can find out about events at our incubator facility, Princeton Innovation Center BioLabs, in our show notes. Before we close this episode, for those of you listeners who are Princeton alumni entrepreneurs, founders, investors, and so on – if you have news about your startup activity that you’d like us to share, send it to me and I will share. As the social media and marketing specialist at PEC, and host of this program, I consider myself the chief storyteller for Princeton entrepreneurship. So send me your startup news, because the story of PEC is your story. (musical transition) In our show notes for this episode at princetonspark.com, you can find links to more information about the PEC team, our programs, and more. I have one more PEC team member to introduce you to, and then he will take us out. My name is Neal Bituin, and I am the IT Support Specialist at PC. Neal is the newest member of the PEC team. He joined about a year ago, but we made a big impression on him already. So what I find the most interesting and impressive about Princeton entrepreneurship is the community of not just alumni but, faculty, staff and students, current students who contribute to the whole ecosystem. Especially with the alumni though– I see how tight knit and how interested and how engaged they are in the whole ecosystem, and it's something that I found impressive. It's a positive thing for not just the Entrepreneurship Council, but for Princeton University in general. (theme music) The Princeton Spark is a production of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, which is Anne-Marie Maman, Don Seitz, Lauren Bender, Diane DeLorenzo, me Neal Bituin, and produced by Wright Seneres. Engineered by Dan Kearns at the Princeton Broadcast Center, John Miller on location in San Francisco, Jack Mehlbaum on location in Norway, and Wright Seneres. Wright designed the sound and composed the music for this episode. Our theme music is by the Treadmills. Additional advertisement reads by Megan Donahey. Special thanks to Alice Seneres, Scott Colan, Gerardo Puglia, and the Sound Education conference for the three pages of action items that Wright came back with for the podcast. The comments and suggestions box is always open – send an email to sparkpod@princeton.edu. If there is a topic on entrepreneurship or a person that you would like to hear from, please let us know. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at @princetonspark. You’ll find some extra content there, you can put some faces to the names and the voices that you heard on this episode, and more. If you rate and review us in the iTunes store, it really does help the show. I know every podcaster says this, but it’s really true. If you haven’t subscribed to the show yet, please do so wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening. (advertisement theme music) Princeton Entrepreneurship Council presents the 2019 New York City Tiger Entrepreneurs Conference on November 8 at the fabulous Altman Building in Chelsea. A one-day conference featuring dynamic keynote speakers, panel discussions, workshops, and a startup showcase. Tickets and more information are available at entrepreneurs.princeton.edu. (rewinding tape sound effect) “But a main thesis of this podcast” (DJ scratch sound effect) When was the last time you heard that a podcast had a thesis? You only get this kind of high quality product from the Princeton Spark, you know what I’m saying?