Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship

By: Justin Taubman MBA ’16

The Smith School of Business’ Office of Career Services (OCS) is a wonderful resource to help students find jobs after school. OCS focuses on bringing consulting, supply chain, marketing, and finance firms to Smith to recruit because most students are interested in pursuing careers in those fields. However there is a minority of students interested in pursuing less traditional careers. Unfortunately, the job hunt is a little bit more difficult for those of us interested in working somewhere like an early stage startup. The hiring process for startups is unlike any bigger more established firm, so applying the same process won’t be too effective. I’d like to share some tips that I found helpful for getting an MBA summer internship and am continuing to follow during full-time job hunt.

1776 Event Photo Credit: radioexpert.org

Startups hire to fill positions just in time; they cannot afford to hire human resource professionals or recruiters to fill positions nine months in advance. This is why networking is so important for landing a good job in this category. If you are diligent about networking in the startup world and people remember who you are, when they are looking for talent, you are much more likely to come up in conversation.

There are so many opportunities to network with startups in the Baltimore and DC area. I am signed up to receive information from Meetup about tech meetups, entrepreneurship meetups, but there are a lot more specific meetups that might be more useful to others. Local incubators, such as 1776 also hold networking events regularly that are either free to students or charge less than $20 to attend. There are plenty of resources online to find out where the next networking event is being held. If you go to enough of them you will likely start seeing the same people over and over again because it’s a smaller network than you think. You will also start to figure out who the big players are in the area and who is hiring, etc.

Entrepreneur at work Photo credit: gobankingrates.com

Networking with startup entrepreneurs isn’t exactly like networking with other professionals. Business professional attire normally gives entrepreneurs anxiety, so when going to networking events, I suggest dressing down. Think jeans and an un-tucked button down with Vans sneakers. Entrepreneurs are also probably not going to just meet you once or twice and then call you when they have a spot to fill for their company or one of their friend’s. So the networking process should be organic and should be more like making a new friend. Invite them to go out with you to a cool concert or to meet up if you realize you are traveling to the same city at the same time. Get them to know and like you, not just as a valuable member of their team, but as a person they wouldn’t mind working 100 hours a week with.

Stay in contact with everyone you meet, but especially with the folks that you believe have the most influence to help you find a job. Show that you are high-energy and hard to shut down. Demonstrate your strengths and value to a startup and eventually you will see results.

Once you have found a great opportunity to work at a startup, remember that the Dingman Center offers two very great opportunities for students that get offered internships at startup companies. The Kathryn Stewart Fellowship Program for undergraduate Terps and the Hisaoka Fellowship Program for first-year full-time MBAs both award salary matching of up to $5000 for startup internships. These fellowships are extremely helpful as a selling point to entrepreneurs that cannot afford to pay expensive salaries for top talent. As a Hisaoka Fellow, I am very grateful for having had the opportunity to work for a startup without having to worry about a lower salary than my classmates. If you are interested, check out how to apply now!

Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) is the world’s largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch startups that bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and expand human welfare. For one week every November, organizations around the world participate in Global Entrepreneurship Week with events and programs that celebrate entrepreneurship. After a successful GEW 2014, the Dingman Center is back at it, November 16-20, for a week-long celebration of entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland. Here’s what he have planned for this year.

November 16 and 17 from 9 to 11 a.m.
Atrium, Van Munching Hall
Smith is Global

Visit the employer desk to hear about activities and events for Global Entrepreneurship Week and International Education Week. Enjoy a doughnut courtesy of the Dingman Center and Office of Global Initiatives.

November 16 from 5 to 8 p.m.
Universities at Shady Grove
Food Entrepreneurship Conference

It’s the tastiest entrepreneurship event in town. Meet student and alumni startups from the food sector as you sample food from some of the areas hottest restaurants. Hear from founders who are revolutionizing how and what we eat.

November 18 from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
2517 Van Munching Hall
ChangeTheWorld Showcase

The Center for Social Value Creation presents the ChangeTheWorld.org Showcase provides students consultants an opportunity to present on their recommendations and solicit feedback. Register here.

November 19 at Noon
2333 Van Munching Hall
Dingman Center Speaker Series: Sean Skelley

Sean Skelley will come to campus to talk about how he sold his business to Best Buy and grew it to Geek Squad, employing 20,000 people and generating $2 billion in revenue each year. Skelley will talk about his journey and how his team found inspiration from an unlikely hero: Tigger, Winnie-the-Pooh’s irrepressible friend. Lunch will be provided. Register today.

November 12 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Outside, Stamp Student Union
Dingman Fridays on TerpRide

Dingman Fridays are hopping on the bus! Walk-in sessions will be held on the UMD TerpRide bus parked in the bus station outside of Stamp Student Union. Hop on and pitch your business idea.

