Tag: Undergraduate

Grant Goldman, BSBA ’17, wrote this for the Olin Blog. He wrote in to report that his company, PAIR Eyewear, will be presenting their concept on the episode of Shark Tank, airing tonight (7 p.m. central) on ABC television.

UPDATE 3/16/20: PAIR Eyewear received a $400,000 deal during the March 6 appearance. Read more.

Olin and WashU have played an instrumental role in my career thus far. I arrived at Olin knowing I wanted to be “in business,” but not certain about which vertical. I began in the finance track, but after several introductory business school courses, like Management 100, I found a love for marketing.

While I wanted to start my career in marketing, financial literacy was still crucial. Through my finance coursework, I found myself in Managerial Accounting with Professor Zawadi Lemayian. And even though I struggled with the coursework at times, Professor Lemayian became one of my closest confidants and a source of strength. We still chat regularly, and she continues to offer incredible advice, for which I can’t thank her enough.

Career launch

After graduation, I joined GREATS, a startup sneaker brand in Brooklyn, New York. There, I focused on analytics and digital marketing. Classes like Managerial Statistics and Marketing Research provided me with the knowledge and tools to raise the bar of analytical standards and processes at GREATS, even in an entry-level position. After about two years, I was promoted to manager of growth marketing and analytics, overseeing digital marketing, and eventually our more traditional, out-of-home efforts.

In August of 2019, GREATS was acquired by Steve Madden and I decided to explore new opportunities. I reconnected with a high school classmate, Sophia Edelstein, who had recently launched a direct-to-consumer children’s eyewear brand with her friend Nathan Kondamuri.

Pivot to peeps

As a second-grader, Nathan had to get glasses for the first time and found the experience to be medical and scary. After interviewing hundreds of families, they discovered not much had changed. With PAIR’s continually customizable frames and colorful options, kids are excited to wear glasses and change up their look every day. Having worn glasses since kindergarten, I immediately connected with their mission.

Although “Shark Tank” is an atypical way to fund a venture, it allowed us the opportunity to seek strategic investment from some of the most creative business minds. What’s more, it was the perfect platform to connect with the millions of viewers and families who have experienced the same challenges Nathan had as a child.

We’ve been fortunate to work with some incredible investors, having now raised $3 million in seed funding since launch in the summer of 2018. Most importantly, we’re proud to have helped thousands of families and kids be enthusiastic about their glasses and excited to wear them every day.

Pictured above: Grant Goldman, BSBA ’17, who is the head of growth for PAIR Eyewear. His company is presenting on “Shark Tank” tonight, although he himself will not be appearing.

Claire Huang, BSBA ’23, wrote this for the Olin Blog. She is majoring in finance and economics and strategy and minoring in data analytics.

When a swimmer dives into the water, their arms automatically join together in front of them, forming a hydrodynamic point meant to maximize momentum and minimize drag. This is a streamline, a technique I have practiced many times during my 14 years as a competitive swimmer.

Although I no longer swim, I am now a first-year at WashU, and I believe we could all do well to follow the swimmer’s lead and implement streamlining in our daily lives. As a first-year, it is especially easy to get overwhelmed with clubs, activities and academics. It gets to the point where covering all of your bases can feel like playing a game of Twister.

Streamlining at school can be a great way to maximize our time and energy while minimizing unnecessary commitments to focus on what matters to each of us.

Identifying key values

My first step to streamlining my WashU experience was to create a list of my commitments—everything from classes to clubs to sports teams. I had a lot to write down. I am one of those students who grabbed every flyer from the Mudd Activity Fair and signed up for any club I found even remotely interesting.

After creating my list, I needed to identify my key values. I started by thinking about what I hoped to gain from my college experience. I knew I wanted to prioritize academics, but also explore as many professional opportunities as possible. While widening my social and personal network was also important, I felt that was a natural process that became secondary to my two primary goals.

Paring things down—streamlining

Finally, using the values I identified, I evaluated my list of activities and decided which to keep and which to drop. I chose to keep plenty of professional development extracurriculars, including Phi Gamma Nu, a professional business fraternity; Arch Consulting, a case competition team; and Bear Studios, a student-run consulting firm.

In particular, Bear Studios appealed to me as it provided an amazing opportunity to implement the strategic business development concepts I learned in management 100 to real-life client projects ​and ​receive compensation for my work. Bear Studios occupies a unique place in my life at the intersection of both my academic and professional goals.

Looking back, I’m thankful I was able to streamline my interests so quickly as a first-year. It saved me time so I could pursue what mattered most.

In turn, I am more satisfied with my day-to-day work. I have more energy to pursue my goals and more momentum that propels me to achieve them. However, this isn’t to say I’ve completely decluttered my life. I still look for ways to streamline, out of the pool and in my new school.

