The George Washington University Entrepreneurial Round Table (GWERT) will host its GWERT Mentors match-up reception Thursday, an event targeted to benefit students in the brainstorming stage of a commercial or nonprofit startup.
Students who sign up can network and even partner with compatible mentors who have real-world experience—an important relationship for aspiring startup entrepreneurs, even those whose ideas are still embryonic, said Randy Graves, D.Sc. ’78, director of GWERT Mentors.
“It’s so important for students who have creative new concepts to get help early from successful, experienced people,” Dr. Graves said. “That’s how they can really crystallize their ideas—or pivot to another idea if they find that their original concept isn’t going to work.”
Dr. Graves, who has been involved with the GW New Venture Competition since its inception, has been mentoring for the past five years. “It’s incumbent upon successful people to give back to the next generation because future innovations are based on past progress,” he said.
The GWERT Mentors program provides experienced volunteer mentors, drawn from partner organizations, to student and faculty startups at GW. It has expanded this year thanks to a donation from Andrew Perlman, B.A. ’00, president and CEO of tech company Vringo, Inc. Mr. Perlman will speak Thursday night on his personal experiences in entrepreneurship.
Mr. Perlman’s entrepreneurial background in the technology and entertainment industries, he said, has taught him the importance of strong mentoring relationships.
“As somebody who’s been through the wild ride of [developing] a business, it’s not like an investment bank, where there’s a structured training program set up and you go through it,” he said. “There are a million things that [startup entrepreneurs] can only learn through doing, through experimentation, so it’s incredibly valuable to have someone there who has already done some of those experiments. When I’m able to help someone in a mentoring capacity, it’s not because I’m smarter; it’s because I’ve done these things before.”
The reception also will serve as the launch for the GW Innovate Mobile Application, on which GW students and potential mentors can create profiles on their expertise and interests and match up with each other in real time.
Mr. Graves said he hopes the event will serve as a springboard into GW’s many other opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly the New Venture Competition, I-Corps and the numerous workshops offered by the Office of Entrepreneurship.
“Hopefully we’ll have a lot of students coming out Thursday night with new resources and new inspiration,” he said.