November 20 from 1:30 to 5 p.m.
Frank Auditorium, Van Munching Hall
Smith VCIC

The Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) is a global MBA competition that Smith competes in annually. The final negotiations by the finalists between the student “fund” teams and entrepreneurs is open to the public. The winning team will go on to the regional competition at Georgetown University on January 29.

By: Justin Taubman

When we talk about serial entrepreneurs I usually think about folks well out beyond college-age. At least, that’s what I thought until I met Sam Feldman (UMD ‘16). Sam epitomizes the mission of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. Sam recounted his history with the Dingman Center and it made me feel really good about what the programming that the Center provides. He told me he started out his freshman year going to Dingman Fridays, he has competed in Pitch Dingman Competition twice (and mistakenly thought he wasn’t allowed to compete again), and he has taken the Fearless Founders Idea Shell and Hatch courses. Today, Sam is launching a Kickstarter campaign for his new venture, the Card Buddy Deluxe, a high-quality leather stick-on wallet for the back of the phone.

Everyone has seen the rubber stick-on wallets for the back of the phone, the University of Maryland’s IT Department even gives them out for free. However, Sam felt there was white space in the industry. He saw potential in higher quality wallets that wouldn’t tear and that would look more like a wallet one would put in their back pocket or their hand bag. Thus inspired the Car Buddy Deluxe.

Sam’s search for a manufacturer of this new product started on a little platform named, Alibaba. This was by no means a trivial task. After negotiating with eleven manufacturers, Sam ended up with dozens of samples and selected what he believed to be a stellar prototype. After more negotiation on cost and what it would take to reach economies of scale, Sam had his manufacturer.

Today on Kickstarter, the first 100 orders can get their Card Buddy Deluxe for just $15, the next 100 sold will be $16, and so on until they reach $20 (they will sell in stores for $25). To help out his campaign, Sam got on social media to call for help from influential personalities that he admires. He showed me how he has gotten a friend with a fancy engraving printer that works perfectly on his product to design custom wallets with the faces of influencers that he has solicited to help with his Kickstarter campaign.

This is the story of a student that happens to be a serial entrepreneur that has used every resource at his fingertips to develop a great product and business. Sam Feldman should inspire all the other entrepreneurs out there to take a break from that video game or Netflix and just make something out of nothing.

Support Sam’s Kickstarter here.

In today’s start-up environment, we see constant reporting on apps and digital players. The logic makes sense, scaling is a lot simpler and the pockets of acquirers are deep and open. A year ago my friends and I did something a little different, we started a cocktails bitter company in DC, called Embitterment. We had been playing with the product for fun almost two years before, when we realized this big market had no local brand. The downside to entering is that 70% or more of people who have been exposed to bitters have no idea what they are, or understand their application. The short answer is that they are a flavor extract and you put a few drops in most drinks. So we were forced to not only produce the product, but also discover what the market would be in the few hours we had each week to work between our full-time gigs.

The nice thing about going product first was that we didn’t have to decide on what our product should look like based on market research, but simply what market existed for what we made. This did mean that scaling would be longer as we had to find clients via trial and error, yet we found that even those who choose not to buy often talk about us to their friends. Some of these friends became customers and our sample bottles were being pooled and collected in a few cases. As the sample volume dropped, the customers began to emerge. Our marketing guru, Eric had done a lot of work over the first six months to help with this emergence, the drinks community loves Instagram and Facebook so posting nice pictures of someone else’s product being used with ours often got their attention. The costs are low in that type of marketing, and you get a nice cocktail out of it. I should probably mention that R&D is by far the biggest perk for me, since it entails that we all just gather and test cocktails. That makes me more excited than any start-up I’ve seen so far, we always remember to relax here and that we are there as friends. Stresses can build and there is no HR to mediate, so be prepared to get upset but don’t hold on to anger. Most companies fail, forget about trying to avoid failure and start enjoying your successful moments.

A note on funding, I would estimate that we have put less than ten thousand dollars in the company. When you can control your own growth, something many digital applications can’t, you can avoid building up excess capacity early and instead fund with reinvested earnings. While I can calculate the benefits of leveraging, I can tell you that not worrying about bank loans is more than worth it early on. Being flexible with a products roll out and growth gives us time to focus on balancing a part-time endeavor with our full-time lives.

By Russell Garing

Russell is a 2nd year MBA student at the Smith School of Business. He is working as a Graduate Assistant at the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. Beyond working on his startup, Russ is interested in Finance, Analytics and Supply Chain Management. 

We arrived at Tech Crunch Disrupt this morning filled with anticipation. We were excited to explore the dozens of new companies that had set up booths in Startup Alley, to listen to amazing speakers, and to take a road trip to Mountain View to visit the offices of Google and Facebook.

The most memorable speakers of the day were Nikesh Arora of SoftBank and Andrew Bozworth from Facebook. Nikesh spoke about SoftBank’s strategy, which is to invest in great companies with strong leadership, as opposed expending capital trying to build out the same competencies inside SoftBank. Andrew, or Boz as he is called, was questioned quite extensively about Facebook’s relationship and attitude towards companies who want to advertise on the FB platform. In the past, the relationship had turned contentious when companies felt that Facebook was not upfront about advertising policies.

