This summer, several undergraduate students have been interning at startups through the Kathryn Stewart Fellowship program. Undergraduate Stewart fellows are awarded a $3,000 scholarship if they are able to secure a summer internship with venture capital or angel-funded startups and early stage companies. The Dingman Center interviewed each fellow about their experience.
Matt Furda – Javazen
Tell us about Javazen. What is the company’s mission and core competencies?
Javazen is a blend of coffee, tea, and superfoods. You brew Javazen the same way you would brew normal coffee grounds. I like to say that Javazen is mindfulness in a cup. It is a tool to help you feel at your best, and by replacing your daily cup of coffee with Javazen you are being mindful and acknowledging that every little step counts. Javazen’s mission is simply to help people experience each moment with clarity, vitality, and passion.
Tell us about your responsibilities thus far at Javazen
Javazen is run by a small group of incredibly hardworking individuals. Because there is a small team behind everything, I have gotten a glimpse into nearly every aspect of the business. I have helped with everything from demos, content creation, and social media marketing to manufacturing and building our office space. I have demoed Javazen at stores, trade shows, and yoga festivals and would continuously learn about the market first hand by connecting with new Javazen drinkers. I have helped with content writing for blog posts and our weekly “Wednesday Zensday” newsletter. Lately, I have had bags of Javazen with me at all times, and I am always looking for a cool spot to get a great picture to generate content little by little. I love building things so naturally I became the go to build-it guy for various Javazen projects including our warehouse office space, which is nearly completed. Part of the job for an intern is to learn as much as possible, and that is a major part of what I have focused my time on. During meetings I offer my perspective, ideas, and thoughts on new campaigns and strategies. This internship has really been the quintessential startup experience.
No exaggeration: this is a real thing that happened to a friend of mine. On the most recent season of HBO’s Girls, Marnie undergoes a similar trauma on her special day. Booking a freelance makeup artist, expecting them to show up on time and also give you the end result you want is a task so notoriously difficult that it lends itself to parody. But it doesn’t have to be so hard. 
I am still relatively new to the Dingman Center, so when Sam Feldman was called to the stage at this year’s 
Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship 