A Startup Curriculum that Biases Science Entrepreneurs Towards Success
You can’t guarantee that an early-stage entrepreneur will succeed, but you can bias them toward success. This is what Activate uniquely sets out to do by providing funding, networking opportunities, mentorship, research facilities, and community to scientists and engineers who are poised to make a big impact with their innovations.
But beyond this support, for individuals to bring transformative products to market, they themselves must transform. It might seem like there’s no playbook for this kind of personal growth, which requires shifting mindsets, honing skills, cultivating deep connections, and learning a lot about business, fast. But Activate has designed a powerful curriculum that walks Activate Fellows through this journey, step by step, and in a community. And there are exciting new changes on the horizon for 2023.
“The most important thing that Activate Fellows learn is to shift their mindset from that of a scientist, which is all about creating novelty, to that of a science entrepreneur, which is all about creating value.”
An Experiential Learning Journey
Sarah Morrill, Activate program continuum director
According to Sarah Morrill, Activate’s program continuum director, “The most important thing that Activate Fellows learn is to shift their mindset from that of a scientist, which is all about creating novelty, to that of a science entrepreneur, which is all about creating value.” Activate approaches this challenge by treating the fellowship as an experiential learning journey—a proven method of shifting core mindsets that is characterized by learning through doing and reflecting.
Starting with an entrepreneurial boot camp for the first quarter and followed up with weekly programming throughout the two-year fellowship, Activate instills core business and product development concepts, connects fellows with VIP speakers, and offers skill development workshops and shared learning opportunities with other fellows and alumni. Fellows learn how to network strategically, acquire funding, commercialize products, build high-performing teams, develop as leaders, and much more.
Aaron Hall (Cohort 2021), founder of Intropic Materials
Activate also teaches fellows less tangible but equally important skills: how to take risks, be resilient, fail forward, and understand themselves. Aaron Hall (Cohort 2021), founder of Intropic Materials, said the growth of his business was just as important as his personal growth as an Activate Fellow: "As a person, I’ve been able to cultivate skills in the business domain, learn to embrace my emotions and 'gut' as powerful tools for decision-making and forging human connections, and build my identity as a CEO."
Fellows in the Activate New York community connect with VIP speakers during weekly educational programming.
Activate takes the reflection component of experiential learning seriously. Each quarter, fellows step back to assess their technology, team, marketing, and finances, and then problem-solve accordingly in each area through quarterly meetings with Activate staff and their companies’ advisors. Fellows also engage in deep personal reflection within a framework designed by Activate. They regularly reflect on their goals and values, their progress in developing core entrepreneurial mindsets, and what that means for their professional journeys moving forward.
“As a person, I’ve been able to cultivate skills in the business domain, learn to embrace my emotions and ‘gut’ as powerful tools for decision-making and forging human connections, and build my identity as a CEO.”
The practice of meaningful reflection is not superfluous. Without it, early-stage hard-tech entrepreneurs often find themselves stuck when the path they imagined doesn’t work out. Activate Fellows cultivate an awareness that opens them up to more possibilities. “They can see the whole board and move different pieces forward in ways that make sense,” explains Morrill. This holistic approach, paired with intensive support from the managing director of their Activate community, is how fellows conquer major challenges like finding funding.
What’s Next
Morrill is excited that Activate will offer an even more tailored curriculum in 2023. Activate will launch a digital learning management system that will enable differentiated, asynchronous learning so fellows can access the content they need when they need it most. Morrill says, “Each fellow has a very unique path, and especially over the course of two years, they go in different directions and at different times need very, very different things.”
Activate is also constantly refining its approach to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), key components of its startup curriculum. Activate acknowledges that entrepreneurial spaces are predominantly white and male, and fellows will need different strategies for navigating these realities in healthy and sustainable ways. Activate is working to provide increasingly customized training and support for fellows with various backgrounds and experiences—for example, for women to navigate fundraising.
Activate also recognizes that many fellows will go on to employ a lot of other people. DEIB training is essential to preparing fellows for hiring, fostering workplace culture, developing high-performance teams, and ultimately building the equitable future economy that Activate envisions.
As Activate continues to grow and will eventually welcome 100 new fellows each year, its startup curriculum will also scale. “The hallmarks of our program have been its intimacy and connections,” Morrill says. Looking ahead, she and her team are tackling their next challenge: “How can we scale intimacy?”
Cohort 2022 fellows Yajing Zhao, Ashley Beckwith, and Auggie Zvinavashe enjoy connection and community at the Activate retreat in June 2022.
Morrill envisions offering increasingly hyper-differentiated content while still prioritizing shared learning. This might look like learning in pods with other fellows who are in similar places in their entrepreneurial journeys. Online communities will provide another connecting point for current fellows across communities—Berkeley, Boston, New York, Anywhere, and future locations—as well as for alumni of the program. The growing “continuum” aspect of the program will provide tools for continued success for fellow alumni, aiming to make them better thinkers, leaders, and innovators no matter where they are.
“The hallmarks of our program have been its intimacy and connections.”
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