The event is a joint collaboration between Goizueta’s Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation and The Hatchery.

This year’s Demo Day began with Dean Gareth James offering welcoming remarks. Then, the 12 participating startups took to the stage and delivered five-minute pitches to about 40 prospective investors. Emory University faculty and staff and more than 80 local community members filled the crowd.

Each year, we’ve seen the quality of startups in the cohort get better and better.

Brian Cayce, managing director, Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation

“Demo Day was exceptional,” shares Brian Cayce, managing director of the center. “The turnout was fantastic.”

The 2024 cohort included the following startups: Excellence Box, Motian, BrICS, AskSci, Team Swift Gear, Immform, Explorify, Uppergate Bio, Direct to Camera, Por+, Xpediter, and Alabaster House.

Learning the Path to Success

The Emory Goizueta Startup Launch Accelerator is an initiative of The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. The program is open to anyone affiliated with Emory—from faculty and staff to students and alumni. In fact, the majority of participants over the years have come from outside of the business school.

The goal of the program is to help early-stage founders turn ideas into solid business models. This year’s participants conducted a total of 180 customer interviews to refine and sharpen their plans. All 12 startups felt confident in their pitches before Demo Day. They said they had a much more complete and thorough understanding of their business models by the end of the program.

We view this program as a service the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation provides the university.

Brian Cayce

“There are innovators across all pockets of the university, and we want to support them.” explains Cayce.

The Expert Behind the Entrepreneurs

For the last three years, Christy Brown has been the primary accelerator instructor. Brown, the chief executive officer of Dr. Noze Best, designs the sessions and pulls from her extensive network to bring the most realistic information and lessons to the participants. Goizueta’s own mentor network also contributes to these sessions.

The 10 modules cover critical topics for early-stage ventures. These include subjects such as the business model canvas, go-to-market strategy, market entry, raising venture capital, and pitching, explains Brown.  

Participants were grateful for Brown. They praised her willingness to share her contacts, experiences, and knowledge throughout the course of the program.

One of the most rewarding aspects of participating in this program is the opportunity to share hard-earned lessons and wisdom with budding entrepreneurs.

Christy Brown, lead accelerator instructor

“Watching these founders pivot, adapt, and ultimately scale their businesses is incredibly fulfilling,” shares Brown. “Being part of their growth journey and witnessing their progress firsthand is what makes this work so gratifying for me.”

Building a Business Blueprint

Karthik Ramesh and Hyunsuk Shim are both professors of radiation oncology at Emory University’s School of Medicine. The idea they brought to the Startup Launch Accelerator is the Brain Imaging Collaboration Suite, also known as BrICS. The software platform helps doctors customize plans for brain-tumor patients, explains Ramesh.

Ramesh’s favorite part of the experience was developing and refining BrICS’ pitch and pitch deck. In order to get there, he had to first identify and understand his ideal customers. Then, he had to figure out what the market looked like for the product, including researching any existing competitors.

This accelerator helps people turn an idea into a tangible business plan with actionable follow-ups for the future.

Karthik Ramesh, BrICS

Participants also got to meet with lawyers who specialize in startups as well as CEOs of other ventures and financial experts.

“Pitching at Demo Day truly felt like an accomplishment,” recalls Ramesh. “Every founder formed a bond with the others as we learned about and gave advice for everyone’s companies. It felt special to sit together and cheer each other on during our pitches.”

Tapping Into Resources

For fellow founder, Douglas Brooks II 24MBA, the confidence that the program – particularly Brown and Cayce – helped cultivate was one of his favorite parts.

“You really work on the psychology of your business and ask yourself a bunch of times throughout the workshops, ‘Why am I doing this?’”

Douglas Brooks II 24MBA, Team Swift Gear

Brooks has been working on his startup since 2019. His venture is a health tech company that aims to reduce the number of heart attacks in the U.S. each year with aquatic exercise. His father was a special education teacher and swimming coach. Together, they began to develop an apparatus that people can wear in the water to add resistance to water-based physical activity. Better yet, it does so without adding extra pressure or stress to joints or existing injuries. After watching an elderly fraternity member decline in health and disposition following an injury, Brooks wanted to bring the device that he and his father created to other people.

“We had a technology that can decrease people’s fall risk and improve cardiovascular health. I felt like there weren’t enough tools to bring people to the water for strength training. So, that’s what really made me want to go into the health space,” says Brooks, who joined Goizueta’s One-Year MBA program to learn more about raising funds after working in finance for several years.

Since launching the startup, Brooks has secured a U.S. patent, gathered dozens of testimonials from consumers and college athletic departments, established a medical advisory board, and conducted a study about the benefits and outcomes of using his device.

Brooks says he has grown tremendously through his experience in the Startup Launch Accelerator. He found it especially helpful to share ideas with fellow founders and learn about how someone as successful as Brown deals with challenges.

Now, Brooks is spending his summer as part of the incubator at The Hatchery.

Everyone has a greater understanding of where they want to go. You might not have the entire puzzle figured out, but we at least have the outside pieces.

Douglas Brooks II 24MBA

Experiential Learning for Students

In addition to the benefits for program participants, the accelerator also serves as a learning experience for Goizueta students. Fellows of The Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation play a critical role as program managers. They act as resources for the startups and ensure that everything runs smoothly throughout the sessions.

“The program helps to move Emory-related ventures forward by leveraging the skills and competencies of Goizueta faculty and staff,” says Jill Perry-Smith, academic director of the center and professor of organization and management.

It is exciting to see students build on the knowledge they learn in our courses via the accelerator and take their enterprises to the next level.

Jill Perry-Smith, academic director and professor of organization and management

From Classroom to Crash Course

Qazi Haq 25MBA says his experience as a fellow at the center has supplemented what he’s learning in the classroom. Whereas course work might focus on how large companies operate, sitting in on the accelerator program sessions inadvertently taught him the ins-and-outs of running a startup. He got a crash course in the early-stage venture ecosystem, including how to raise funds, what investors look for, and startup-industry dynamics.

Haq is also involved in the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund, another program within the center. This academic year, he was an associate, but he’s now a student fund manager. Listening to the pitches allowed Haq to connect several participants to potential funds.

I love being around people trying to build new things because it’s always exciting and they have passion.

Qazi Haq 25MBA

Exploring Career Paths in Entrepreneurship

For Molly McDonald 25EvMBA, being involved in the accelerator is part of her job as community engagement coordinator for the program. She’s also a Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation fellow and working on her MBA through Goizueta’s evening program.

The MBA experience is a time for students to explore career paths, even those paths that involve more risk, such as entrepreneurship, she says. This program is an excellent opportunity for students with business ideas to take advantage of valuable resources like mentorship, networking, and funding.

“There is no clear or defined path to becoming an entrepreneur. However, the Startup Launch Accelerator puts a framework in place for founders to build their business model and move forward,” says McDonald. “The program also puts Emory on the map as a leader in entrepreneurship education and experiential learning opportunities for students.”

To learn more about the Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, sign up for our email newsletter or follow us on our social media channels: LinkedIn | Instagram

Are you an Emory-affiliated startup founder currently seeking early-stage risk capital or interested in learning about other startup programs? Connect with us through our startup pipeline to learn about future opportunities.

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This is the question that The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (CEI) is seeking to answer. 

The CEI Vision

Funded by a gift from The Goizueta Foundation in late 2019, the center seeks to bridge the gap between vision and reality, theory and practice.

The center focuses on three pillars of activity: developing entrepreneurial skills and new venture creation; preparing for early-stage investing and growing an understanding of capital formation; and enhancing creativity and innovation capabilities for organizations of all types.

“Think of it as a funnel,” Brian Cayce, managing director of the center, explains. “At the top of the funnel, our students or other startup entrepreneurs have these early-stage ideas. We want the center to support in various points along their journey with a continuum of programming and courses that will accelerate the likelihood of success with their ventures, all the way down to potentially securing investment from our student-run seed and venture funds. At the same time, some may also jump on the funnel at later stages, through exposure and opportunities we are providing for them to collaborate with early-stage investors in supporting startups.”

Delivering Transformational Experiences

In business schools across the country, there is a growing demand for opportunities to learn the real-world mechanics of disrupting and improving industries, as well as building new ones.

“Entrepreneurship and innovation are increasingly important, both for those interested in developing a creative mindset to shake things up and manage innovations within companies of all types to those interested in founding, joining or investing in new ventures,” says Jill Perry-Smith, academic director of the CEI. “We are proud of our suite of programs and courses that serve both interests.”

The center has expanded rapidly to meet these needs. As of 2023, the center already has 15 mission aligned courses; 10 programs offered; upward of 100 startups engaged; over 20 seed and venture funds involved; and over 500 students participating in program and course offerings. 

