Becoming an Influencer

I am very excited to announce that I will be joining the team at influencers@ as COO after graduation!

Influencers@ is an influence marketing agency that hits the streets and interwebs to help brands and solutions become the most talked about, wanted, and shared among the 18 to 30 year old demographic. We generate and delivers influence marketing via word of mouth campaigns, product sampling, street team promotions, brand ambassador programs, event promotion, staffing and promo tours. We also just launched our first software product, ChatterMob, which is currently in private beta. 

I first met the Chief Imagination Officer (CEO), Spencer Bramson, at the beginning of the semester when I invited him to be a speaker at the NU Entrepreneurs Club. The room was packed with students wanting to hear the story of how a 7 month old startup run by a 22 year old CEO could be earning revenue, running marketing promotions for major events like CollegeFest and here is the kicker - they have a ball pit in the office. I am incredibly excited about this company, and here is why:

1. Spencer Bramson is an absolute maniac

When Spencer spoke at the E-Club, we named the event “Marketing Maniac” and it fit perfectly. Spencer is the kind of guy that gets stuff done, and in the business world that means he delivers value to customers and drives revenue. He previously co-founded BuzzU and grew the revenue to over 6 figures at the ripe age of 20. Put simply, Spencer is a business rockstar.

2. We are earning revenue and profit… cash!

There is something to be said in the startup world about actually making money. After immersing myself in the Northeastern and Boston entrepreneurial ecosystem, I found that I am most attracted to companies that have simple business models: we deliver value to a customer and that customer pays us. Turning a profit at 8 months old is impressive and it is a cornerstone of the influencers@ culture. We are a business and darn proud of it.

3. A culture of ball pits, nerf guns and feety pajamas

This company easily has the most unique culture I have ever seen. There is a ball pit in the office. There is a wall of nerf guns. My sign-on bonus included a pair of feety pajamas, which I am encouraged to wear at the office. There is a lot more to this culture than meets the eye… it is a fascinating exercise in creating an atmosphere that is super appealing to college students to work in. 

4. Mix of service and tech product

On one side, we offer our clients influence marketing services in the form of campaigns, events, product sample distribution, etc. At the same time, we have just launched our first product into private beta, ChatterMob, which is a web platform where all you have to do for free stuff is chat. This unique mix of both service and product offerings provides a ton of exposure for anyone involved to see how different models can work together.

5. Wicked cool customers

We ran the marketing campaigns for CollegeFest and other clients include CampusLive and Mr. Youth. For a tiny new start-up, influencers@ has attracted an impressive list of paying customers, and this is just the beginning.

6. Building a key core competency: customer acquisition

Every entrepreneur knows that one of the greatest challenges is customer acquisition. When it comes to acquiring users and building brand awareness in the 18-30 year old demographic, we kick ass. That is why we love to work with local start-ups like PXT Money, Jebbit and SplashScore to help them build their user-base.

7. Learning and mentor-ship opportunities

My philosophy is that you learn best by doing. influencers@ is giving me an opportunity to take on serious responsibility and learn the way every entrepreneur should: by being in the trenches and having pressure. On top of that, I have an excuse to engage with fantastic mentors like Ryan Durkin to learn the ins and outs of operations. 

8. A wide open path to grow

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this opportunity is the potential to grow. We have ideas, but there is no way to really know what influencers@ will be like 18 months from now. By being part of a start-up that has the flexibility to capitalize on new opportunities that come our way, the possibilities are endless. And wow is that exciting.

Hire for Passion, not Skills

It is 4pm on a Thursday when Freshmen Rohan Venkatesh walks into the Entrepreneurs Club’s office to meet with Director of Marketing sophomore Matt Bilotti and myself. Matt and I are very excited to be offering Rohan a promotion to Assistant Director of Marketing. We are so impressed with Rohan: his attitude is nothing short of spectacular. He constantly volunteers to help out, like at the sign in table at our Husky Startup Challenge Demo Night. His enthusiasm and passion for the club shines through. Yet at the same time, Rohan is inexperienced: as a freshmen, he has minimal background in leadership or marketing roles. But we have a feeling that he’d be great, so we deliver the news. Rohan’s eyes light up and it looks like he is going to burst with happiness “This is so awesome guys, thank you so much! I can’t wait to get started!” says Rohan, with a grin on his face that seemes like it couldn’t get any wider.

