If an image is worth a thousand words, what is a word worth?

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Anne-Laure Fayard

In a world of text messages, IM’s and tweets, 140 characters has become a standard and talking about “writing” can seem dated. In fact, some might think of writing as the obsolete activity of handwriting. While there recently has been several books arguing for the need to think of handwriting, I’ll be more “modern” here and consider writing as a mode of communication that one can do with a keyboard as well as with a pen or pencil.

But why talk about writing when we “know” that an image is worth a thousand words, and a video is a powerful advocate to your idea? Why talk about writing, in a world of images, videos and podcasts? Why would we need to know how to write?

Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists who have looked at the development of the brain and its evolution with the invention of writing have part of the answer: with the invention of writing, human brains evolved and developed the areas that are engaged for analytical and creative thinking.

Classical scholars and historians have another part of the answer: the birth of the Greek alphabet (and others to follow) allowed Western societies to develop the scientific and philosophical theories upon which our inventions and new ideas are grounded.

Anca Metiu and I found more evidence in our research: in particular we showed how successful online collaborations, like what we found in the open source movements or on open innovation platforms, heavily rely on the power of writing – which forces us to articulate and reflect.

Writing is in fact a way of thinking with our hands, similar to the way engineers think with their hands when they sketch, or designers think with their hands when they prototype. In fact, our research shows how writing is crucial in innovation and creative thinking. Whether you are planning your pitch, storyboarding a video, sketching a scenario or putting together a PowerPoint presentation, at the end of the day, you still need to develop a compelling story and a strong argument, and that’s what writing allows you to do… If you want to know more or discuss this topic further, please join us on May 30th at INC39.COM

Inno/Vention: A Student Prototyping Competition

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Steven Kuyan

Twelve weeks ago 61 student teams registered for Inno/Vention, or what they thought was Inno/Vention. For the last 5 years, Inno/Vention was a successful competition seeding ideas like Suneris and Mana Health while guiding them on the road to success. Focusing on the same dream of making it big with an idea, students filled the Private Dining Room to learn more about the launch of this year’s Inno/Vention competition. Little did the students know that months ago Inno/Vention merged with the EIA’s (Entrepreneurship and Innovation Association) SparkStart competition. The result was a competition that closely resembles a MVP (Minimum Viable Product) accelerator rather than a traditional pitching competition. Ideas were insufficient without validation, technologies presented were arbitrary without prototyping and the presentation of both idea and prototype were paramount. Continue reading →

2013 EEX Entrepreneurship Summit crawls through some of NYC’s hottest startups

Posted on April 22, 2013 by chrisgorges

On Friday, April 5^th, the NYU Stern Entrepreneurs Exchange (EEX) hosted its annual Entrepreneurship Summit. Instead of hosting workshops and panels, organizers decided to break the existing MBA conference mold and asked attendees to “Get Out Of The Building.”

The Summit opened up in Paulson Auditorium with an introduction by Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation Executive Director Luke Williams and an engaging keynote about innovation, entrepreneurship, and corporate agility by Michael Wolf, Yahoo! Board Member and founder of strategy consulting firm Activate. After Mr. Wolf’s opening address, approximately 100 Summit attendees were sent out into Downtown Manhattan on a series of breakthrough “Startup Crawls”. Attendees, ranging from MBA students to undergraduates to community members who heard of the event via social media, were exposed to an incredible set of influential entrepreneurs in their native office environments – all within walking distance of the NYU Stern campus. Continue reading →

Pushbacks Answered – Why I Joined Dorm Room Fund NYC

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Kim Pham

This blog post was originally posted on Kim Pham’s blog, where she writes about technology, life, startups, and other musings. Kim is an NYU student, President of Tech@NYU, and now investor at DRF NYC. You can learn more about her here.

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Anyone who knows me knows that there aren’t enough hours in the day.

Because of my already-severe lack of time, I don’t commit to anything without feeling 150% passionate about the project – I honestly just don’t have the bandwidth to.

So when I first heard of Dorm Room Fund (and following similar models), I was admittedly a skeptic. I had a multitude of pushbacks (which I’ll outline below).But after many coffees, email exchanges, and chats with Phin, CeCe, and Aaron, I’m beyond proud and ecstatic to announce that I’m joining the DRF NYC team. Continue reading →

The Entrepreneur, The MBA, and The Misconception

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Austin Clements

I decided to write this piece in response to the WSJ article by Vivek Wadhwa called Why I Don’t Advise Startups to Hire MBAs. Wadwha is an NYU Stern alum, so as this year’s Co-President of Stern’s Entrepreneurs Exchange club I felt personally responsible to address this for everyone who came to Stern with an interest in pursuing entrepreneurship.

So let’s first be clear about what it means to be an entrepreneur. Contrary to what much of the startup community would like for you to believe, your career does not need to have a binary outcome. This billionaire or bust attitude is for a very small percentage of people seeking venture capital for a high growth, high risk endeavor. ~~Many~~ Most entrepreneurs are not seeking a nine-figure exit within a decade, which is why most don’t take on venture capital. Many entrepreneurs have very successful careers generating profits and growing their businesses year over year. Many entrepreneurs can make about as much money as the average lawyer, doctor, or other skilled professional, but will achieve this on their own terms. A good business school can do a great job of helping you better understand the risks and strategies associated with these types of businesses. Continue reading →

Top ten reasons to apply for the NYU Summer Launchpad

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Lindsey Marshall

The NYU Entrepreneurial Institute recently announced that it will be running a 10-week accelerator program beginning in June called the NYU Summer Launchpad for graduating NYU and NYU-Poly student-entrepreneurs. The program will provide our University’s most promising entrepreneurs the skills, resources and connections to develop their startups into viable ventures. We will be selecting up to 10 teams from across all schools and disciplines to take part. Applications are due April 8^th – details and the link to the application can be found here.

Over the past few years, NYU has placed an increasing emphasis on developing resources and programs to support entrepreneurship; we see the Summer Launchpad as an important addition to the growing array of offerings. Today, the University supports a whole host of events, classes, and extra-curricular programs that inspire, educate, and connect students and faculty with an interest in entrepreneurship, helping them take their research and ideas and turn them into commercially viable ventures. With the introduction of the Summer Launchpad, we are creating a program that will support those startup ventures after they’ve been formed, nurturing them through the early, and often difficult, stages of development. Continue reading →

The Festival is Over. Are You Ready to Launch?

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Habiba Musah

Before becoming founders, many entrepreneurs and creators pursue other career paths. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the NYU Entrepreneurs Festival where I met many ex-(insert former career here) looking to launch their first ventures. While much of the audience was made up of students who are interested in entrepreneurial careers, many in attendance were people with some work experience for whom entrepreneurship was something they were exploring. Like a post player who had just gotten the basketball, these professionals kept one foot firmly planted in their careers, while constantly pivoting with the other foot to find the right opening to score with their ventures.

This typifies the way in which many founders launch their ventures. Most of our keynote speakers seem to have followed this path. Alex Douzet, the co-founder and CEO of TheLadders seemed to have followed this particular path when he launched TheLadders, a website in a vertical that he had already gained formidable work experience in. Alex had worked at a few companies in NYC, went to business school, worked at Hotjobs and turned down an opportunity to work at pre-IPO Google before deciding it was time to start TheLadders. His approach was measured and helped contribute to the success of his venture.

It is important to tell more founder stories like Alex Douzet’s and Dan Porter’s in order to let others know of the real paths of some of the most successful entrepreneurs. Continue reading →

Entrepreneur’s Dorm-cubator – Applications Open!

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Lili Gangas

Entrepreneur’s Dorm-cubator Applications Open for 2013-2014

NYU plans to accelerate and foster the entrepreneurship experience outside of the classroom and into the streets of NYC – 2nd Street to be exact. The Entrepreneur Dormcubator will be the newest addition to NYU’s variety of themed dormitory floors for undergraduate upperclass students this incoming academic year.

Students across the curricular spectrum will come together to live and share ideas, resources, and innovative approaches to problem solving. Furthermore, the mentorship and programming activities, to be led by an NYU faculty affiliate, will encourage students to develop and pursue entrepreneurial ventures in areas related to their academic pursuits. The growing demand from the community of student-entrepreneurs to create a space to collaborate and turn their bursts of genius into something tangible has led to this initiative.

Continue reading →

How will your work change you?

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Samantha Smith

It’s sunday night, I’m organizing and trying to knock out miscellaneous tasks. I find myself in a folder of digital things I’ve collected that I love, and thought this would be a great one to share. I don’t know who made it.

I enjoy being an entrepreneur for a few reasons, but the one most prevalent at the moment is that I get to control the influences in my life and how I live.

When I led Stern’s Entrepreneurial Exchange Group, I remember young students that were interested in entrepreneurship to make money and those with a specific idea or skill they want to take to the masses. That’s completely fine, but in line with this quote, I just want to call attention to the fact that everyday we will do work of some kind, entrepreneur or not, so we should do work that crafts and contributes to the person we want to be. Work influences how we act, what we think, how we think, what we desire, where we go. We must consider how our work will change us, in addition to the outcomes we expect of our time and commitment.

If you don’t like how your work is influencing you, do something about it.

If I could be like @Jack

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Ricky Berrin

Two weeks ago, we were fortunate to have Jack Dorsey as the keynote speaker of the NYU Entrepreneurs Festival. Jack has developed cult-like status in the tech entrepreneurship community and it was easy to see why. He inspired the crowd with his stories on the origins of Twitter and Square and his thoughts on good design. He impressively spoke and answered questions on a broad range of topics related to starting and growing his ventures.

Throw in his good looks and it is no wonder why budding entrepreneurs want to be like Jack.

While I hope that the next Jack Dorsey was sitting somewhere in that NYU crowd, I imagine that more than half of the people in the room are never going to start their own business.

This, however, doesn’t mean that they can’t be like Jack. Continue reading →

NYUEN Collaboration Fund

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Sahil Trikha

Now in its second year, the NYU Entrepreneurs Festival has become a hallmark event of NYU’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Within the NYU Entrepreneurs Network, various club leaders join forces along with NYU’s Innovation Venture Fund and Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation to host this two-day celebration. Students, alumni, and attendees from all walks of life come together to meet one another and listen in awe at the stories of inspirational entrepreneurs. What becomes apparent as one attends is that the NYU Entrepreneurs Festival acts like a magnet, luring in organizers, speakers, sponsors, and attendees. The Entrepreneurs Festival beckons, and we all willfully gravitate towards its center. Once at the core, we realize that the core is not any one speaker. It is not a workshop. And yes, it is also not Jack Dorsey. Continue reading →