![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2019\/11\/191104_Entrepreneurship_Panel_0294.jpg\")
<\/a>The Center for Purposeful Work hosted a panel on entrepreneurship on Nov. 4. From left: Moderated by trustee and entrepreneur Chris Barbin \u201993, panelists Mbali Ndlovu \u201909, Michelle Pham \u201915, and Julia Sleeper-Whiting \u201908 spoke about their experiences and offered advice to students. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n
The panel marked the launch of this year\u2019s Bobcat Ventures competition. Over the next several months, the student club will organize a series of workshops on how to design, run, and raise money for a new business, followed by a pitch competition for thousands of dollars in funding.<\/p>\n
From their stories of founding their own businesses and working with other founders, Sleeper-Whiting, Pham, and Ndlovu offered plenty of advice and insights for budding Bates entrepreneurs. Here\u2019s what we learned.<\/p>\n
Find a need<\/h5>\n
Sleeper-Whiting never expected to start a business. She came to Bates wanting to be a veterinarian, but what she called an \u201cepic fail\u201d in a chemistry course left her searching for other paths.<\/p>\n
Her sister, Anna Sleeper Cressey \u201905, suggested she take an education course. For the accompanying placement in a school, Sleeper-Whiting helped out in an English language learning classroom at Lewiston Middle School.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Lewiston\u2019s Tree Street Youth started because \u201dthere\u2019s kids who need support, and we\u2019re able to do it,\u201d said Julia Sleeper-Whiting \u201908. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n
After that, \u201cBates was my extracurricular,\u201d Sleeper-Whiting joked. \u201cI was off campus way more than I was on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
She continued to tutor students, recruiting her friends to help. She started a homework help program at a local church, and when participants exceeded capacity, she and Kim Sullivan \u201913, who volunteered for the program, founded the full-fledged Tree Street Youth Center, which serves primarily immigrant and refugee families in downtown Lewiston\u2019s so-called Tree Streets neighborhood, named for streets like Oak, Walnut, and Birch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t come into it thinking we were going to start a business or that we needed to think of budgets,\u201d Sleeper-Whiting said. \u201cIt was just, there\u2019s kids who need support, and we\u2019re able to do it. What\u2019s so complicated about it?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>\u201cI\u2019m always trying to learn how I can improve, with ideas directly from the customers,\u201d said Mbali Ndlovu \u201909, founder of activewear brand Lukafit. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n
Create a community<\/h5>\n
Ndlovu, who majored in African American studies at Bates, always knew she wanted to start a business. But a business doing what<\/em>, she didn\u2019t know. So after graduation she took jobs at media companies, including Firelight Media, working to increase the representation of people of color in film.<\/p>\n Like many young professionals, Ndlovu tried but failed to establish an exercise routine. That changed when she found people to work out with.<\/p>\n \u201cI started a meetup group for women of color in New York who were also looking for workout buddies,\u201d Ndlovu said. \u201cThat grew to almost a thousand women who were looking for the same things I was. Through conversations with all those women, I got inspired to start my company.\u201d<\/p>\n The result is Lukafit, which sells workout gear like leggings and bike shorts designed for women of color.<\/p>\n As a Bates student, Pham was a sociology major and founding leader of the Bobcat Ventures competition. Now she invests in and consults for the companies of friends, and in her role at Google she\u2019s worked with company founders in fields ranging from healthcare to online mattress sales to develop advertising plans on the search engine.<\/p>\n An entrepreneur \u2014 or any young professional \u2014 should be comfortable with ambiguity, said Google account manager Michelle Pham \u201915. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n Ambiguity is a fact of life for entrepreneurs and many young professionals, Pham said. Departments at Google are frequently reshuffled, merged, or split.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can never get too comfortable, because the next day you might be working under a new director or under a new business unit with new goals completely,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m always trying to learn how I can improve, with ideas directly from the customers,\u201d Ndlovu said.<\/p>\n Talking to customers is what an entrepreneur should do before anything else, she added, referring to Giff Constable\u2019s book Talking to Humans<\/em>, a guide for conducting customer development interviews.<\/p>\n How many customers? Thirty. \u201cNot five, not 10 \u2014 30,\u201d she said. \u201cMeet them in person or over the phone, and ask questions.\u201d<\/p>\n Though she runs a very different organization, Sleeper-Whiting\u2019s clients \u2014 the children and families of Tree Street Youth \u2014 are at the center of her model. \u201cNothing beats directly talking to your clients, talking directly to the people most impacted,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Since Sleeper-Whiting is not from the Tree Streets neighborhood, she developed a vision for the youth center by listening to children and their families. \u201cTree Street became an incubator for the kids\u2019 ideas. You could have a really bold youth emerge who says, \u2018I want to do X, Y, and Z.\u2019 You\u2019re like, \u2018Okay, what can we do with that?\u2019\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n For the panelists, the process of running a business and the relationships you build along the way are as important as the end goal. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n Since founding Lukafit, Ndlovu has joined a community of \u201cpeer mentors,\u201d fellow entrepreneurs who talk regularly to share ideas, resources, and emotional support.<\/p>\n \u201cEntrepreneurship is very hard emotionally, financially, and socially,\u201d she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t hang out with your friends and family as much, so it can be very taxing on you, and it\u2019s very important to have support. My peer mentors have been that support for me.\u201d<\/p>\n At Bates, Pham said, it\u2019s easy to take for granted the number of \u201cinteresting people\u201d who visit campus. But after college, \u201cnobody\u2019s going to curate those events for you anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n So, working at Google in California and then in New York City, Pham has made an effort to go to talks on her own, often sitting in small audiences to hear business giants like Charles R. Schwab speak. In turn, she invites people with interesting ideas to give talks to Google employees.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need to keep that curiosity going,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Chris Barbin \u201993, whose startup Appirio sold for $500 million in 2016, recommended being comfortable with rejection and making sure employees are happy \u2014 and always making sure an investment is worth it. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n Chris Barbin has founded four companies so far; his first, IT firm Appirio, sold for $500 million in 2016, after being fueled by several rounds of investor funding.<\/p>\n If an entrepreneur is lucky enough that an investor takes interest \u2014 investors and venture capitalists passed on Appirio 21 times, Barbin said \u2014 the founder should then move heaven and earth to make the investment worth it.<\/p>\n \u201cI will never not get a return for my investors,\u201d Barbin said. \u201cIt is very important to me that if I take their money, they will get a better return than putting money in a safe.\u201d<\/p>\n What happens when you fail? Barbin asked the panelists.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t fail,\u201d Sleeper-Whiting replied, to audience laughter. She wasn\u2019t joking. \u201cIf something\u2019s not working, then you change it. Then you don\u2019t fail, because you\u2019re constantly evolving.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe greatest failure that some people have is that when they recognize that something\u2019s not working, they\u2019re too afraid to say that and pivot,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n That pivot isn\u2019t always easy. Sleeper-Whiting recalled Tree Street Youth\u2019s recent move to a new building. Though the new space is nicer, \u201cwe lost a lot in moving away from our old building because there\u2019s a lot of history and dynamic to that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had to intentionally create space to grieve that loss in order to be able to embrace what we can do with this new building.\u201d<\/p>\nBe comfortable with ambiguity<\/h5>\n
<\/a>Let the customers guide you<\/h5>\n
<\/a>Get support<\/h5>\n
Network, network, network<\/h5>\n
<\/a>Get a return<\/h5>\n
Don\u2019t fail. Evolve<\/h5>\n