Many of the opportunities the center has in place aim to open the doors wider to historically excluded groups. One such program is the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund, a $1 million student-run venture fund focused on empowering underrepresented founders. Each year, students involved in the fund act in the investor role with input from faculty and an esteemed advisory board. To date, the fund has made total investment commitments of $170K into seven companies in seven different industries in six cities. AACSB International, the world’s largest business education alliance that connects educators, students, and businesses, recently honored the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund with its 2023 “Innovations that Inspire” award recognizing institutions that create new value for a continuously evolving business world and global society.

Like many of the center’s initiatives, the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund is run in the context of a class.

“In addition to benefiting each founder and company, this process also provides students unprecedented access and exposure to the world of venture capital–not to mention potential job opportunities,” says JB Kurish, professor in the practice of finance and co-lead faculty advisor for the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund.

Another popular program is the annual Emory Entrepreneurship Summit, which provides Goizueta students a chance to network, hear from successful entrepreneurial alumni and learn from entrepreneurs. This year’s summit featured Stuart Weitzman as the keynote speaker, whose shoe line has been worn by the likes of Beyoncé, Kate Middleton, and Taylor Swift. The culmination of the annual event is the “Pitch the Summit” competition, in which students present their own aspiring startups to a panel of distinguished entrepreneurial judges. The judges select one lucky and hardworking recipient to take home a grand prize of $10,000, among the $25,000 awarded across a variety of startup categories.

“Each year, the summit gets exponentially better,” says Andrea Hershatter, senior associate dean and BBA program director. “Student attendance this year was at an all-time high, the track records of our entrepreneurs were off the charts, and the traction and potential of the pitched ventures was the most evolved it has ever been.”

The Emory Startup Launch Accelerator, run in partnership with The Hatchery, Emory Center for Innovation, prepares early-stage founders to take on the challenges of launching a new and successful business.. This immersive 8-week program pulls from evidence-based tools and processes to offer hands on workshops and challenges, allowing young companies to quickly test and tweak their business models to reflect consumer feedback. The center selected a dozen companies for their 2023 cohort; businesses ranged from sustainable farming education to task management software. The most recent cohort saw several companies go on to either raise external capital or find spots in the leading global accelerators, and the center strives to support the placement opportunities for these participants after the sessions have ended.

“The 12 founders selected for the Startup Launch Accelerator represent a diverse range of industries and are at various early stages of their entrepreneurial journeys,” says Christy Brown, one of the center’s key entrepreneurs-in-residence. “Their passion, innovation, and commitment to scaling their companies with rigor and strategic goals around growth are truly inspiring. These founders were selected based on overall ability to scale and the current timeline of their companies.”

Another key initiative, the RAISE Forum (Retaining and Accelerating Investment in the Southeast at Emory), connects in-revenue startups and top-tier investors from across the Southeast to foster collaboration within the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and ensures that the best startups can stay local. The 12th RAISE Forum—which took place in November of last year—gathered close to 100 participants, who enjoyed the opportunity to exchange strategic plans, engage in discussion groups, and explore potential business opportunities.

“This program fulfills one of our key goals of keeping companies in the region, along with showcasing a diverse group of founders and companies, as about 30 percent of RAISE C-level execs are underserved,” says Charles Goetz, senior lecturer of organization & management at Goizueta Business School and RAISE Forum co-founder.

Supporting these activities and learning vital lessons along the way, student fellows add tremendous value to the center.

 “The fellowship—which includes undergraduate and graduate students—allows students to get more exposure to different programmatic opportunities, working with partners across Atlanta, sometimes farther afield,” says Cayce. “They get the opportunity to travel and participate in conferences with support from the center. At the same time, they help to design, cultivate and curate these programs. They go on to be amazing ambassadors for Goizueta Business School.”

Expanding Impact

The center plans to streamline and enrich its current programming, while continuing to generate new programs, many of which focus on building collaborative webs between Goizueta students and the various other stakeholders in and around the field of entrepreneurship.

For example, the center is gearing up to take advantage of the robust biomedical community in and around Emory’s campus.

“My goal is to build tools that can bring visibility to what’s happening across different hubs of innovation within the Emory University ecosystem, and then think through meaningful ways that the business school students can plug into those and build value for Emory across the board,” says Cayce.

Another prospective program tentatively titled “EmHERy Ventures,” which borrows its framework from the successful Peachtree Minority Venture Fund and is geared toward women entrepreneurs and founders, is also in the works: “This is an area where we would use the same plumbing and wiring of the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund, but find support—from the school and beyond—to get this initiative with its unique focus launched,” shares Cayce.

Also in the planning stages, the center is looking into an initiative focused on corporate venture capital.

“Corporate venture capital is a subset of venture capital in which corporations take the early risk in startups. In the last five to seven years this activity has really grown and become more sophisticated,” he shares. “It’s a huge growth opportunity for the business school.”

Cayce says we should stay tuned, as there are even more programs in the works which mingle Goizueta students with community partners to spur innovation and investment.

While the center researches the best methods to help nurture the vision of students, Cayce himself is dreaming of what Goizueta can do for the community overall.

“What excites me is to think about what that portfolio of contribution to the community could look like in the next three to five years.”

Immersion in entrepreneurship and innovation is central to Goizueta’s business education. The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation takes a multi-faceted approach to engage students and business owners through interaction with Entrepreneurs-in-Residence and ecosystem collaborators, Pitch the Professor events, the annual Emory Entrepreneurship Summit, focused coursework, a Startup Launch Accelerator, venture capital opportunities through the RAISE Forum and the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund, and other entrepreneurial programming. Learn more here.

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Participating in this year’s cohort were The Giving Circle, SENSEable Dx, Attecor, X3 Luxe Homes, Emazon, Scoreboard LLC, ParaPass, Tapfer, DDB!, Ape Recycling, and certain companies operating in stealth mode.

Mentor Extraordinaire Guides Rising Stars

“For the past two years, our program has evolved and focused on emerging companies. Through workshop activities and hands-on practice, we encourage early-stage founders to think and challenge their path from inception to exit,” says Goizueta’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence Christy Brown, who leads as the accelerator’s primary instructor. Brown is the CEO of Dr. Noze Best and the founder of LaunchPad2x, a not-for-profit accelerator which focused on scaling female founders via education and community. She is also a serial entrepreneur, executive leader, and investor who has founded and exited four companies. With more than two decades of startup experience, Brown offers a unique perspective for new founders.

“The 12 founders selected for the Startup Launch Accelerator represent a diverse range of industries and are at various early stages of their entrepreneurial journeys,” Brown says.

Their passion, innovation, and commitment to scaling their companies with rigor and strategic goals around growth are truly inspiring. These founders were selected based on overall ability to scale and the current timeline of their companies.

Christy Brown, Goizueta Entrepreneur-in-Residence

Brown adds, “I have witnessed the remarkable evolution of these founders where many continue onto an incubator or accelerator pairing capital with startup support or pivoting their businesses over this session to ensure they have a path to next. The Startup Launch Accelerator has adapted and grown under my leadership, empowering entrepreneurs with the knowledge, resources, and mentorship needed to thrive in today’s competitive startup landscape.”

Unleashing Tools for Startup Success

Throughout the hands-on bootcamp, participants use the Startup Business Model Canvas to organize their for-profit ventures. Designed to strengthen product ideas and business models, the program introduces evidence-based tools and processes. Along the way, participants build upon metrics analysis to reveal demand from potential buyers and users.

“We maximize our use of tools to ensure these founders are thinking like CEOs, identifying their customers and validating their market before investing,” Brown says. “Founders live their companies, so much so, we sometimes have a bias towards our business and don’t ‘let go.’ We try to help these founders in an environment where they are challenged to ensure someone will be a market.”

Through the proving ground of the accelerator, Goizueta is proud to play an active role in equipping startup founders from across Emory University with the tools, systems, and confidence required to make informed decisions that will propel their new ventures forward.

Brian Cayce, Managing Director of The Robert C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Robert Kazanjian, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Organization & Management guides the program in partnership with Brown. Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation Student Fellows, Sadia Oishee 23MBA and Nikita Das 24MBA, helped orchestrate the program. “Sadia and I were responsible for facilitating the founder bootcamp along with Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Christy Brown, making sure the participants had an easy onboarding process and had all the resources they needed while going through the program,” says Das.

Seasoned Entrepreneurs Foster Founders

Critical to the process is the give and take between the founders and the accelerator team.

“All of us entrepreneurs think that our ideas are amazing, but that does not mean that anyone is going to buy our products. The Startup Launch Accelerator gives the founders the tools to really ensure that there is authentic demand for their idea. The opportunity to work in collaboration with Goizueta and work with founders across Emory University resonates with my goals to save founders time and money via customer conversations and customer discovery,” says Brown.

The accelerator offers an opportunity for entrepreneurs to have genuine, organic conversations with potential customers to determine if anyone even cares about the problem they’re solving.  It then equips them with a base of tools to help ensure that they can, indeed, solve those problems for their customers.