WashU Olin alumni have continued to benefit from their membership in the community many years after leaving campus. This is part of an occasional series of vignettes about the alumni experience. Today, we hear from Chris Sanderson, BSBA ’16, investment banking analyst, Metronome

A little more than a year ago, Chris Sanderson was working in valuation services for a large accounting firm. At that point, he wanted a career that aligned better with his finance major. So, he reached out to Olin and its Alumni & Development team.

He leveraged the team’s resources and plugged into the alumni network to make a career switch. “They did two things for me. They introduced me to various WashU alums, and they encouraged me to go to the Chicago alumni dinner in April,” Sanderson said. That’s where he connected with Jeff Rosenkranz, BSBA ’84, who founded Metronome, a Chicago-based investment banking firm, in 2010.

When Sanderson initially reached out to Olin, he was connected with Sean Martin, A&D’s director of development, who started the process. “We had a discussion about what I was looking for, and he explained his role with the alumni network,” Sanderson said. “He agreed to make introductions and was the one who recommended I attend the Chicago alumni dinner.” Sanderson began working at Metronome in June.

Stay in touch.

Center for Experiential Learning

• Clare Nowogrocki, associate director 314-935-2050 | cnowogrocki@wustl.edu

Business Development

• Dorothy Kittner, MBA ’94, associate dean and director of business development and corporate relations 314-935-6365 | kittner@wustl.edu

Alumni & Development

• Sean Martin, director of development 314-935-3687 | sean_martin@wustl.edu

Weston Career Center

• Jen Whitten, associate dean and director 314-935-8970 | jwhitten@wustl.edu

Executive Education

• Kelly Bean, senior associate dean and professor of practice in leadership 202-797-6000 | beank@wustl.edu

Emily Su, BSBA ’22, is a strategy fellow for Bear Studios, a student-led consulting firm on campus. She wrote this for the Olin Blog. She is studying finance and economics and strategy with a minor in philosophy.

Students today seem to approach life full steam ahead, fielding questions like, “Where are you working next summer?” or “What are you doing after graduation?” It’s not often that you hear people talk about time as something that can, or should, be slowed down.

In high school, I watched a TED talk that introduced the idea of recording one second of each day. By the end of 2016, I had a roughly 6-minute long video of the past 365 days.

This project, not one of physics or science, enabled me to slow down time and rewatch my life. After all, the more memories we have in our memory network, the more reference points we have to look back upon, and the fuller we perceive our lives to be.

Now, each time I rewatch my videos, I travel back to 00:00:00 and relive that year.

There are always moments of simplicity—moments easily forgotten, but nonetheless integral to my college experience, like a St. Louis sunset overlooking Mudd Field.

There are memories that I would have rather forgotten in the moment, like walking out of a technical interview where I couldn’t answer half of the interviewer’s questions.

But there are also moments of pride and joy, like being admitted into one of WashU’s business fraternities and meeting new mentors and peers who would become my closest friends.

Together, these clips are no more than a few gigabytes of data on my computer’s hard drive, but they have contributed more to my perspective on life than I ever would have imagined.

When I sit down to rewatch one of my videos, I am reminded once again of the incredible brevity of time. I’ve realized that both the ups and downs are always going to be present in my life, and thus can be vital learning experiences if reflected on properly.

Now, as a sophomore in Olin Business School, the benefits of my recordings are indisputable. I almost forgot that in early 2016, I volunteered at a nonprofit that taught underprivileged children the basics of saving and spending.

This experience is what prompted me to apply to business school in the first place: I had realized that I wanted to find the intersection between business and philanthropy.

After watching my 2016 video and re-familiarizing myself with my original passions and interests, I joined Bear Studios with the hopes of uplifting companies and individuals in a business environment.

Beyond redefining our professional aspirations, these videos can also push us to live more in the moment. What use are disappearing Snapchats or Instagram stories when we have everlasting highlight reels of our lives?

As students, we’re constantly searching for the next rung of the ladder: the next class, the next internship, the next step in our lives. But we now have the ability to slow down time and keep everything in perspective—and if we can take advantage of something that unthinkable, we can apply it to the challenges that lie ahead.

Washington University in St. Louis and Olin Business School both continue to be top venues for entrepreneurship education—ranking No. 6 for undergraduate studies and No. 16 for graduate studies in the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur rankings for Top Schools for Entrepreneurship Studies. The rankings were announced online Tuesday, November 12, 2019, and are featured in the December issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

The newest ranking represents a one-step jump for undergrads and two steps up for graduate programs from the previous year’s ranking.

WashU’s place on this year’s lists marks a significant movement for the university. In five years, the university moved nine spots in the graduate studies rankings and four in undergraduate studies.

