Programs Special One-Day Events
Thursday, December 10th 8:45am - 10:30am
Workbar - Central Square, 45 Prospect Street Cambridge, MA (map)
3 out of 4 startups fail. While this statistic is staggering, we don’t think that a failed startup is the end of the road. Every investor and serial entrepreneur knows that failure is part of the game. Successful entrepreneurs are those that learn from their failures and cultivate the tools to ‘fail’ gracefully.
Ian Mashiter will be talking to Shonak Patel and Nathan Rothstein who co-founded Swellr in 2010, which was a finalist in the 2011 MassChallenge competition. Swellr dissolved that same year and Shonak and Nathan both pursued different careers in education and apparel respectively - see below for full bios. Shonak and Nathan will explore how failures – both large and small – can be powerful tools for success and long-lasting partnerships and how they have helped them in their next ventures.
Speakers:
Shonak Patel, Testive formerly of Swellr
Shonak Patel is a two time ed tech co-founder and is currently working as the VP of Sales & Operations at Testive, an online personalized SAT/ACT prep program. In 2011, he co-founded Gather Education, a virtual classroom platform that makes teaching and learning on-line simple, natural, and more accessible to all. Prior to Gather Education, Shonak was CEO and Co-founder of Swellr, a finalist in the 2011 MassChallenge start-up competition and accelerator. In 2009, he served in AmeriCorps as the Finance and Development Fellow with the New Orleans Neighborhood Development Collaborative (NONDC) in New Orleans, LA. Shonak has been recognized as a White House Champion of Change and graduated with honors from Babson College in 2006 with a concentration in Finance.
Nathan Rothstein, Project Repat, formerly Swellr
Nathan Rothstein is a co-founder at Project Repat. Repat upcycles people’s old favorite t-shirts into t-shirt quilts. Each quilt is made in the USA from 100% recycled material. Since starting in 2012, they have prevented over 1.2million t-shirts from getting dumped in landfills. Project Repat has been featured in the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, NECN, WBUR and MSNBC. Previously, Rothstein helped start and quickly shut down Swellr - an online marketplace to fund education needs by shopping at local businesses.
Ian Mashiter, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Boston University and Angel Investor
Ian Mashiter is a lecturer at Boston University, where he teaches entrepreneurship and strategy. He is an active angel investor and current member of Hub Angel and Launchpad Ventures. He has also served as a board member, CEO, and co-founder of various telecommunication companies including Quarry Technologies, Ennovate Networks, Dymec, and Kinetic.
Registration:
