Most Disruptive MBA Startups Of 2023

When it comes to MBA student startups, you can’t blame customers and investors for being skeptical. Sure, these founders have great ideas and credentials. In the end, these ventures are hobbies, most figure. And they’ll disappear once their founders get their offers from McKinsey.

Not Rooney Lee.

It would be an understatement to say Rooney is committed to his customers. A 2023 graduate of the University of Virginia’s Darden School, Lee discovered a “glaring gap in the market” during his Google internship two summers ago. Needing a place to live, Lee pursued mid-term housing through Airbnb. This resulted in “steep” rental costs – not counting the sunk cost of a vacant apartment back in Virginia. Soon enough, Lee was developing NewSublease, a platform where students and professionals could find what he calls “affordable mid-term leasing.”

Rooney Lee, University of Virginia (Darden)

GOING ABOVE-AND-BEYOND

It hasn’t been an easy market to crack, Lee tells P&Q, particularly with the intimidating legal minutiae surrounding subleasing. In response, he focused on customer service to reinforce that NewSublease was here to stay. Even more, Lee’s interpretation of service extended way beyond quickly responding to inquiries.

“[I was] personally inspecting properties, welcoming guests at the airport, facilitating moves, and handling cleaning for hosts. To truly epitomize our commitment, I even opted to live on a couch during the summer, offering up my own residence as temporary housing for our users. This personal sacrifice not only demonstrated the depth of our dedication, but also helped us gather firsthand feedback.”

This hands-on approach has proven quite effective. Thus far, NewSublease has produced over 350 property matches, saving these customers over $3,000 per month. Lee has even posted his first gross profit! What’s more, Lee estimates that his prospective market covers 10 million students and professional who lose “over 50 billion dollars due to overpayments or double rents.” Long-term, Lee hopes to broaden his mission to ease stresses inherent to relocating and reduce underutilized space.

His advice to MBAs starting ventures in school? As a student, you enjoy resources and goodwill. Don’t shy away from capitalizing on either. “Asking is free,” Lee adds. This simple yet powerful maxim has become my guiding star, influencing my approach to sales, operations, and virtually every facet of my business. It serves as a constant reminder of the endless possibilities that can unfold from a simple act of reaching out or seeking guidance.”

42 STARTUPS FROM 35 BUSINESS SCHOOLS

NewSublease is one of the 42 student startups honored in P&Q’s 5th annual “Most Disruptive MBA Startups.” This year, P&Q invited 42 business schools to submit nominations for ventures with “the greatest potential for lasting beyond business school.” They may include startups that have raked in substantive investment, created a unique business model, or earned recognition in competitions. This year, 35 MBA programs participated in “The Most Disruptive MBA Startups,” including Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, INSEAD, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. To qualify, a school nomination must feature at least one founding member from the Class of 2023.

Virut Hemnilrat, Cambridge Judge Business School

Among this year’s MBA startups, you’ll find the use of artificial intelligence (AI) platforms has skyrocketed. Faster, wider, deeper, clearer, and more personalized has been the mantra for AI. And the Class of 2023’s most innovative startups have followed through on these promises. One Columbia Business School startup – LogTrack AI – even includes AI in their name. An “AI copilot for freight managers”, the firm covers everything aggregating price across various platforms to handling bookings and communications between customers and drivers. In contrast, James Azar has created a Reservoir Credential Card based off the Apple Pay model. A 2023 Georgetown McDonough MBA, Azar’s Reservoir venture enables individuals to access their professional and academic credentials through one quick, accurate, and cost-effective source. At the Cambridge Judge Business School, Virut Hemnilrat launched AVX, a FinTech that enables migrants to access their credit information to reduce barriers in their host countries.

“Through my own experience immigrating to the UK and conversations with friends in similar situations, I came to realize the scale of problems faced by migrants due to the absence of UK credit history,” Hemnilrat tells P&Q. “This lack of data can have far-reaching consequences on people, affecting the cost of rental deposits, eligibility for phone contracts, and access to credit in the country. Yet, many of these people possess a strong credit history back home, which is not recognized by companies providing these services in the UK. These difficulties make no sense in an increasingly digital and interconnected world. Hence, I decided to launch this venture aiming to address some of these issues.”