By far, my most favorite part of the trip has been visiting the Google and Facebook campuses. At Google, we got to ride around on the company bicycles, eat in their cafeteria (the ice cream is delicious!), and speak to three people who work in different areas of the company. We learned about initiatives at Google Play, Google Search, as well as the difficulties of building and managing the Google server farms.

At Facebook, we got to tour the vast campus and write on The Wall. The Facebook campus had a very small town feel to it with a main street and small shops with everything from a barbershop to an ice cream parlor. Facebook emphasizes community and family by offering exercise classes and weekly movie nights in the summer.

To me, the difference in West Coast vs. East Coast companies comes down to an emphasis on the quality of life. Googlers take time out of their day to sit in the courtyard or to play on their beach volleyball court. Facebook employees bring their families to the campus on Wednesday nights to watch movies together. It’s about working hard, shooting for the moon, and enjoying your life.

Lana at Facebook HQ in Palo Alto

By: Lana Bronipolsky

Prior to starting her MBA at Smith, Lana spent 7 years in the financial services industry, most recently at PIMCO in Southern California. Originally from the DC metro area, Lana was excited to return to the area and through the Dingman Center participate in the local startup culture. At Smith, Lana has focused on entrepreneurial finance and is especially interested in financial technology. Her team was awarded first place in the Leadership Under Fire case competition and her team was runner up in the Venture Capital Investment Competition in November 2014 team. She is most interested in helping early stage companies raise capital, develop growth strategies, and run efficient operations.

The Dingman Center sponsored several students that are attending the 2015 TechCrunch Disrupt Conference in San Francisco. The students will be blogging each day from the event about their experience. Follow all week to hear more about Disrupt!

Smith School MBA students teamed up this year to take a trek to TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference in San Francisco, CA and we couldn’t be more excited. This event has attracted a lot of key figures and companies in the startup industry in the past, and this year is no different.

Disrupt SF is all about encouraging and debuting innovative startups and technologies. Companies like Uber, who revolutionize the old standard way of doing things and promise a better way, are the new norm for innovation. We’ll get to hear founder stories and insights from some of the best in the industry. There are more than 80 speakers and judges that include the likes of Snoop Dogg, Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, Dropbox’s Drew Houston, Facebook’s Andrew (Boz) Bosworth, Cowboy Venture’s Aileen Lee, Houzz’s Adi Tatarko, the list goes on!

There are a lot of new technologies out today that are laying the groundwork to radically change our lives in the future. Two promising technologies that I am most excited to learn more about this year are Bitcoin and virtual reality. Bitcoin is a digital currency that allows people to make transactions without any middlemen – no transaction fees, no banks, and no governments. Not only is Bitcoin itself potentially very disruptive, but the underlying technology, blockchain, can be revolutionary for many other applications. The other technology, virtual reality, is an immersive, computer-simulated world that has practically infinite applications. While initially thought of for gaming, virtual reality has many other uses including education, entertainment, and exploration. Companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Sony are racing to be the best and take advantage of this ripe new industry.

We took it upon ourselves to leverage our Smith network to line up some additional opportunities while we were in the Bay Area. Sunday night we have dinner with a whole host of Smith MBA alumni who ended up here after graduating from Smith. Apple, Google, and eBay are just a few of the companies where alumni are working and our Smith School Business Development team helped to get us in contact with them.

The Dingman Center connected us with an EMBA graduate who used to work on Google payments and is a serial entrepreneur. We’ll get to meet him for drinks and dessert on Monday evening and pick his brain on how he’s been able to apply his Smith education to be successful.

The Smith network also extends to friends of the Smith family. We leveraged our personal networks to arrange meetings and tours of some nearby companies. On Tuesday we’ll get to take a trip over to Mountain View and Menlo Park where Google and Facebook have their headquarters. We’ll get to go on informal tours of their glamorous campuses: Google’s Googleplex and Facebook’s brand new 430,000 square foot campus. On Wednesday we’ll be going over to LinkedIn to have lunch with some employees. All made possible
from our network!

By: Shane Salta

Shane is a first year MBA candidate at the Robert H. Smith School of Business. Having gone through GE’s IT Leadership Development Program, Shane has 7 years of diverse technical leadership experience at GE Capital. While at GE, Shane implemented streamlined IT systems to efficiently handle billions of dollars of sales. Prior to GE, Shane worked for the National Football League and Lockheed Martin. In his free time, Shane has been known to build & program robots as well as LED projects such as his iPhone Controlled LED Suit (www.ShaneSalta.com/ledsuit). Shane holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Miami (FL). He currently lives in Annapolis and enjoys volleyball and extreme sports such as wakeboarding and snowboarding.