Christy Brown

The smallest strategic changes often lead to continued entrepreneurial success. Founders learn to use interview tools that test and refine assumptions with buyers and users. By defining and exploring early adopters, they identify the behavior triggers, key words, and positioning that builds demand.

“It was so fulfilling to be part of the team and empower the founders to refine their start-up idea to make them more successful in their journey,” says Das. She notes that the program culminates with a day of team presentations and mentorship.

It was rewarding to see how participants pivoted their business model through the accelerator bootcamp and refined their story to be confident pitching the investors.

Nikita Das 24MBA

“Looking ahead, my future hopes and goals for the Startup Launch Accelerator are to foster the growth of companies that are venture-ready or in the growth stage,” Brown reflects. “Under Emory University’s stewardship, we have unparalleled access to resources providing continued support and guidance across our university ecosystem. The diversity of startups inside this ecosystem cultivates a vibrant entrepreneurial culture, fuels innovation, and contributes to the success of the next generation of high-growth startups.”

Would you like to participate in a future Startup Launch Accelerator? Emory students, faculty and staff, and alumni are invited to participate free of charge with teams of four. Each team must include one Emory community member.  Learn more about this and other key programs of The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.  

About the Center: The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation fosters entrepreneurship and innovation born of critical inquiry, serving fundamental societal needs, executed according to sound business principles, while opening possibilities and sparking imagination. The Center focuses on three pillars of activity: developing entrepreneurial skills and venture creation, preparing for early-stage investment and capital formation, and enhancing creativity and innovation for organizations of all types.      

About the Hatchery: The Hatchery is an Emory University-wide initiative which supports student innovators and entrepreneurs from all Emory schools and provides space and a pathway for the development of all stages of innovation, from inspiration and learning to projects and startups.

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For 10 weeks, 11 startups brainstormed, collaborated and executed during the first ever Emory Startup Launch accelerator program.

Funded by a grant from the Goizueta Creativity and Innovation Initiative, the program is designed to guide early-stage founders through a defined process to help take ideas and test them with customers to help develop a better business model. The accelerator is offered to the entire Emory community, including students, faculty, staff and alumni who have the entrepreneurial spirit.

The 10-week course recently came to a close with 11 startups presenting their new business insights, all of which used new skills learned during the course.

Ed Rieker, adjunct faculty member at Goizueta, teaches the course alongside Robert Kazanjian, Asa Griggs Candler professor of organization and management, and Kurt Ronn, advisor and mentor.

Rieker said one of the first lessons of entrepreneurship he teaches in the class is the ability to slow down.

“When we think about an idea, we start to envision what it could be, and we start to think about solutions,” Rieker said. “Entrepreneurs love to make stuff, and they just make stuff as fast as they can. But what I’d like you to do really is to stop, slow down and notice things.”

Through the course, students develop tools and processes to search for repeatable and scalable business models.

“We do these things over and over again, and we call it evidence-based entrepreneurship,” Rieker said. “With this methodology, I don’t give opinions anymore. I just say, ‘Show me the evidence. What evidence can you bring to me that you have something that shows demand?’”

The group of students, or Cohort 1, completed nearly 1,300 micro-transactions, meaning each student went out and talked to buyers or users. It also meant each student completed a micro-offer where they’ve presented something and tested it to see if there was demand.

“What we believe that we’re working on and have discovered is really a process that’s reliable, scalable and sustainable,” Rieker said. “I really look forward to seeing all of these entrepreneurs on the cover of Forbes.”

Although this 10-week course came to a close, Rieker said they will be doing another program for full-time startups starting in June and are accepting applications.

Cohort 1:

Ability Enabled

• Eboni Freeman
• Zhaohan Li
• Lily Xu
• Isadora Martins

Courtney

• Courtney Timmons

Eximia

• Nicole Jasper

Fresher

• Inez Daniels
• Tommy Lampley

Grape Connect

• Justin Charbonneau

MASA

• Yixiang Li
• Pragati Prasad
• Fadi Pulous

PAVE

• Naya Martin

Plasmid Pharm

• Ichiro Matsumura
• Maruf Hoque
• Sal Hussein
• Michael Hwang
• Davin Lama

Ready-to-Drink Tea

• JP Ortiz

Wedding

• Ally Boudreaux

WODLeader

• Alex McDonald
• Jeff Kim
• Mehmet Bajin

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