AI APLENTY

Lanre Ogungbe, Johns Hopkins University (Carey)

Lanre Ogungbe, who earned his MBA from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School last spring, has already attracted $3.1 million investment dollars for his Prembly startup. The firm offers Identitypass, which uses “facial recognition technology, data, and document verification algorithms” to help those living in emerging markets to access an array of markets, products, and services.

“One of our most remarkable achievements,” Ogungbe tells P&Q, “is we’ve created the ability to verify nearly 100 million individuals and businesses, all while assembling a team of over 40 exceptionally talented individuals to bring to fruition an idea that was conceived less than three years ago.”

Healthcare is another area where ambitious and idealistic founders have opened shop. At the University of Washington’s Foster School, the founders of Naturacur Wound Healing have developed a gel, medical device, and therapies that could potentially revolutionize the field. Vital Audio, the product of New York University, features a technology that can calculate heart rate and biometric from a voice on a telephone. UCLA Anderson’s Odyssey applies AI to put underserved populations in touch with community health workers. In a similar vein, inclusive+ targets healthcare in the LGBTQ+ space.

“We are a B2B2C platform that enables health systems and medical organizations to upskill their clinicians to be more culturally and medically competent in LGBTQ+ care,” explains Lori Ebenstein, a co-founder and MBA graduate from the University of Chicago’s Booth School. “This solves the reality that only 4.4% of providers strongly agree they have adequate training in the needs of the community. Once clinicians are trained, they have the option to be featured on our directory, making it easier for the LGBTQ+ community to find them and get needed care that is often otherwise postponed.”

ROLLING BACK CLIMATE CHANGE

Several disruptors built their startups to combat climate change. At the Yale School of Management, the founders of Banofi Leather have been busy producing a plant-based alternative to leather for the fashion industry. Across the pond at the University of Oxford, Foya Ayoola has attracted over $1.5 million dollars for her ElectricFish venture – which provides sites with fast chargers for electric vehicles. MIT Sloan’s MacroCycle Technologies has drawn over $4 million dollars in investment. If the future is plastics, as The Graduate predicted, it may come in the form of MacroCycle Technologies’ conversion of plastic waste to virgin grade plastic – which is produced without any carbon emissions. The venture was inspired by the experiences of co-founder Stwart Peña Feliz in the oil and gas industry, where recycling actually required extra CO2 emissions.

Chidalu Onyenso, Harvard Business School

“The plastic industry, I realized, needed to change,” he adds. “Which is why when I met my co-founder in MIT Sloan’s Climate & Energy Ventures class, I immediately knew this was a technology I wanted to commercialize to fix our broken recycling industry.”

INSEAD’s Nicolas Sdez is pursuing a similar mission as Peña Feliz. At INSEAD, he built PRONOE, a water treatment system designed to enhance the oceans’ ability to remove carbon dioxide. Chidalu Onyenso has concentrated her efforts on Africa, particularly Nigeria. Through Earthbond, a CleanTech venture, she is promoting solar energy solutions to replace fuel generators that can sometimes fail for up to 18 hours a day.

“When we talk about sustainability, decarbonization, and climate adaptation by 2050, how are we not talking about Africa and its energy transition,” asks Onyenso, a Harvard Business School graduate. “Twenty-five percent of the world will be African, 60 percent of the world’s available arable land—the source of our food supply—will be in Africa, and seven out of the top 10 most climate-vulnerable countries are in Africa. So in pursuing my MBA, and knowing I’d only be a founder if I could solve a problem that was compelling enough for me to spend the next decade of my life on, it made sense to start with African SMEs.”

HARVARD AND WHARTON STARTUPS

That’s not to say this year’s disruptive startups revolve around heavy issues like healthcare gaps or environment catastrophe. Some involve day-to-day leisure. Take Outmore Living, a product of the University of Texas’ McCombs School that has closed over a million dollars in investment. Like heated seats in your car? Well, Kevin Long and Alex Duncan, the founders of Outmore Living, are bringing the same comforts to your outdoor furniture! Hate spending hours-and-hours braiding your hair? Yinka Ogunbiyi and David Afolabi, recent Harvard Business School grads, are rolling out Halo Braid. Basically, their solution automates the hair braiding process. It is a market, Ogunbiyi says, with 180 million potential customers. More than that, she adds, it is a process that hasn’t changed in thousands of years – making it ripe for disruption.

