For most junior and senior Jumbos, the intimidating decision about what to do after college is now looming. While some students may have thought they had it all figured out when they were freshmen, the economic crisis of the past year and a half has likely shaken their confidence. Many came to Tufts in hopes of starting their own businesses when they left, but the credit crisis makes finding people to invest in a start-up company or getting a sizable loan from a bank seem like a fantasy.
Some recent Tufts alumni, however, are weathering the economic storm with their start-up companies, and they have their sights set on expansion. In particular, Mike Stone (LA '07) and Jared Rodriguez (E '08) have found innovative ways to help their young companies continue to grow in spite of the budding recession.
Stone is the president and chief marketing officer of Abroad101.com, a Web site that helps students choose their study-abroad options wisely. "[Abroad101 is] a feedback collection site [devoted to study-abroad programs] providing students easier access to peer feedback," Stone said.
Rodriguez is the director of marketing and public relations at a newly formed wind-power consulting firm called Emergent Energy Group, which was founded by several Jumbos including Rodriguez and current Tufts junior Greg Hering.
How have these alumni managed to keep their businesses afloat in the rising tide of the recession? According to Stone, efficient money management and solid business planning are important factors to attract investors in tough economic circumstances.
"The combination of us being young, [along with] the current economy, is not in favor of us getting investments. But with that said, we were really conscious about that, and we decided we would be as frugal as possible in developing a watered-down version of the Web site ... and then, once we had tested the waters, [we would] then approach investors already having something to prove ourselves with," Stone explained.
Rodriguez echoed these sentiments with regard to Emergent's financial planning. "It's difficult in the current economic climate; a lot of people aren't doing anything with their money," he said. "You really have to make sure what you are doing is efficient and economically viable."
One important part of any entrepreneurial exercise is coming up with a new way of doing things, or in extreme cases, inventing an entirely new industry. Stone and the rest of the founders of Abroad101 took the extreme approach and built an entirely new kind of study-abroad-oriented Web site based almost exclusively on student reviews in order to appeal to a niche college market and attract advertisement revenue and sponsors.
"[We earn money] primarily through advertising. We're going off that model that a lot of Web 2.0 sites are now using, which is to get enough traffic to get some meaningful revenue from sponsors and advertisers," Stone said.
And similarly, while Rodriguez and Hering may not have invented the wind-power industry, Rodriguez said that they are working to revolutionize it. "We are doing a lot of things differently than most wind-power developers and consultants. We're focusing a lot of community impacts by the technology and figuring out ways to mitigate the impacts ... and then what we're also doing is we're really generating cutting-edge ... practices in the industry," he said. "So in an industry that doesn't have best practices, we're sort of creating them."
Even though Rodriguez and Stone work in different areas of entrepreneurship, when asked about what advice they could offer to younger Jumbos aspiring to start their own firms in this uneasy economic time, both offered similar words of wisdom: Go for it.
"Pursue the risk. Pursue the thing that maybe isn't as conventional or maybe does involve the most risk because now you're young enough, and you're at a perfect time in your life to be able to take that chance," Stone said. "You definitely don't want to settle for something less and then 10 or 20 years down the road think, 'What if?'"
Continuing in the entrepreneurial spirit, Rodriguez said, "If you have an idea that's going to challenge the status quo, go for it. Because if you don't do it when you're young, you're probably never going to do it because you're not going to have the opportunity. There's a lot to be said about not having any kids, not having a mortgage, not having any [high] costs associated with your life. Now is definitely the best opportunity to use the education that you got at Tufts and the people you know that graduated from other colleges to get something going."