Bringing Rohan in as an Assistant Director ended up being quite a good call. Rohan quickly made up for his lack of experience with his hunger for learning. Rohan constantly asked Matt questions and learned the ins and outs of marketing for the Entrepreneurs Club. When he took on social media marketing in Facebook, our RSVPs went from 45 for an event to 86 the week he started. Rohan continues to volunteer for any task that needs work, whether related to marketing or not. His passion is contagious and at events and executive team meetings he isn’t shy about sharing it. The most impressive thing about Rohan though is how welcoming he is of constructive criticism. Any time someone makes a suggestion to him for something he can improve, he thanks them profusely for caring about his development and quickly implements the suggestion in his work.

If I had two candidates for a role, one with strong established skills for what I need and one with the passion and attitude Rohan has, I’d take Rohan pretty much every time. Someone like Rohan can be trained and he will learn quickly to attain those skills that the organization needs, and when that is combined with his upbeat attitude and thirst for feedback, he is unstoppable.

This post is an excerpt from my upcoming book about how to grow a wildly successful student organization at university. More details coming soon!

Commercial Failure, Experiential Success

I know what you did last summer. Well, ok: that’s not true. But I do know what I did last summer: I tried my hand at a software startup, fell on my face, and learned a ton. Here’s the story:

It is January 2011. I am in Durham, NC, on co-op at Digitalsmiths, pretending to attend Duke University. In the cocktail hour before an entrepreneurial speaker at a campus event, I meet Kirill Klimuk, a freshman computer science major. Standing over a big bowl of chips and guacamole, acting as a scout for .406 Ventures looking for hotshot hackers I ask Kirill what he’s up to. He proceeds to explain what sounds like one of the craziest ideas I have ever heard: concocting some sort of web of information, making it easier for people or organize and share data online, and a whole bunch of other jargon. I have no idea what the heck he’s talking about. However, something tells me he’s special. So after the event I track him down and send an email inviting him to dinner.

We meet at 6pm on a Sunday evening at Panda Express on Duke’s campus. We end up sitting in that restaurant for 6 hours straight.We talk about everything from our childhoods, to our obsession with Legos, and the intricacies of this very clever idea Kirill had. The basic premise of the idea is that there is a lot of information content online (news articles, blog posts, etc) and we’d filter out the uninteresting stuff and only show people the content that they actually care about. At around midnight we leave, shaking hands as business partners in this new venture. 

Now, we weren’t signing contracts or NDAs: we were just two students working on a project. So we meet every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night while everyone else was out partying. We would sit in front of whiteboards from 5pm to midnight putting together the components of our product to make it work like a well-oiled machine. Working was glorious intoxication: we loved it and couldn’t get enough of it. We had a mission: to be a destination website where people could go to discover every topic from technology to mountain biking. One night we stayed up until 3am, filling the room with diagrams, outlines and mockups of our baby, which we called Quiree, after inquiry (a search leading to discovery). It couldn’t have been any more fun.

We did this all semester and all through spring break. At the end of the semester Kirill’s classes ended and so did my job, so we decided to walk away from high paying tech internships and work on this crazy idea full time, all summer. We decided we were really serious about the company and incorporated it to protect the IP, working with a great startup lawyer in Chapel Hill, NC. My parents, as crazy as they are, agreed to let us both live in their house in NY. So sure enough, I came back from co-op with a Duke student to live in my parents’ house in mid-May. 

We settled in and made a rigorous schedule. We started work around 9:45am and ended work around 11:00pm every day, with a couple of breaks for lunch, dinner and sanity. We did this 7 days a week.It was madness. As the weeks turned it to months, it became more and more challenging to keep up our insane work ethic. No going to the beach, no enjoying summer, or being kids. We were crafting code, graphics, and layouts like gears churning in a engine, without an off switch.

