Over winter break, 13 undergraduates and four Tuck School of Business students traveled to the West Coast on a trip sponsored by the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network to work for three early-stage startups founded by Dartmouth alumni, as well as visit an array of Silicon Valley startups.
Personal connections and collaboration were two topics emphasized during the program, which was the first trip of this type.
“They really got to immerse themselves in the respective entrepreneurial ecosystems of the area,” director of DEN’s New Venture Incubator Programs Jamie Coughlin said.
About halfway through fall term, the students — who were divided into three teams — began working with their assigned startups: xMatters, whereRandi Barshack ’88 is the chief marketing officer; Wrangle, founded by Sebastian DeLuca ’14 and Wickr, founded by Jennifer DeTrani ’94.
Each startup initially presented their student group with a problem or challenge, Coughlin said. The students conducted market research on campus over the next few weeks, using surveys and one-on-one interviews to collect data for their companies.
This experience not only emphasized collaboration between the students and the startups, but between Dartmouth undergraduates and Tuck students, Coughlin said.
DEN trip participant Kevin Neilson ’17 said that each student group spent weeks planning their solutions before traveling to the West Coast.
Wrangle will be implementing some of the suggestions, DeLuca said, and in exchange for their work students receive the opportunity to gain professional experience and possibly meet alums who can serve as advisors or mentors.
“This is a perfect example of how Dartmouth is leading when it comes to connecting on-campus experience and the community there with professional opportunities post-grad,” DeLuca said. “Even though Dartmouth is out in New Hampshire, they were able to come to the West Coast and meet people at large and small companies.”
The trip began in Seattle, where the program visited Amazon’s headquarters to get a firsthand look at how innovation and entrepreneurship occur inside a large corporation, Coughlin said.
Jeff Blackburn ’91, a founding donor and supporter of DEN, as well as the senior vice president of business development at Amazon, hosted and provided a private tour and a lineup of speakers, including Dartmouth alums Ian Freed ’85 and Steve Kessel ’88.
Freed discussed Amazon’s device strategy and displayed the company’s newest release: the Echo, an interactive speaker. Kessel, senior vice president of worldwide digital media and one of the founders of the Kindle, discussed his role at the company.
“The students were in awe the entire morning, listening to the stories and reality of what it means to be innovative at Amazon,” Coughlin said.
The group also visited Microsoft. Long-standing Dartmouth alum supporter and former Microsoft executive vice president of law and corporate affairs Bill Neukom ’64 gave the group access to the invite-only “Envisioning Center” at Microsoft’s headquarters, Coughlin said.
“Here the students got a glimpse into the future of next generation products and experiences,” Coughlin said, adding that meeting with prominent technology executives was very meaningful for the student participants.
From Seattle, the group visited San Francisco and Palo Alto, Calif., where College donor and venture capitalist Jeff Crowe ’78 hosted the group at his house for a “home-cooked” dinner and discussion on entrepreneurship, Coughlin said.
Neilson said that a highlight of his trip was meeting Crowe.
“He befriended everybody on our trip. It was incredible,” Neilson said. “I feel like I gained a great friend watching out for me and a Dartmouth alumni I can look up to.”
Later in the week, the group invited Andrea Reisman Johnson ’91, founder of online photo organization and storage site thislife.com, to a luncheon about women in entrepreneurship.
Funds for this trip and similar programming come from Dartmouth alumni donors in collaboration with the Dartmouth Advancement Office. The initial goal was to raise $2.5 million dollars for the program; however, donors raised $4.3 million, said Coughlin.
Though this was a large trip and the first of its type, Coughlin said he was satisfied with the outcome.
“I was just very pleased with the receptiveness of the alums in that area to hold gatherings in their home, to create workshops on entrepreneurship in their places of business,” Coughlin said.
Coughlin said he hopes these sort of trips will continue in years to come in different locations around the globe. Annual two-week trips to the West Coast will continue, as well as shorter, week-long trips to Boston, New York, Texas and other established entrepreneurial communities.
Neilson said that he gained a deeper understanding of the importance of person-to-person interactions within the context of entrepreneurship from the trip.
Trip participant Thomas Wang ’16 said that the reality of the process of beginning a business was highlighted in the trip.
“The trip was unique because it had two focuses: one was pairing us up for a strategy project with an early-stage startup and the other was hearing first-hand accounts from both successful and failed alumni entrepreneurs,” Wang ’16 said. “A lasting takeaway is a realistic view of the risks and rewards that come with starting a venture.”
Correction appended: January 13, 2014The original version of this article misidentified Randi Barshak as the founder of xMatters. She is the chief marketing officer, not the founder.