“During the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK, I tried braiding my own hair for the first time,” Ogunbiyi tells P&Q. “It took me four days. I wasn’t surprised. I’ve been wearing braids my whole life, and braiding usually takes six or more hours. However, as a mechanical engineer, I was struck by the repetitive nature of the task. Starting the braid was an art-form—and really difficult—but finishing the braid felt like sewing by hand instead of using a machine. I found myself wondering why there wasn’t a device to help people with braiding, especially because it’s now the most popular hairstyle among Black women.”

Sarah Powers, Wharton School

At the Wharton School, Sarah Powers tapped into another lucrative market: family heirlooms. This space, she says, will encompass 45 million families to the tune of $4 trillion dollars. Better yet, she adds, 80% of the market lacks a plan or tools to divvy up these valuables, which leaves the process fraught with conflict. For Powers, this creates an opportunity for her startup, Nemu, to bring people together – and make some money too.

“[The] process of managing and dividing heirlooms [is] highly administrative, emotionally exhausting, and financially inefficient. Nemu is on a mission to bridge this gap. Families who use our app are able to quickly catalog their heirlooms and capture family stories about them, reliably appraise their valuables, equitably divide what’s most wanted, and confidently sell what’s left. Our vision is to turn this notoriously difficult, family fracturing process into a process of celebrating heritage, connecting generations, and upcycling beautiful heirlooms.”

DOING GOOD IS GOOD BUSINESS

Of course, fashion acts as a magnet for MBA talent. At the University of Chicago’s Booth School, Laura Mattos produced an AI app, Zelia, that acts as a personal stylist that recommends wardrobes personalized to their style and situation. Goldie operates off a similar model. It was founded by four women – the original “Goldie Girls” – at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School. The concept is that Goldie takes personalized measurements so users can get the best jeans fit.

“In our introductory Rice MBA entrepreneurship class…we were tasked with finding a “burning problem” to work on. We couldn’t get over the nightmare of jean shopping,” explains co-founder Viviane Nguyen. “Sizing within women’s clothing has always been a mess with jeans being the worst offender; you can even be four different sizes within the same brand. As we went through customer interviewing, we developed the initial idea of Goldie — a jeans fit finder that uses comprehensive measurements and product specifications to calculate the perfect fit.”

Many times, the best startup concepts involve issues close to home. Michelle Addison suffers from anaphylactic allergies – and her three children endure food allergies as well. This inspired Addison, a lawyer and 2023 Duke Fuqua MBA, to start Allergood – an interactive menu that “filters” out allergens.  Juliana Vélez’s passion is education, particularly for low-income women and single mothers. At ESADE, she launched Brikap, which replaces a generational poverty cycle marked by limited opportunities with a “continuous feedback cycle” that enables women to hone their professional skills. This same spirit inspired Sarah Naumann and Amanda Shojaee to create In Good Company at George Tech’s Scheller College. Their firm helps employers better accommodate employees with disabilities. The idea took root when Naumann was teaching 2nd grade to students with learning differences – and wondered how they would find employers who could bring out their potential. Their solution, she says, boosts retention while cutting recruitment and training costs – a win-win where “good intentions” overlap with “good business.”

“Integrated employment is our solution to a lack of reliable employees in the service industry,” Naumann adds. “This happens when employers put into place the right accommodations to support employees with disabilities to succeed on the job. This, in turn, allows for a more complete and diverse team that sticks around for the long run. These added supports are typically inexpensive, like providing picture charts instead of written task lists or spacing out breaks to help with varying levels of stamina.”

Next Page: Startup Results, Biggest Obstacles, Favorite Courses and Professors

Page 3: In-depth Profiles of 42 Disruptive MBA Startups

Lauren Biegler, Northwestern University (Kellogg)

PRODUCING BIG RESULTS

Sharp Performance leverages a different underutilized population – Green Berets and Navy SEALs – to provide coaching to public safety professionals who range from firefighters to police officers. The startup was fashioned at Columbia Business School by ’23 grads Benjamin Curley and Andrew Sakmar. For them, the coaching is a proactive measure that brings together high-risk professionals to address potential issues without any stigma attached.

“We believe that the Public Safety function is essential to America’s social fabric and prosperity,” Curley adds, “and the men and women in Public Safety need and deserve all the support we can give them. Every time you call 9-1-1 it’s the worst day of your life. First responders answer those calls all day one after another, and then go home, take off their uniform, and answer the call of being a parent or partner. Our team understands this difficult transition because most of us have lived it and know that some of the tools and techniques previously reserved for Special Operators can help.”

The firm itself, Curley adds, has already signed contracts with several law enforcement agencies nationwide. That’s just one sign of success among this year’s Most Disruptive MBA Startups. Booth’s Zelia fashion app has already enticed 49,000 users in less than a year – at a cost of just $8,000 to the firm!  At London Business School, Koji Muto’s Ki Hydrogen venture, which boasts an innovative waste-to-hydrogen technology, has already garnered a million dollars in pre-seed funding from four institutional investors. Flagler Health, an AI-driven software suite from the Wharton School’s Albert Katz, has also amassed a million dollars in funding – and scaled its operations to 430 physicians who’ve recommended over 1,500 procedures. In contrast, Zeestr targets fundraising and nonprofit events, collecting donations and supply real-time market intelligence at the same time. How is this for an impressive start for Zeestr?

“Zeestr has hosted 24 digital fundraising campaigns, processed over 12,000 transactions, raised $5.1M in donations for our clients, increased donor retention by 26%, all resulting in $144,719 revenue so far,” says Zeestr founder Lauren Biegler, a Kellogg MBA who launched the beta site in the fall of 2021. “However, the biggest accomplishment was placing second at VentureCat, Northwestern’s annual student startup competition.”

A MILLION DOLLAR PRIZE WINNER

Maggie Boreham, Yale School of Management

Indeed, the 2023 class racked up a pile of accolades. At the University of Michigan’s Ross School, epiSLS – an allergy testing medical device – was approved for clinical trial by the International Review Board. Speaking of devices, MT Sloan’s Corina Negron was busy developing medikana during a business school. The platform – which “streamlines and automates international medical device commercialization” – was accepted into MIT’s delta v accelerator, where it lined up 35 platform distributors. And then there is Yale SOM’s Banofi Leather. A sustainable fashion firm, it competed against 10,000 student startups for the Hult International Prize – which challenges young founders to apply their startup concepts to fixing the world’s toughest issues. To prepare for the competition, the Banofi Leather team participated in a variety of accelerators, even making weekly pitches to experts and champions to hone their messaging.

The result?

“Their insights helped us refine our pitch and led us to success in the final,” writes co-founder Maggie Boreham. “In the end, we walked away with the $1M prize, valuable insights about our business, and closer as a team.”

Of course, not every achievement can be benchmarked, publicized, and awarded. Last year, Washington University’s Olin School, again ranked as P&Q’s top business school for entrepreneurship, churned out another winner in Benchmark Learning. While his online tutoring firm has raked in over $130K in investment, founder Paarvv Goel keeps closer tabs on less quantitative metrics.

“Our tutors are trained not only to be academic teachers, but also to build lasting relationships with our students and become key mentors in their lives. As a result, I regularly receive messages from parents telling me how Benchmark has transformed their child’s life in ways beyond academics. I hear about our students becoming more confident both in school and out and becoming empowered to find their interests and passions to inform their future careers. This impact is our greatest accomplishment.”

Tuck Rescale Team (Julia Megson, Center)

Rescale founder Julia Megson’s firm focuses on “match[ing] food brands with food manufacturers.” Even more, it has shown enough promise to attract $2.5 million dollars in funding. That doesn’t mean the venture consumes her entire life. Look no further than last spring as Megson approached graduation.

“I wrapped my classes up six weeks early, closed our first pilot customer, brought in angel funding, and welcomed my second child all at the same time.”

FACING THE SAME HURDLES AS EVERYONE ELSE

That’s not to say the process was easy. Julia Megson herself had to overhaul her business plan “from the ground up” after classmates recognized her firm was a better fit as a “manufacturing finder” than a “warehouse finder.” Similarly, Wharton’s Flagler Health tripled its user logins early on after discovering its adoption efforts were aimed at the wrong audience.

“[We were] focusing too much on the needs of the buyers, at the expense of the clinic’s schedulers and medical assistants, the ultimate end-users,” explains founder Albert Katz. “Flagler’s earlier efforts were aligned with clinic organizational goals, prioritizing ROI, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, which provided clinic executives with the necessary operational and business metrics to get their sign off. However, it did not capture the nuanced needs or expectations of the clinic’s schedulers and medical assistants. This became evident with more market research and end-user feedback.”