It was finally the beginning of August, and we had finished our website. It was amazing: we built it! Everything functioned just as we had drawn it out on the white boards months ago. It was still a minimum viable product (in our eyes at least), but, man was there a lot to it. Bells, whistles, the works. Features stacked up like a skyscraper and the instruction manual thickened with guidelines of how to use the product. We started sending the link out to our friends and colleagues to try out. They gladly signed up, looked around for about 60 seconds, left and never came back. 

“Oh, crap” we said. Realizing that there were a ton of flaws that we could quickly identify and repair, we set out to iterate and create the next version to release again in a week. We cranked it out during the week and sure enough pushed a new version out. It was a big improvement, butusers still did not seem to understand it or want to use it. Maybe it wasn’t social enough? So we added more Facebook and Twitter integration, more opportunities for users to interact and discuss topics they were interested in and comment on news content. But again, people tried it and left, not really giving it a chance or understanding what it could do for them.

At this point it was mid-August. School was going to start soon, and the project looked like it needed to a major pivot that would require massive re-coding. Kirill and I were so tired that we could barely lift a finger. Our spirits were down, our energy depleted, our enthusiasm at an all time low. Suddenly, going to class didn’t seem so bad at all. At that point we made a choice to put our product on the shelf, and so ended the story of Quiree.

What did we learn?

1. Simplicity

Products MUST be simple. The best software product is a button that does one thing the same way every time. Our product had 50 buttons that were color coded and felt like an airplane cockpit command center to most of our users. On top of that, the interface was so busy that users didn’t understand what they were looking at. You need to be able to sum up in one sentence what your product is, and it needs to be in clear, simple language. Ex: “My product is a software program where you can voice and video chat with your friends.” - Skype. Or, “My product is a website that teaches you how to code.” - Codecademy. Simple, simple, simple. 

Here’s a guideline to simplify your product. Dream it up, write down all of the features you believe are necessary. Now, ditch half of them. I mean it, ditch them right now. And now, cut the amount of features left in half. There: that is your minimum viable product. Seriously. It needs to be MINIMUM, the absolute bare essentials. 

2. The user is LAZY

One of our biggest mistake was overestimating our average user. My partner and I are technical guys. We build software and understand its intricacies. But the average user doesn’t always realize the most basic aspects of navigation on the web, like the issues of using the browser’s back button from within a web application. Your product must be so EASY to use and so OBVIOUS that the user does not have to exert energy trying to figure it out, because I assure you that they will not. Instead, they will simply walk away from the product.

3. Design and User Experience (UX) are key

Neither my partner nor I were great designers. It showed: our product was ugly. There are some really beautiful products out there that place a great emphasis on design, like Zaarly. Do yourself a favor: have a design co-founder on your team or hire a top notch firm like Bionic Hippo to consult on UI/UX. If your product is not appealing to the eye and warming to the soul, people won’t want it. 

4. Pivot quickly

If a software product takes 4 months to code, you are probably doing something wrong. Get something out quickly (i.e. in weeks), get user feedback, and test again. We spent way too much time on our first iteration. Adapt to what your customers want and be willing to completely change your product or business model to suit the needs of your customers. There is zero room for stubbornness in web software startups, especially targeting mass consumer markets.

5. Partners will fight

You start out your business loving your partner. You are best friends; all is sweet in the world, etc. I promise that at some point in your career, you will fantasize about smashing your partner’s head into a telephone pole. It is ok; it is normal. Remember, you are all people. You have your own opinions, desires, and agendas. You need to learn when to give each other space, when to compromise, when to take a stand, and when to back down. Most importantly, you need to act like a decent human being, otherwise nobody will care how smart or skilled you are, and they won’t work with you.

