Students interested in entrepreneurship crowded the Innovative Technologies Complex (ITC) to learn firsthand that their dreams are not out of reach.
On Friday, Kunal Mehta gave the keynote speech at the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development’s Friday event “Exploring Entrepreneurship” in the ITC. The event was also sponsored by the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Partnerships and the College of Community and Public Affairs (CCPA) Office for Career and International Programs.
Mehta’s talk, “The Disruptors: Entrepreneurs and Their Escape from Corporate America,” was based around the experiences detailed in his book of the same name.
He explained how he quit his job as a Wall Street investment banker and moved into nonprofit work that fulfilled him more.
“One thing that I regret is staying as long as I did knowing that I was unhappy,” Mehta said. “I think that’s something that a lot of people will say over and over again. When you realize this isn’t the place you want to be, pull out.”
He said the transition was not easy, and that at first he felt lost and scared. He spent years investing in real estate and looking for investors for his own ventures.
Eventually he became a finance associate at Charity: Water, a nonprofit organization that brings healthy drinking water to developing countries. Then he founded OutPatient, a company that attempts to connect patients to physicians through videoconferencing.
He said that he is not against corporate America, he just does not want others to be too scared to quit and try something else.
“We’re working for the next 60 years,” Mehta said. “The retirement age is going up, so if you take some time to explore new things it gives you a chance to explore what you want to do and that’s important for college students.”
Mehta also led a discussion in which attendees asked him for career and professional advice. Jonathan Sabin, a junior majoring in industrial and systems engineering, said afterward that he was debating exploring entrepreneurial ventures in the future.
“I’ve been thinking about jumping straight into it,” Sabin said. “This eased a lot of my worries about doing that and cleared up a lot of details about how to do that because starting out is so hard.”
Dara Riegel, an internship and career consultant at the Fleishman Center, said she was approached by Mehta about speaking about his book and professional experience.
Riegel said she jumped on the opportunity and created an entrepreneurial event around Mehta’s speech, which included a panel of local business owners and a networking event afterward. The members of the panel introduced themselves and answered questions about challenges building their companies. Riegel said that she was extremely impressed by the turnout of about 50 students and their interest in what speakers had to say.
Mehta said that although the switch had been right for him, students and graduates needed passion to truly be a successful entrepreneur.
“Entrepreneurship is more about men and women living life on their own terms and building ventures that they care about and dedicated themselves too,” Riegel said. “They’re the ones that are having lasting impacts.”