Kevin Long, University of Texas (McCombs)

Make no mistake: The 2023 Most Disruptive MBA Startups faced the same issues as any fledgling ventures. Booth’s Zelia entered a fashion niche where there were no established models or relevant data. In other words, says founder Laura Mattos, she had to “start from scratch.” This lack of precedent also dogged Halo Braiding in building a working prototype. Like many startups, Outmore Living lacked working capital to build their outdoor furniture early on. This turned them into risk-takers who spent money before they could replenish it. At the same time, Benchmark Learning faced the proverbial “chicken and egg” issue of new ventures: how can you reassure prospects with testimonials when you are still working on closing and servicing your first customers?  How did founder Paarvv Goel break this vicious circle?

“I learned two very important things during this time: the importance of a clear, convincing, well-crafted marketing message and a robust recruitment process for new tutors – the combination of which ultimately landed us our first few customers.”

Indeed, early hires set the tone and culture. Signing up the right people has been a huge differentiator for Miguel Caruncho, a Kellogg who launched Habit, a health food ghost kitchen, as a Northwestern Kellogg student. In contrast, Georgia Tech’s Sarah Naumann attributes some of her team’s success to “focusing on the right things at the right time”, particularly when MBA entrepreneurs are wrestling with limited time and resources. More than that, the founder of Rice’s Goldie startup learned that perfection can often undercut performance.

“In launching our [Minimum Viable Product), we decided the product would never be as perfect as we wanted.,” recalls co-founder Viviane Nguyen. “It just needs to perform the core function of Goldie, even if it was missing features or required some manual work…Letting go of that perfectionism really helped propel Goldie. The biggest lesson we learned was to stop waiting for the product to be perfect or for the perfect timing and to “just do it.” Get feedback early and often.”

SCHOOL SUPPORT

That feedback often comes from fellow students. Call it the secret weapon of MBA entrepreneurs. Every day, they’re surrounded by accomplished, curious, future-thinking peers who’ve seemingly worked in every region, industry, and function. They’ve been exposed to different markets and strategies. Many times, they’ve experienced what works and what fails – and the how’s and why’s behind them. These insights are just one of the benefits of learning entrepreneurship through an MBA program, says Harvard Business School’s Yinka Ogunbiyi.

“The networking opportunities among students and alumni have helped us find team members, customers, advisors, and investors. The tangible learnings have also been extremely helpful—from the fundamentals of financial planning, fundraising, equity, and cap tables, to social media marketing strategy and design thinking. It’s easy to make countless mistakes at any stage of a startup. Our MBA education has helped us make fewer mistakes and make them faster.”

Miguel Caruncho, Northwestern University (Kellogg)

While business school teaches aspiring founders how to understand financials and unleash analytics, they also provide coursework and coaching that helps them enhance the soft skills that often make-or-break their relationships with employees, clients, and stakeholders.

“I like to say that Kellogg not only sharpened my hard skills, but made me into a better person,” observes Miguel Caruncho. “As Habit grows, I am mostly divorced from the actual day-to-day work and much more immersed in managing people, setting our direction, and motivating the team to get on board with that vision. I had managed people before, but everything at Kellogg unraveled my previous norms. I attended social events with people so different from me, classes that forced me to explore my personal needs, and workshops that helped me understand how I show up and how that can come across to others. I found myself constantly challenging my own preconceived notions and making decisions about what kind of leader I wanted to be.”

In fact, Outmore Living’s Kevin Long argues that he couldn’t have pulled off starting a venture without help from the McCombs School of Business. “At the beginning of my MBA experience, all I had was the idea for heated outdoor furniture and little sense on how to turn that idea into a company. By my second semester of my first year, I met my co-founder Alex while fine-tuning Outmore Living’s business plan in our New Venture Creation class. That summer, we incorporated, raised our first outside capital, and further incubated Outmore through the Student Entrepreneurship Accelerator and Launch (SEAL) program. By the time I graduated, Outmore Living was a venture-backed startup that employed three McCombs MBAs.”

