Where are you from originally?
Charlotte, NC
What university did you go to?
Davidson College for undergrad, grad school at UT.
What brought you to Austin?
I moved here to do two things that Austin is particularly
famous for: doing tech startups and playing in bands.
The first company I worked is Amplifier (amplifier.com),
a merch/ecommerce provider for folks with large online audiences. Amplifier’s
largest customer at the time was Despair (despair.com), the makers of the most
awesomely depressing stuff on the internet. As you might imagine, the founders
of Despair had some pretty interesting philosophies about business and people
and my worldview is still informed by knowing them. Paradoxically, I found it
hugely inspiring.
I started playing in indie rock bands pretty much right
away and did that for many years. Haven’t played a show in a while but it’ll
happen again sooner or later.
What is your group’s mission?
Make entrepreneurship ubiquitous at the university level.
Right now there is only one Marck
Zuckerberg—3 Day Startup wants to find thirty more at universities all over
world and provide the greatest impact possible on finding success with their
startup.
What need does it fulfill?
Other disciplines inside of universities provide
practice-based approaches: chemistry students have labs, mechanical engineering
students have machine shops, art students have studio sessions. 3 Day Startup provides answers this need for
entrepreneurship by providing an environment and a model for learning-by-doing
with an emphasis on customer feedback and mentorship.
On a more individual basis, university students face
obstacles along their startup journey, whether it is finding cofounders,
finding mentors, or learning what to focus on. Our program helps students with
all of those challenges in a fast-paced, high-energy transformative experience.
On a community basis, university communities have a silo
problem—CS students do not talk to Design students, who do not talk to Business
students, and so on. 3 Day Startup brings these groups together in a meaningful
way—there is very little in the way of meet-and-greet and smalltalk. It’s
amazing how testing a business model and building a prototype at 3:00 am after
too many energy drinks can bring people together. This bond holds long after
the weekend and helps keep the disparate student clubs, groups, and classes
connected and supports the ecosystem as a whole.
What exactly does it bring to startups?
3 Day Startup kickstarts student startups and connects
them to the resources they need in university communities. We want these
fledgling startups to experience 3 months of progress in 3 days and we do it
with great people (students, mentors, facilitators) and a great environment
where execution is everything.
What type of startup would benefit from your group?
We view the university as an amazing platform for
startups and we provide huge benefits to early-stage startups led by students.
We also help connect different members of the university ecosystem from clubs
and groups to incubators and accelerators to professors and companies in the
local community.
What was the most challenging aspect of starting up the
initiative?
Managing our growth and scale worldwide has been
difficult. I am certain that some of the individuals and partners behind our
program have found improvements on our model that we have yet to scale out to
the entirety of our global community.
What advice do you have for entrepreneurs?
1. “Make something people want” (Paul Graham)
2.
“In theory, there is no difference between
theory and practice.” (Yogi Berra)
What Austin-based resource have you found to be the most
helpful and why?
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