6. Cost control is good

My partner and I lived for free in my parent’s house (and ate their food). Luckily we were young enough to be able to play that card. At the end of this adventure, we lost very little money. We spent a lot of time, but we also learned a lot. Our costs were incredibly low. Position yourself the same way.

7. Code, code, code

We learned a ton about coding through this experience, and anyone who tries to attack a similar venture will too. I became comfortable with JavaScript and my partner had PHP shooting out of his fingers. 

8. Product management

It is really easy to get picky on details of the product. Don’t do that - it is not important in the beginning. Whether the icon is blue or orange doesn’t freakin’ matter. What is important:do people understand your product? Is it easy to use? Does the basic functionality work properly? Can you easily scale it when the time comes?

So, that is the story. It was a magnificent summer and I learned a huge amount. I’m very glad I took the plunge to make our crazy idea a reality and despite it being a commercial failure, it was certainly an experiential success.

Thanks to Kirill Klimuk for his input on this post.

10 Ways to Identify Great Developers

“Developers, developers, developers, developers.”

We all know the quote from Steve Ballmer and the classic video of him showing his support for Microsoft engineers.

Ballmer’s quote holds especially true today as startups and Fortune 500’s alike viciously compete to acquire the top programming talent. This means that identifying and recruiting world class software developers is not only crucial for tech companies, but also more difficult than it has ever been. 

Throughout my experience as a web developer, entrepreneur, and Student Fellow at .406 Ventures, I’ve met amazing software developers. Here is my short list for finding the great ones: 

1. Ability and willingness to learn

I don’t care how much you know right now. Instead, I care how fast you are able to learn new technologies, adapt, and implement them. My partner last summer came into the venture as a PHP novice. The code he wrote the first month was clunky. However, he loved learning to improve the code, absorbing pages of the PHP manual like a sponge. Within months, he became a sharp PHP wiz, re-building the old code in hours even though it took him days to first write it.

2. Passion for problem solving

Writing software is all about solving a problem. Any great programmer must have that innate passion for solving problems, boldly taking on challenges and ultimately conquering the unknown.

Maybe they solve the 6 Rubix cubes on their desk in under a minute or they spend every morning manipulating a Soduku puzzle. Either way, having a knack for problem solving in an efficient, salable, and manipulable way is paramount.

3. Logical and mathematical thinking

At a very basic level, any software program is a series of commands (logic) that goes through situations and takes some sort of action based on the situation. For example: IF it is raining THEN I’ll take an umbrella ELSE I won’t take an umbrella.

Great developers will many times think, speak and act in similar ways that they program. If I videotaped some of the arguments my CTO and I had, I bet we could easily transcribe them into basic logic arguments and turn them into a web app. Look for people that love math and logic, those skills translate well into development.

4. Flexibility

If a developer seems married to one programming language or stack, run away. It might be Ruby on Rails today, Python and Django tomorrow and picking apart some Node.js or Scala next month. Once you understand the fundamentals of Object Oriented Programming (OOP), it is fairly simple to go in between these different languages. You want someone that is flexible, a jack-of-all-trades in the programming world. They don’t have to start out this way, but must have the willingness to learn and explore at a rapid pace.

5. Readiness to re-code

When I was was first learning to program, it drove me nuts that I had to constantly re-do work. But that is the nature of the beast: as you learn and get better, it is essential that you optimize whatever code you are working with to function at its best, and unfortunately that usually means scrapping old code and starting from line 1. Any experienced developer knows this, and they need to be ready and willing to re-code when necessary without grumbling about it. I was a grumbler, and I learned fast the error of my ways.

6. Being a team player

Every engineering team is just that, a team. There are multiple developers working towards the same goals and writing different parts of the same application.

That means you want someone who doesn’t mind picking up where someone else left off, deciphering someone else’s code or comments and ultimately working in a collaborative environment. Developers that go with the attitude of “mine mine mine!” are probably not going to be a good fit.

Make sure they take this very seriously, even if it’s a team of 1 right now. 

7. Playing well with non-techies

Any strong startup team is not just made up of developers. There are designers, business people, and investors, just to name a few. The engineering team must be comfortable working with other stakeholders in a cross disciplinary environment. There will be project managers and product folks suggesting ideas for the product, which at times might be unfeasible or simply wrong.

I want to hire the engineer that doesn’t criticize or shrug off a flawed proposal, but instead takes the time to explain the problem to decision makers that might not have a technical background.

8. Code formatting

When most developers start out, their code looks like crap. Nothing is indented, views mix with business logic, and the madness goes on. A good developer quickly learns that formatting code well so it is readable and properly commented is very important. When responsibilities shift, it makes a world of difference for engineers to be able to look at code and understand exactly what it does and what other pieces of code it interacts with.

9. Emphasis on documentation

In addition to clean formatting of code, having proper documentation can make everyone’s lives a lot easier when code needs to be reviewed or edited down the road. Keeping a log of every function (along with its parameters), file, and database table is a great habit to get into. It is not as annoying as it sounds, and the consequence for not doing it is a guaranteed headache when you have to sort through 50 files to figure out what 5 little lines of code do.

10. A fun, hardworking, good person to be around

I follow the golden rule of “do not work with assholes.” I don’t care how much of a code master you are, if you’re not nice to other people in the company, if you put others down, or don’t respect authority, then you won’t work with me. I’d much rather train a hard-working, smart, and fun new developer then a self-labeled expert that is rude or arrogant. Choose your team with this rule, hire slowly and fire quickly when there is a culture problem.

If you need to figure out how someone’s going to treat the other people in your company, take them out to a meal or two. When you get a chance before you order, take the waiter/waitress aside and ask them to bring out the food either late or slightly incorrect. Then, see how the engineer reacts to the situation. Do they complain or talk beyond the server’s back? Or do they politely communicate the problem like a nice, understanding human being?

Every startup is going to have ups and downs, and if someone loses their cool at a minor issue in a restaurant, you might not want to be rely on that person when it’s crunch time and you’re a month away from running out of money. 

Are you ready to become a great developer? Awesome! Here’s what you should do:

• Get on Codecademy: It is the hands down best place on the Internet to learn how to code, co-founded by my friend Zach Sims.
• Get some books: I recommend ones like the PHP Cookbook that walk you through every key area of the language and provide a ton of real world examples (with real code) to play around with.
• Start hacking: Play around with code. Make up an idea for a mini application and hack it together piece by piece. It’s going to be clunky - that’s ok, you’re learning!

Good luck!

Thanks to Kirill Klimuk and Drew D’Agostino for their input on this post.

Why I Take Every Meeting

I meet with a lot of people. It’s kind of ridiculous - in a given week I might have the privilege of sitting down with dozens of talented, passionate people in the community and learning more about what they do, how I can help them, how they can help me and how we might be able to work together in the future

This is the essence of networking. Networking is not just exchanging business cards, that is the worst way to do it. Instead, you need to form meaningful connections with people. Take a genuine interest in what they are doing and be a good listener. Let them talk about themselves and not the other way around. 

To foster this mentality, I generally take almost every meeting that comes my way. Some I have a feeling might not be so productive, and others I am incredibly excited about. But as a college senior, I can afford to spend a good amount of time meeting new people and learning new things. The big idea behind my policy is that you never knew who you might meet. Sure, a meeting could be a dud, or you could be talking to future business partner, best friend, spouse or mentor. 

A mentor of mine that epitomizes this philosophy is Ryan Durkin, the COO of CampusLive. As an executive, Ryan is willing to meet with people, give them advice, make connections, and share his wealth of experience. He is a role model for the entire community.

Remember, your network is one of your greatest assets. The relationships you have can provide tons of unknown opportunities, so it is a worthy investment to foster them. Here are the action items:

• Get some business cards. They are still important to have to share contact information.
• Get on LinkedIn. That site should be your best friend. It is a virtual rolodex and it’s free. 
• Get out and talk to people. Go to some startup events or just find people on their company websites and send them an email to set up a meeting. 

5 Ways to Be a Great Mentor

Especially in the world of entrepreneurship, having great mentors and being a great mentor is crucial. Mentors can act as guides for a young entrepreneur, helping them avoid classic mistakes, making key introductions and serving as a teacher far after college graduation day.

Over the past few years I have had multiple mentors, and been a mentor myself to others. As President of the Entrepreneurs Club, a key part of my role is to act as a mentor to all 640 of our members, and especially to the younger students leading the club on our executive team. On top of that, I am honored to have quite a few great mentors to guide me, such as Graham Brooks at .406 Ventures, Gordon Adomdza at Northeastern University, and Ken Coleman, co-founder and former EVP at TimeTrade Systems.

So what makes a great mentor? There are varying degrees of how intense the relationship can be. In some cases, it is just a check in once in a while and an open line of communication to ask questions. When I play the mentor role, I like to take a very hands on approach. Especially for my younger colleagues, my goal is to give them tangible feedback, advice points and action items that they can use to advance their careers. More specifically, I suggest a mentor does the following:

1. Be critical

I call my mentees out a lot, anytime they make a mistake. I clearly explain to them where they fell short and how they can improve. It’s much better they hear this from you so they can improve for when it counts.

2. Focus on soft skills

This means proper business acumen, wording in emails, etc. I am constantly reviewing sent emails / any written doc (ie a resume) with my mentees and making suggestions for improvement.

3. Make introductions

And make a lot of them. Build up your mentees’ networks. I make many intros via email and suggest my mentees set up meetings.

4. Guide, don’t do

Be sure to make suggestions, but never give orders and never do the work for your mentee. I always use the phrasing when making a suggestion ”I would consider doing X”

5. Suggest tangible action items

I always provide, in bullet list format, clear ideas for my mentees to consider executing to contribute to and advance whatever they are working on.

Ultimately, the relationship will depend on the time, flexibility and personality of the both the mentor and the mentee. If you want to find a mentor of your own, there are plenty of great programs in Boston to help you, like Sean Lindsay’s Founder Mentors or Northeastern University’s venture accelerator, IDEA.

I’m Back! Update on the Entrepreneurs Club

Alright, I admit it - I’ve slacked on this blog. I mean seriously, my last post was in October. But have no fear, I’m back with the energy and enthusiasm of a kid after eating an entire box of oreos (or me, after eating an entire box of oreos…)

The past semester has been an incredible journey. In addition to finally being a senior, I took on the reigns as President of the Northeastern University Entrepreneurs Club. I first got involved with the club my freshmen year when there was rarely more than 15 people in the room at any given meeting. Now, our team has grown the organization to be one of the largest at the university, attracting 100+ students every week to our kick ass Get Togethers, where we invite a passionate speaker, network, build skills and enjoy free pizza with our community of student entrepreneurs.

By the numbers since September, Entrepreneurs club members have launched 17 new student ventures, picked up thousands of dollars in funding, signed up hundreds of new customers for Zaarly, mentored 40 low-income high school students, invited 11 CEOs and founders to speak and created leadership opportunities for dozens of students at Northeastern.

The club has grown like no other, and it is all thanks to the entrepreneurial attitude of our members. Students have created new programs, reached out to C-level executives, led activities and ultimately demenstrated how Northeastern’s worldclass programs prepare students to not only get lots of job offers, but to create their own jobs.

This role has been one of the best experiences I have had the privilege of earning during my college career. I have learned so much about managing people, scaling an organization, event planning and execution, fundraising and a myriad of other invaluable skills. I’m looking forward to continuing the momentum this upcoming spring semester!

Only 2 AP Classes??

Flash back to 9th grade history class. The teacher passed out an assignment, some sort of research and essay stuff. But there was a catch - students in the class had a choice to do a second assignment instead. The second one involved completing a longer reading, and writing a lengthier, more complex essay. This alternate assignment was mandatory for any student who wanted to apply for AP World History the following year.

So 14 year old me looked at the teacher and said (in my head of course), “so let me get this straight. You’re giving me homework, and then you’re saying I have the opportunity to volunteer to do even more homework. Are you freakin’ crazy?”

I didn’t like homework very much, so I opted for the first assignment and never looked back. I certainly worked in high school, but I wasn’t up until 2am every night writing papers nor was I struggling through advanced calculus. I took the normal classes (plus 2 AP’s and college level Spanish) and excelled.

Everything in high school and beyond is about trade-offs and opportunity costs. I chose to not pursue an excessively rigorous courseload in part so I could have more free time outside of school. And when I was 14, I used that free time to start my first business, Armonk Computer Solutions.

Over the next 4 years, while many of my peers were sweating through AP Euro, I was learning the fundamentals of customer service, marketing, accounting and technology. I learned how to talk to people and how to sell. This wasn’t coming from a book - it was real world, first hand experience. 

The bottom line here is about passions. I wasn’t passionate about any of the subjects offered in AP. To this day, I still believe that I got more value out of starting a company than I would have gotten spending my afternoons outlining an AP biology textbook.

How I Admitted Myself to Duke University

In the fall of 2010, I accepted a spring semester internship in Durham, NC. At that time I didn’t know anything about North Carolina, nor did I know a single person there. I wanted to change that.

I decided that it would be great to have some friends when I got to Durham. I would be located just a mile away from Duke University, full of kids my own age - a great place to start. So I did what I do best - send emails to strangers. I searched the internet for the student leaders of the entrepreneurship community at Duke and introduced myself: “Hey, I think what you’re doing is cool and although I  don’t have any affiliation with your school, I’d love to get involved.” And to my surprise, my inbox filled with enthusiastic replies, welcoming me to the community.

Fast forward a month and I arrive in Durham. I begin following up on those emails and arranging meetings. Within the first week I had met with several student leaders and Presidents of clubs. I began attending executive board meetings and providing input from what I had learned running the Entrepreneurs Club at Northeastern. All of the groups had websites, although some of them were outdated. So I offered to re-design them, for free. Of course I was met with an enthusiastic yes and over winter vacation I began to code several new websites for the Duke Entrepreneurship organizations.

A week later, I was introduced to a professor in the Markets & Management program and after telling him my story, he invited me to participate in his class. Within 3 weeks of being at Duke (minus vacation), I was:

• Participating in the executive board operations of clubs
• Taking a senior capstone class… and doing homework!
• Rushing two selective living groups (living communities on campus)
• Went to my first Duke basketball game, and then another.

Now fast forward another few weeks and I was:

• Planning & executing events for the InCube selective living group rush
• Starting a company with a freshman computer science major
• Meeting more key people at Duke then many seniors knew

I had quickly accomplished my goal of making friends - but the experience ended up becoming so much more. I gained an entirely new perspective by immersing myself in a university that was so different than the one I had been at before. I went from not knowing anybody to walking through Duke campus saying hi to people around every turn.

What did I learn?

• People will give you amazing opportunities if you have the guts to ask
• If you create advantage instead of taking advantage, everyone wins
• Duke & Northeastern are completely different - more info coming later

Is Start-up Weekend the Best Matchmaker?

With the popularity of programs like Startup Weekend and 24 hour hackathons, it is becoming common for entrepreneurs to start building something with a bunch of random people and then afterwards decide they are all going to start a company together. 

Starting a company is a big deal, it’s dangerously close to a marriage. One of the most important decisions you make is who will be on the team, so when you’re thinking about partnering up, consider the following:

• How much do I know about this person? Do I know who they truly are?
• What are their past experiences? Do others speak highly of their work?
• What are their values?

Ultimately, it is tricky to get the answers to all of those questions. I say, give it a try for a little while with no-strings-attached… see how everything works before you sign the papers.

Ideally, you want a mix of different strengths and weaknesses with less overlap. I.e. my partner is a rockstar hacker and I can sell water to a well. Creating balance and leveraging people’s core competences are keys to building a great team.