How I Got Here The Garage at Northwestern

Jared Scharen, VP of Growth, Foodsmart. Jared’s path has been a winding one, from cold-calling his way into a job at McKinsey after college, to leaving consulting to do non-profit work in a small village in Peru where no one spoke english, to founding e-retirements, a resource created to help future retirees identify their ideal retirement location customized for their individual needs, as a business school student. In this conversation we discuss self-awareness, imposter syndrome, why being a founder isn’t for everyone, and the importance of finding what motivates you. I hope you enjoy, this conversation with Jared Scharen. This conversation is brought to you by The Garage at Northwestern.

David Olodort, Data Analytics Manager at Flexport. Early in his college career, David got involved with a student-run business and quickly realized the benefits of having hands-on experience running a company. His work running a student storage company gained him an unsolicited offer to intern at a startup over the summer, which translated into a full time job after school. In this conversation, we discuss the importance of diverse experiences, how to approach your job search, and how to think creatively about opportunities. This conversation is brought to you by The Garage at Northwestern. 

Aditya Nidmarti, Investor, Bessemer Venture Partners. Aditya was an international student from India who was looking for any internship that would allow him to stay in the U.S. after his freshman year. After landing an internship at a local startup, SpotHero, while the company was raising a financing round of venture capital, Aditya became intrigued by the industry, and started a venture capital club at his university. Founding the venture capital club allowed Aditya to reach out and build relationships with investors in the industry, which ultimately helped him land an investor role at Bessemer Venture Partners after graduation. Aditya discusses the difference between private equity and venture capital, why he believes in cold emailing people, and advice for pitching investors. This conversation is brought to you by The Garage at Northwestern.   

Blair Pircon, founder & CEO of The Graide Network. As a first year business school student, Blair had an idea to help teachers give more thorough feedback on student writing assignments by creating a service that utilized 3rd party graders. To test the feasibility and viability of this proposition, she started with an MVP consisting of Google Drive and Venmo, and found that The Graide Network created value for all stakeholders. Over the next five years, Blair grew the company and team to service more than 70,000 students nationwide, eventually leading to an acquisition of the company in 2021. Blair’s advice to entrepreneurs just starting out is to make sure that you’re picking the right market, team, and product to have the tailwinds at your back. This conversation is brought to you by The Garage at Northwestern.   

Audrey Valbuena, News Designer, The Washington Post. Although Audrey applied to ten colleges, she only applied to one journalism program, which she ended up getting into and attending. Originally, Audrey thought she would be a feature journalist after school, but after a few “happy accidents,” exposure to design-thinking, and experiences outside of the classroom, she decided to follow her curiosity of how news is presented and distributed. Audrey discusses the benefits of forging your own path, the value of extracurricular activities, and why it’s important to surround yourself with interesting people. This conversation is brought to you by The Garage at Northwestern.   

Akshat Thirani, founder & CEO of Amper Technologies. Since he was in high school, Akshat was always looking for problems that he could solve and potentially commercialize. When something didn’t work, he moved on to the next problem he could find. During his junior year of college, Akshat moved into an apartment where he began paying an electric bill for the first time, and began wondering which appliances were consuming the most energy. So, he began teaching himself how to engineer and build a product that could provide this information - an idea that quickly caught the attention of investors, won competitions such as the MIT Clean Energy Challenge, and helped him land a spot in the Hax accelerator program in Shenzhen, China. Despite all of this validation, Akshat began discovering that the product was not feasible for a variety of reasons, and on a serendipitous trip home to India, decided to pivot the product to serve factories and manufacturers. Since the pivot, Akshat has raised millions of dollars in venture capital, built out a robust customer base, and grown the team to 15 employees. Akshat discusses the lessons he learned along the way from avoiding solution-attachment, talking to customers early on, and raising venture capital. This conversation is brought to you by The Garage at Northwestern.