On Oct. 10, 2014, Launch Connecticut College, or simply “Launch,” held its first meeting in the Alice Johnson Room in Cro. Since then, Conn’s first entrepreneurship club has seen sharp growth and is expected to continue to thrive this semester as it gains members, hosts new speakers and plans exciting events.
The basic premise behind Launch-for students to have the opportunity to collaborate creatively on startups or other sorts of design and tech projects- has always been an aspiration for Teagan Atwater ’16 and James Robinson ’17. Conveniently, while the initial idea for Launch began to formulate, other students began to show a similar yearning for entrepreneurship on campus.
“Launch sort of started in two places. Teagan and I wanted to do what Conn is about, to turn the liberal arts into action beyond the realm of academia. At the time, another group headed by Jonathan Pfefer ’16, Jeff Celniker ’17 and Zach Jay ’16, was starting a parallel entrepreneurship club. It worked out that we got to know each other and decided to merge our two efforts,” reflects Robinson.
For Robinson and Atwater, this discovery meant that the possibility of bringing entrepreneurship to Conn could become a reality. They later teamed up with Margaret Sturtevant ’16 to bring Launch into fruition.
As students found out during Fall 2014, the manifestation of this possibility included a table at Harvestfest and bringing speakers to campus to show students the limitlessness of entrepreneurship. In conjunction with Connecticut College Alumni, Launch co-sponsored the Sundays with Alumni talk, “Getting Started: The Road to Entrepreneurship.” The event allowed students interested in possibly pursuing a career in business or entrepreneurship to hear advice from accomplished alumni, such as Lizzie Pollock ’04, assistant director of social entrepreneurship at Brown.
On November 14th in Cro’s Nest, Dorothy Rogers-Bullis and Daniel Bullis, owners of drb Business Interiors, held a talk entitled, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Starting a Business.” Just a week later, students were invited to hear Connecticut State Senator Paul Formica discuss his experiences as the small business founder of Flander’s Fish Market, his work in U.S. politics and how his entrepreneurial skills influence his development as a politician.
In addition to bringing outside speakers onto campus, Launch has begun to collaborate with other academic institutions, such as Massachusetts Institute for Technology’s Start Lab. In their own words, the Lab is “a student-run non-profit created out of the ideals of collegiate entrepreneurship…encouraging and helping students start their own companies and by making it easy for students to work in rapidly expanding companies.” Although Launch has not had a formalized partnership with Start Lab, “it’s those kinds of inter-collegiate entrepreneurship partnerships that we’re trying to create and cultivate,” says Robinson.
In doing so, Launch is hoping to create an advisory board to integrate students into the “wide array of resources that they can find in outside faculty and staff members, alumni, community members because we see entrepreneurship as a shared team effort,” says Robinson.
Launch has also worked with several New London businesses to further connect with other like-minded individuals. “There is a co-working space on State St. called the Rise Center, a maker space on Masonic St. called Spark! and an up-and-coming community development platform called Metamorphosis. What is most exciting is that all of these organizations are just about as young as we are, demonstrating a new-found interest in the area for this kind of opportunity. We are also in touch with a few New London entrepreneurs who have been aiding us in forming these connections,” Atwater says.
When asked about the future of Launch, Robinson and Atwater offered several exciting events and ideas to look out for in the coming semester. One such concept is LaunchX, which would hypothetically focus on a number of Launch-related initiatives, like student businesses and interclub activity and collaboration. Robinson hopes that LaunchX will develop closer relations with New London high schools and the area’s local businesses. He says that those interested in a future in entrepreneurship would benefit greatly from working with New London because, “We’re a small, liberal arts school, so we lack many of the resources that a larger and entrepreneurship-heavy school, like MIT has. There is something that Conn has that they don’t, which is a highly consciousness and dedicated community in a small urban area,” says Robinson.
Both co-presidents stress the point that against popular belief, entrepreneurship is not only oriented towards computer science and math; it can be for anyone.
“There is a misconception that entrepreneurs are only computer scientists or businessmen, and one of our main goals is to demonstrate that anyone can be an entrepreneur. We have psychology, economics, architectural studies, environmental science, computer science, education, design and math majors as prominent members just to name a few,” said Atwater.
To that degree, Robinson commented on how “We have a lot of people who, because of their liberal arts experience, have a variety of skills that can be applicable elsewhere. For instance, people who are studying race and inequality could collaborate to create a social entrepreneurship effort to solve problems related to those fields. What we learn at Launch is how to develop products that make a difference. We firmly believe that anyone with any interest can be an entrepreneur and can turn their passions into a real-life product that people can benefit from.”
Like many entreprenuerial groups, Launch’s executive staff and members form a highly collaborative group. Robinson explains that, as like any new club, the structure of the executive board experienced shifts as public demands changed: “We previously had a director of networking, a director of events, and we found that what students really wanted were events, especially speaker events, smaller social events where individuals could build community, a way to practice and learn the ins and outs of entrepreneurship and the regular administrative meetings we held all semester,” says Robinson.
Now, in addition to the roles of co-presidents and general manager, Launch operates through four primary divisions; an events division, a social division, a workshop division and an administration group for those divisions.
According to Atwater, “Workshops will occur every couple weeks and will be open to the public. Speakers will be brought in to teach a particular skill, for example forming a business plan and model, management and leadership, sourcing funds, advertising and marketing and many more.
“Each presentation will be hands-on, teamwork-based and centered around a case study, with plenty of time for group discussion afterwards to synthesize with other workshops and apply new skills to both new and existing projects. While we recommend attending all of them, no workshop will rely too heavily on those before it, so picking and choosing your favorites is a totally viable way to participate.”
According to Atwater, Launch hopes to create a “day-long symposium – think TEDx style – filled with a select group of entrepreneurs who will share with us what it’s like to start companies that today are well-known successes. We also hope to bring in members of the local community and even have some of our own club members take the stage.”
For Atwater and Robinson, one of the biggest highlights of the past semester has been “seeing the club define itself and to see club members taking charge. We have a lot of exciting ideas and with one semester under our belts we’re functioning better and have big plans for the future.” To take part in these developments, Launch invites the campus community to attend their weekly meetings on Sundays at 9pm in New London Hall 400. •
