Tag: EQ



The EQ headline really says it all: “Cliff Holekamp: Startup Founder, Educator, Connector, Evangelist.” Holekamp is major force in the St. Louis startup community and here at Olin. He is director of the Entrepreneurship Platform in the MBA program, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship and the pied piper for students across campus who flock to his Hatchery and CELect courses that provide hands-on experience in the business of startups. Holekamp is also an Olin alumnus, MBA’01.

Here’s an excerpt of  an interview with Holekamp by Tanya Yatzeck, an Olin Executive MBA(Class 43) alumna in the latest issue of EQ, Entrepreneurs’ Quarterly:

Talent is actually the most important. Even though I co-founded Cultivation Capital, recognized as the most active venture capital firm in the Midwest, people are actually more important than money because we can’t throw our money at nothing. So, people are number one, and that’s why my work at WashU is so important for the St. Louis community. You have to educate people to be great entrepreneurs, or to be great team members of early stage ventures. We’re lucky to have a diversified educational system at WashU with multiple schools that teach different skills because we need them all. So I’m doing my role on the business side and collaborating with the other schools to help develop the talent that we as a community need and we as a country need to be competitive to build the next generation of economic development.