THE BEST COURSES

Other founders credit campus clubs for contributing to their success. At Cornell University, Florence Luna and Johanna Schneider launched Fig Medical, a software suite designed to streamline healthcare access. For them, the most valuable lessons came from the school’s Big Red Ventures fund

“It provided a unique opportunity to source, assess, and invest in early-stage startups alongside other associates and fund managers,” Luna writes. “The most profound lesson I learned was the incredible diversity of founder journeys. There is no one-size-fits-all path to starting a successful company. Hearing about the various routes that different startups took to reach their product-market fit, when they decided to bring on a full-time engineer and the myriad of trials-and-tribulations they encountered, was truly eye-opening. It underscored the fact that entrepreneurship is a deeply personal and diverse journey.”

Max Holmes, Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper)

At Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School, you could describe one course, Commercialization and Innovation Strategy, as a post mortem on failed startups. It proved to be the perfect tonic for founder hubris, says Max Holmes, co-founder of Conduit, a workforce management platform.

“We rewound the clock to the early days of companies who launched innovative products or services that ultimately failed; we identified where things went wrong, and proposed different directions the companies could have taken. It was incredibly valuable to get honest looks at the earliest days of startups who all thought they were going to change the world, as each of us in class did. It was a sobering experience to see just how easily things can go wrong, especially when founders think it’s going perfectly right.”

THE BEST PROFESSORS

However, the Class of 2023 reserved their strongest praise for faculty members. In business school, they are the cheerleaders who don’t just teach entrepreneurs, but also open their networks and even get into the trenches to serve as their board members and investors. At the Tepper School, Holmes found Dave Mawhinney to be more than just a professor.

“He is a wealth of knowledge, experience, and connections and seems to rely on an inexhaustible energy. He will be your biggest supporter and your biggest critic, champion, evangelist, and antagonist all in one. He inspired the moments of brutal self-reflection that were critical to building a successful startup.

By the same token, Albert Katz credits Professor Jeffrey Babin for re-directing his team to the big picture – and what will mean most to investors and customers. “Initially, my co-founders and I were so engrossed in the technical aspects of our product that we overlooked the importance of clear and relatable communication. Professor Babin taught us the importance of conveying why the problem we are solving is relevant, how to explain healthcare to a non-expert audience, and why we are the team to get it done.”

Stwart Peña Feliz, MIT (Sloan)

SUPPORT BEYOND CAMPUS

The surrounding startup ecosystem have proven equally valuable to launching the 2023 Most Disruptive MBA Startups. You can count MIT Sloan’s Stwart Peña Feliz among those who are smitten with the opportunities available to founders in Boston.

“Being at the greatest engineering school in the world unlocks an incredible amount of resources, he tells P&Q. “The number of mentors, competitions, programs, venture capital firms, startups, companies, and enthusiasts that are located in this space have been of tremendous help as we scale up this venture. If we ever have questions specific to any climate technology, we are only steps away from asking the right person. As we fundraise, all the main investors are just one or two train stops away. And as we start hiring, we know the schools that have the talent.”

Kevin Long is equally bullish on his Austin digs. “There are few cities in the world that have as high of a concentration of events and people as there are in the Austin startup ecosystem, and we have really leaned into establishing ourselves in this community.  As a result, most of our team, including 80% of our investors, are based out of Austin, Texas, and our plan is to further establish our place in the Texas startup ecosystem as we grow.”

Next Page: In-depth Profiles of 42 Disruptive MBA Startups

A LOOK AHEAD

Where do these disruptive startups see their place in the future? Koji Muto hopes to cut 100 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions through his Ki Hydrogen startup. Similarly, Stwart Peña Feliz pictures MacroCycle Technologies moving plastics recycling away from environmentally-harmful fossil fuels. Halo Braids intends to cut a billion hours out of the eight billion hours that women spend on braiding the hair each year. And Natalie Dranchuk is already envisioning the finish line that every founder hopes to cross.

“We are dreaming of an IPO,” jokes the Odyssey founder.

To do that, entrepreneurs must be patient and positive, says Todd Cutter, co-founder of Naturacur Wound Healing. Rather than becoming discouraged when they fall short, he adds, founders must never forget what ultimately defines their startups’ success.

“We have to stay focused, resilient, adaptable, risk-tolerant, and competitive,” Cutter adds. “If we can give any advice to a fellow founder, it would be this: Believe in yourself, take care of yourself, embrace temporary failures, and surround yourself with like-minded people who will support your vision. It is easy to talk yourself out of pursuing your venture without a tenacious mindset. How do we motivate ourselves daily? [In our case], we think about all those people we could be helping to save their dignity and save lives.”

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