"The secret of getting ahead is getting started." – Mark Twain

At 16, I started embracing entrepreneurial skills when I began helping my parents with our family’s bag manufacturing business in Nepal. Initially, I immersed myself in learning about our products and the administrative tasks, like managing resources and placing orders. But I was eager to understand the sales and marketing side of the business, too.
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During a three-month holiday break before starting high school at 18, I dove deeper into the sales side of the business. I visited over 100 retailers and wholesalers where I presented samples and explained the unique features of our products. This hands-on experience taught me the benefit of customer interaction and importance of adapting sales strategies. I experimented with different pricing models based on order quantities and offered credit to select customers, which helped build trust and secure long-term relationships.
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These efforts paid off when I secured around 10-15 regular customers who placed weekly orders. To further strengthen our relationships, I offered same-day delivery, making it easier for them to do business with us. This success was a huge motivator, and I began to understand the dynamics of customer demand. This experience taught me the importance of understanding the market and tailoring our approach toward the customers. It also reinforced the value of perseverance and adaptability in business.

My journey in the family business wasn’t just about gaining experience; it was a real-world education in entrepreneurship. Here are some takeaways that could be valuable for any entrepreneur, especially those just starting out...

Written by Shannon Marshburn
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I like to think I know my strengths and weaknesses well, and I believe one of my not so strong qualities is public speaking. I used to be a strong public speaker all through high school, then one day it was like a switch flipped and the nerves had never left me since. Unfortunately, this is a life skill that you can’t avoid forever, and in a few months, I will need to give a speech at my friend’s wedding as a maid of honor in front of 200 guests. It has weighed on me for a year now, but one thing I think about to calm my nerves, strange as it is, is the Gettysburg Address.  

Did you know President Abraham Lincoln was the second speaker of the day? He was asked to deliver “a few appropriate remarks.”. One of the nation’s best orators of the time, Edward Everrett, was the main featured speaker and the first to talk to the crowd that day. Now, which speech do you remember learning about? Can you remember learning anything about Everrett’s speech, or can you recite anything from it? Though I’m sure we all know, “Four score and seven years ago...” Not to cast a shadow on Everrett, but why don’t we remember his speech as much?  
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I went searching for some answers and guidance for how I can craft a great speech of my own, as well as some other public speaking tips. 

Networking events are all the range in the professional community. It seems like there is always an up-and-coming networking event somewhere in the area, but do these events really help further your connections? At UARF we host eight events a year, and as that person at the check-in table that watches everyone from afar, I have some thoughts on networking events and why you should try one out if you haven't yet.
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Written by Rachel Wasik
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Over the course of my internship at the University of Akron Research Foundation (UARF), I have been involved in several projects that have contributed to the organization’s mission to “transform and expand the region's innovation economy through entrepreneurship education, technology commercialization, application of UA research, and creation of new entrepreneurial ventures”.
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I have greatly valued being able to have a role in helping the Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 I-Corps Cohorts. I-Corps is a program that aims to teach upcoming entrepreneurs how to find and understand their customer market. I helped the instructors keep track of each team’s deliverables to ensure that we catch when teams are struggling so we can provide additional support and encouragement. For the same purpose, I also reviewed the specifics of each team’s submissions and provided feedback. However, the most rewarding part of this experience was helping to serve an instructor during the I-Corps weekly meetings. I enjoyed working with my co-workers to help guide teams in the right direction. I have learned a lot from them with regards to customer discovery and how to provide feedback that is both encouraging and constructive. 

Written by Elyse Ball​
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Startup cultures are obsessed with failure. We constantly hear the mantra “fail fast” and see entrepreneurs throw literal failure parties for unsuccessful companies and products. I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider to this ethos. I understand that all of us will fail sometimes and that trying something new or interesting increases our risk of failure. We can learn a lot from failing. However, I still sometimes behave in unnecessarily risk averse ways and shut down when a failure occurs, which limits my ability to learn from it.
 
When a fellow I-Corps instructor told me that there was a science to failing the right way, I was immediately intrigued. Diving into Amy C. Edmondson’s The Right Kind of Wrong, Adam Grant’s Think Again, and the Freakonomics podcast series on failure has given me some much needed perspective on failure. This includes a method for classifying types of failure and actionable steps we can take to make the most of the right kinds of failure.
 
First, not all failures are created equal. Research Amy C. Edmondson has spent decade cataloguing failure and puts failures into three major buckets that help us understand how to react to it:
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Have you ever wondered how research teams come into existence? What necessitates the formation of these teams? 
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Typically, a university research team consists of a team lead or principal investigator (PI), an academic lead (Co-PI) or field expert, and at least one student, either graduate or undergraduate. Despite the persistent advocacy for interdisciplinary studies by major scientific organizations, funding agencies, and educators over the past two decades, such collaborations remain relatively rare, particularly interdisciplinary research teams.

As an expert in a specific field, others often turn to you for solutions. However, it's not uncommon for years to pass without being approached by individuals from other disciplines seeking your expertise! Why does this happen? Various factors could contribute to this, including but not limited to, fear of rejection, time constraints, a preference for independent work, or prioritization of other projects.
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Today, there's a growing recognition of the importance of interdisciplinarity in both education and research. Reports from scientific and educational organizations highlight the complexity of nature, society, and the workforce, emphasizing the need for systematic and contextual reasoning. Interdisciplinary team collaboration offers several benefits, for instance:

Written by Hiba Fayoumi
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​In the fall of 2018, I joined the mathematics and statistics department at the University of Toledo as a Visiting Assistant Professor. After a long break from research, I quickly reacquainted myself with my academic discipline. Weekends transformed into extensions of my workweek as I explored and reviewed past material and developed new ideas. Then, one day in November, a promising interdisciplinary grant opportunity caught my attention, courtesy of the university's research office. With a background spanning in pure mathematics, cryptography, and network security, I quickly gathered two colleagues from the math department and Dr. Weiqing Sun, the director of the cybersecurity master's program from the engineering college, forming our initial team.

Written By Rachel Wasik

One of the most critical steps in any entrepreneurial journey is finding and understanding your customer. While completing customer interviews can seem like a daunting task, by implementing the following tips, an entrepreneur can extract a ton of useful information.

Written by Shannon Marshburn

Lately, I have been trying to reduce my screen time throughout my day, but especially in the morning and the hour or two leading up to my bedtime. I find myself scrolling on social media, consuming content that the algorithm throws my way to keep my attention held for just one more minute. Before I know it, what was going to be an early bedtime easily creeps to 1am.  
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So, I got myself a Valentines day gift of a few new books and very quickly my favorite part of my day is the time I have set aside to read. I am excited to go to bed every night to get up an hour early, make my coffee and bagel, put on my Harry Potter ambiance music, and read! I thought, maybe today I could convince any non-readers to try my new favorite hobby and discover a new part of themselves, like I have these past few weeks. While I am currently reading a book about Faries, I did some searching and made a list of leadership and entrepreneurship focused books that were highly recommended across the board.