“The WashU community is key to this recognition. Across the university innovators and entrepreneurs come together and support one another in a way that is unmatched”, II Luscri, Assistant Vice Provost for Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Managing Director of the Skandalaris Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. “The Skandalaris Center is proud to do our part in supporting WashU founders and aspiring entrepreneurs at every stage of their entrepreneurial journey.”

The ranking comes on the heels of a No. 1 ranking in a first-of-its-kind analysis of MBA-level entrepreneurship programs published in early November by Inc. magazine and Poets & Quants.

Read more about the Princeton Review ranking on the Skandalaris Center’s blog.

Five years ago this month, Christine Chang, BSBA ’04, cofounded her skin care company, Glow Recipe, leaving behind a career in global marketing at L’Oreal US. Just over a year later, she and her cofounder appeared on Shark Tank as a way to jump start the business—and later decided a financial relationship with the “sharks” wasn’t necessary. Chang answered a few questions for the Olin Blog.

​Can you tell us a little about Glow Recipe? What inspired you to found it? Was it conceived at Olin?

Glow Recipe is a clean, cruelty-free skin care company founded in 2014. Our mission is to empower our customers to feed skin the ingredients it needs, when it needs it. We’re available at 1,500-plus doors in all Sephora US and Canada stores, as well as Douglas in Germany and Mecca in Australia.

My cofounder Sarah and I were inspired by growing up in Korea and learning a holistic approach to skin care and self care from our mothers and grandmothers. We were the only two bicultural and bilingual employees at L’Oreal who had experience in the beauty industry in both Korea and the US, and we thought this background could uniquely serve us to bridge these two cultures. While Glow Recipe is based in New York, it will always be K-beauty inspired.

Why did you decide to attend WashU and Olin?

I was looking for a school that had diversity, in terms of class size, backgrounds, ethnicities and majors so I would be exposed to a rich breadth of options and possibilities. Olin was an incredible foundation for my first job at L’Oreal as a marketer and helped me build analyticial, creative and presentation skills.

How did you decide to move down the path of entrepreneurship?

I was an assistant vice president at L’Oreal, heading marketing for the skin care category of a brand I really enjoyed working with. At the time, a great number of global beauty companies were starting to partner with Korean manufacturers due to the sheer level of innovation, especially in skin care, that was coming from Korea.

The Korean beauty brands that were being brought over were not reflective of this innovation, nor was there strong brand building. I decided this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to leverage my background and experience to bring over beauty innovation and education in a relevant way for a global audience.

Why Shark Tank? What was that experience like?

We were huge fans of Shark Tank even before we were entrepreneurs. It was a surreal experience to be on national TV (completely unrehearsed!) and to have your business dissected by five successful, inspirational entrepreneurs.

It was nerve racking, but such a valuable learning experience on how to pitch our brand and communicate our mission. We got three offers from the sharks and shook hands with Robert Herjavec on the show, but eventually amicably parted ways. When the show aired in December 2015, it brought incredible nationwide awareness for our brand and philosophy.

Have you needed or planned to go outside for additional funding, or has that not been necessary?

We are bootstrapped and have not received outside investment.

Mentions in E!, Cosmo, HuffPo, CNN—is there a secret to the media exposure you’ve been able to capture?

Compelling, educational content has been the cornerstone of our platform and the fuel behind our social and press growth. We’ve always believed that educating on the routine and our skin care philosophy comes before selling a product.

Skin concepts such as Glowipedia, the first “skin care look book,” or “glass skin” skin care hacks like “seven skin method” were appreciated by both editors and customers as our unique approach to skin care techniques and education.

A recent shoot featuring a behind-the-scenes look at how our Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask was made also went viral. We got a lot of feedback from our community that they appreciated the transparency behind our processes.

In what ways was your experience at Olin formative in your experience and goals?

Olin was a combination of interesting courses, lifelong friendships and a supportive, safe environment to figure out how I wanted to approach my career and life after college. 

Were there particular courses or professors or alumni who were particularly memorable or influential?

Maxine Clark, the founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop, granted me time to do an informational interview. She was one of the first to really effectively create an experiential retail space and is an inspirational entrepreneur.

I also love seeing the work of Celia Ellenberg, AB ’04, who is the beauty director at Vogue. She consistently pushes the boundary on interesting, out-of-the-box beauty editorial.

What are the next steps for you in your career?

Continuing to grow Glow Recipe and build our team. Glow Recipe started as a curation site in 2014, bringing over natural K-beauty products to the US. Glow Recipe Skincare, our in-house brand, was launched in 2017.

This year, we hit a major milestone by evolving our business model from doing both curation and creation, to solely focusing on Glow Recipe Skincare. We have a lot of exciting innovations and activations planned for our brand and can’t wait to see what 2020 brings.

Find more about Glow Recipe and Christine Chang on the company’s Instagram page and her personal Instagram page.