Liberal arts and entrepreneurship. Many people wouldn’t even put them together. But at Amherst, more and more students are interested in building their own ideas to solve a problem that they noticed but have not yet addressed.
This weekend, Amherst’s Ideas to Innovation (i2i) club organized the first Startup Lab, which invited students to pitch their ideas if they already have one, and provide guidance in ideating if they have not had one. Surprisingly, Amherst has many alumni working in entrepreneurship! i2i got to invite eight alumni to join them this weekend in sharing their entrepreneurial journey and how they have gained from the Amherst education.
Bob Saul ’80, an English major, talked about how literature impacted his way of reimagining universes and exploring different narratives, which helped him to be open-minded about the vast opportunities out there. Professor Ilhan Stavans agreed with his point and stressed the reason he started Restless Books, an independent, nonprofit publisher of international literature. I really agreed with Professor Stavans’ point that an Amherst education should get students to be skeptical. There are always more problems to be raised and solved.
Howard Chung ’94 and Meghan Fitzgerald ’97 talked about the challenges they faced in starting their own companies. The one thing that was emphasized the most was the PEOPLE. Having a trustworthy, responsible, and passionate partner who can work with you is hard. Howard confessed that he had failed so many times in finding the right people who could get things done exceptionally. However, you just needed to move on and constantly “pivot”.
William Collis ’07, Colin Beirne ’01, and Ahmed Aly ’24 then shared how to actually raise capital for your idea. William shared the three most important qualities that would make a company successful in attracting Venture Capital: 1. The problem you are addressing has a large enough target audience. 2. You should have at least 2 strong co-founders, one is in charge of the technicals and one is in charge of the business. 3. The team is persistent in facing any challenges. Ahmed touched on how Amherst education transformed his way of thinking. As an international student who originally only wanted to do engineering, he had exposure to various humanities courses at Amherst, spanning Political Science, Philosophy, and even Religion. These courses made him confused, but also got him into the habit of reading books and thinking critically about the world.
After the alumni panel, we were assigned into groups based on the two tracks we signed up for: one is for students with existing ventures to talk about their ideas, and another is for students without ventures to brainstorm ideas. I brainstormed with some students I met at the event about designing a program over J-term at Amherst that gathers students with a technical background, students with business ideas, and departments/local business firms who have problems that they hope to be addressed. This would be such a great opportunity for students who are all passionate about entrepreneurship to gain hands-on experience and address problems in the local community that are desperate to be addressed.
I also got to listen to most of the students’ pitches for their own venture ideas. Many talked about the applications of AI, such as cold emailing, trash sorting, and staffing management. The winner talked about a seemingly easy problem, yet so important to solve: the improvement of ECG equipment, which has not been renovated since the 1990s. She personally has some heart problems that require her to regularly use this technology, but it is very complicated to uncoil the equipment efficiently. This really inspired me that we shouldn’t always look for the trend, which is obviously AI and big data, but also focus on the things that have not been discussed enough.
Liberal arts should never be the antonym of entrepreneurship. It is the fuel to spark innovation. And I’m so glad that Amherst is taking this step.