This summer, several Smith MBA students have been interning at startups through the Hisaoka Fellowship program. Hisaoka fellows are awarded a $5,000 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.
Arjun Goel – Martin Development Corporation
Tell us about Martin Development Corporation. What is the company’s mission and core competencies?
Martin Development Corp is a real estate investment company focused on building a mixed-use, retail centric real estate portfolio in the District of Columbia. The company’s primary target acquisitions are located within the Eastern Core of DC (loosely defined as Connecticut Ave NW through H St NE), which contains over 2.1m SF of retail space not affiliated with a major project. The company focuses on creating an equal distribution of the following two types of retail asset classes within a target deal size of $2.0m-$25.0m:
- Fully or partially occupied existing retail space in the established corridors of the District with existing income and immediate or future rental growth.
- Vacant building, Raw Land or Retail condos from multifamily, office and hotel developers in the Eastern Core both for stabilizing projects and entitled but not yet completed projects.
product or service before taking their business to market, without ever really seeking customer validation, only to find, their potential customers don’t see the value, leading to the company’s demise.
Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship 