Why did you choose the Media Ventures program?
Coming from an entrepreneurial family, I’ve always known I would start my own business or design studio one day. Having just finished my undergraduate degree in Graphic Design from BU’s CFA, I found that the Media Ventures program perfectly complimented my design degree. My passion is design, but I wanted to explore the business side of my brain – still maintaining creativity via creating my own thesis/startup.
For you, what is the unique selling proposition of the program?
A lot of the time, there’s a divide between the academic world and the real world. I found that the MV program is a very relevant and contemporary program keeping up with today’s trends on new media tactics and innovations to entrepreneurial strategies along with placing you in real industry internships. The professors are real full-time “hackers, hustlers and hipsters” and part time educators giving you real connections to the real world through their own startup stories or industry knowledge.
How did you land this job?
Living and working in London has been a dream/goal of mine ever since I did a summer abroad program. With that in the back of my head, I took a gap year after graduating to travel and, at the same time, see what I could do with my MV thesis startup. I had gotten great feedback after our Pitchfest (program conclusion), and I knew there was something still there. When visiting London, I by chance saw that the MassChallenge UK (a startup accelerator program stemming from Boston and launching locations globally) official launch was happening in a couple weeks. I ended up meeting the UK team, attended a couple of their networking events and applied to be a part of the 2015 cohort. I didn’t get into the cohort with my startup, but one thing led to the next, I applied and got their internship and soon after achieved the full-time creative and marketing role. Having been a part of MV studies and bootstrapping on my startup for a little bit, I had a taste of startup life. Helping them accelerate felt only natural.
How did the program help you?
The program helped me understand the startup stages from initial idea to hacking & building to fundraising and exits. It helped me get in the know of media trends and in the minds of an innovator.
Can you describe your current role and what makes it exciting?
We’re crazy about startups and all our efforts are to help entrepreneurs win. MassChallenge is the most startup-friendly accelerator on the planet for a reason and what makes it different than other accelerators is that we’re a nonprofit and we don’t take equity from the startups. The founder’s story and mission truly makes every day working at MassChallenge worthwhile. During the ’08 financial crisis, the world was in a frenzy of greed, quick profit ventures and just taking pieces of the pie. There was no true value generation. Thus, our founder, John Harthorne, sought out to change that by being pie creators; creating value through helping startups. My heart is along side what our founder has sought out to do and to be creating creative collateral digitally and print for marketing, photography, events and partnerships is a plus.
What was your thesis project?
My thesis was called Niblings! It’s a new video-chatting platform for kids to connect and play with the grownups in their life. Currently looking for a tech partner / CTO.