Mass Collegiate Entrepreneurs

An enabler and resource for entrepreneurial college students and University's student innovation initiatives and programs. 

1. The problem that MCE is tackling is the lack of entrepreneurial resources and startup knowhow connected to the overwhelming majority of colleges and their students. Through my talks with founders all over Massachusetts at schools like MIT, Harvard University, Northeastern, WPI and Worcester State University, I've uncovered a large gap between the one percent of schools that have access to a thriving innovation atmosphere and regular schools. This has caused most of the attention for student startups to be concentrated in miniscule areas and not scattered equally, which is understandable. 

2. MCE is a network as well as a concrete resource for student startups. The founders that are getting involved from the initial stages of building MCE are here to help all future MCE founders going forward with their concerns while starting up in college. Whether that be understanding venture capital or developing a team. The network is here also to connect interested entrepreneurial students that are wishing to start something amazing. MCE also exists to be an uplifting authority with Universities that are wishing to bolster their student innovation efforts. In the future this will all come together and an MCE accelerator will be there to guide and fund students at their Pre-seed and idea stages while they're in college trying to bring their ventures to life. 

3. This solution will change how Universities worldwide view entrepreneurialism in their student body. There are countless reasons why schools should be focused on student founders and fostering their efforts. The more that have a positive outlook on student innovation and make strides to promote it, the better the community as whole will turn out. The amount of problems that are being solved at top tier innovation schools will now be the same at schools all over the country and globe. 

Students are limited to their University when it comes to external assistance and guidance with any idea or venture they want to act on. MCE takes initiative to find Universities and students that are struggling. Ones that might not even know they are struggling and have much more room to improve. 

There has not yet been a founder network for students or an authority dedicated to growing University efforts for a more entrepreneurial atmosphere.

Most of the founders involved are using technology to solve variety of problems. In terms of MCE itself, our site is the current center of all information and is the connection point for students. There will be opportunities in the future where technology plays a larger part for founders integrated into MCE in the form of communication and resources beyond out site.  

The goal moving forward for the next year is to build the network of student founders around the state of Massachusetts and beyond. The second large goal for the next year is to acquire corporate sponsors and partner schools/companies to have events or competitions. Involving startup mentors and angels is also a priority. 

The vision for the next five years is to have an incubator or accelerator for student startups as well as a system for integrating a strong entrepreneurial program at Universities. 

MCE is deployed now. As we are gaining notoriety with students, communities and Universities,  outreach and influence to get into to contact with Colleges and founders.

We have eight startups involved with a number of founders. This is growing and as more join, the network and thus help becomes more massive. We are currently assisting all founders involved with early concerns if they have them and being a point of contact for venture advice. Earlier founders will have more of a concern and will be able to get more assistance. 

This is an extremely hard question to answer considering we are looking to help many student on many different levels from different Universities. As more MCE assistance is funneled to startups around the Massachusetts and other states, there is no telling what the platform can do for students and the reach that can be acquired. An estimate and nice goal we would like to reach is helping 75 awesome student startups in 12 months. In three years after scaling its hard to say. 

We are or were all heavily integrated into our University's entrepreneurial and innovation environments. We also have started out own companies and have a large connection to the local startup community. MCE is ran by students and will always have students working on the problem. 

Grants and donation at first will play a large part in initial funding. As we assist startups moving forward, we will be either following a model similar to Masschallenge or taking direct equity from student ventures to jumpstart their growth. We have the ability to sustain growth in revenue because of the untapped student startups around the country. We are also unlocking more potential in the space which we will chase. Events can also play a part. 

I believe Solve's resources and network will be an amazing partner with MCE just as we will be for our Founders and Universities. MIT and the Solve platform has the power to change a lot of lives for the better and we'd love to be apart. The fact that this has been created in the first place and that resources will be shared is a testament to MIT's ambition to create a better world and that is inspiring. 

Some key barriers involve getting the word out to organizations, Universities and companies to be apart of the MCE mission and assist with resources of their own. We will need mentorship and advisors that can understand how to navigate the unique challenges of building a platform like this from the ground up and Solve will be a conduit to into that.