My journey from university student to co-founder in less than five years reveals how the right education can make all the difference and accelerate your advancement to entrepreneurial leadership. 

My experience with Lehigh University proved particularly pivotal. The university promotes entrepreneurship as a mindset and skillset for students across all disciplines that can – and should – be developed, regardless of career path. It immerses students in the real-world of entrepreneurship through Lehigh@NasdaqCenter, an exclusive education-industry partnership with the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in San Francisco. 

In my junior year, I interned with a startup in San Francisco through a Lehigh University connection. I knew nobody in California, but that changed fast. I lived in a five-bedroom “hacker home” along with 23 other interns. My roommates came from around the world, including engineers interning with NASA, Y-Combinator applicants, and summer interns with Google. As an intern, I tried my hand at marketing for a cybersecurity startup, and it was addictive, especially the autonomy. I was majoring in marketing, with a minor in entrepreneurship, so my internship cemented what I was then learning in the classroom. It also opened me up to all kinds of new possibilities. 

I soon discovered, for example, that my lifelong background in theatre came in handy in the startup ecosystem. I had enrolled in a theatre school at age three, and by age 10, I was taking lessons in dance, acting, and voice. Soon I was auditioning for shows in New York City, and over the course of 15 years, I performed in 22 full-length plays and cabarets. 

Business, I learned, was a lot like show business. The similarities turned out to be uncanny, and I saw an opportunity to take advantage. I applied my abilities to perform, improvise, collaborate, manage time, oversee projects, stay within budget and meet opening-night deadlines, to holding my own in staff meetings and delivering persuasive presentations. Suddenly my work became more relatable and fun. 

In short order, I was a college graduate. I took a role within a company, and then another, often the youngest person and the only woman in the room, and just as often suffering from imposter syndrome. But all along, I felt energised by the growth I’d seen in such a short time.

Through the LehighSiliconValley Program, I met Timothy Eades, then CEO of vArmour, and interned with him at that firm during my junior year. He became a mentor with a capital “M.” With Tim and a team of brilliant minds, we hatched a concept for a new venture as developers of security technology. 

Our first order of business, before we went too far out on a limb, was to conduct rigorous due diligence. We met with over 35 C-suite cybersecurity executives, not only pitching our idea – it was like putting on a show! – but also asking each one the same probing questions about the problem at hand. As a result, we came away understanding more deeply the issues that our company, called Anetac, intended to address. 

The rollout for Anetac has turned out to be super-exciting. Everything has come together so fast. You get few opportunities to build a new company with people you know and love. Our team is like family. 

It’s less glamorous than it might seem, though. It’s volatile to be starting a company. One day you feel on top of the world, but the next you feel lost. You have so much to do – investing in relationships face to face, hiring, creating a successful marketing and go to market plan, and so much more – and so much anxiety, you could literally put in 24 hours a day. It’s hard work, and nothing is guaranteed. 

My education with startups has brought about a bonus. It’s enabled me to evolve, in effect, into an educator. I was a teaching assistant for “Entrepreneurship 101” at Lehigh University, gave a lecture to my intern successors at the Lehigh@NasdaqCenter’s Innovation Internship programme and mentored students at its Startup Academy. Coming full circle, I’ve even mentored, managed, and hired Lehigh interns at Anetac. 

The upshot is that I’ve tried to do for others what was done for me. Managing interns is so rewarding. Nothing is better for me than hearing an intern say, “Yes, I learned this in the classroom, but now I’m seeing it applied in the real world.”

Only now do I fully recognise how I’ve come to embody – and adopt – some of the 11 attributes of an entrepreneurial mindset that research conducted by Lehigh@NasdaqCenter identified as essential to success as an entrepreneur. I recognised and exploited an opportunity. I took a risk, tolerating the inevitable uncertainty and ambiguity, and gave myself the opportunity to make mistakes and fail. Throughout, I tried to solve problems and apply creativity and imagination toward creating true value. All these characteristics have informed my adventures as an entrepreneur.

As I’ve learned, first from theatre and more recently from higher education and the startup universe, the trick is always to draw everything available out of yourself – and the resources around you – in order to excel. Always let your curiosity get the best of you and ask questions. Always bring new ideas to the table and come prepared to brainstorm and improvise. Always stay motivated and committed.

My mom deserves special credit for teaching me some valuable lessons, too. “The worst anyone can ever say to you is ‘no,’ she once said. “So you might as well ask. And if the worst you can do is fail, you might as well try.”