How did VentureWell contribute to your leadership development and your professional trajectory?

VentureWell helped me strengthen my strategic leadership skills and see my work not only from a scientific perspective, but also from the perspective of its real impact on patients and communities. The experience gave me more confidence to lead multidisciplinary teams and communicate a clear vision to investors and partners.

What’s a key learning or takeaway from the VentureWell program you participated in, and how did it impact your journey?

The most valuable lesson was understanding the importance of actively listening to end users and strategic partners from the early stages. This approach, focused on real needs, allowed me to guide product development and business decisions with greater clarity, accelerating our ability to validate the product clinically and attract partners.

What’s the biggest change or milestone your institution or venture has experienced since participating in VentureWell programming?

Since our participation, Samay has gone from an initial prototype to third-generation hardware and clinical validations with more than 450 patients, secured strategic agreements with a pharmaceutical company and an insurance company, and secured more than $6.7 million in dilutive, non-dilutive, and strategic capital.

Looking back, what advice would you give yourself at the start of your journey?

I would say that resilience is just as important as innovation: Every obstacle—regulatory, financial, or technical—is a learning opportunity, and trusting your team and asking for support early on makes all the difference.

Read more about Maria’s innovation journey.

How did VentureWell contribute to your leadership development and your professional trajectory?

VentureWell pushed me to think like both a scientist and an entrepreneur. It gave me the tools to translate research into impact and taught me how to build a team, validate a market, and communicate with stakeholders outside of academia. Just as importantly, it connected me with a community of founders tackling tough problems in healthcare, which shaped how I lead medara^™️ today, with a focus on collaboration, resilience, and long-term impact.

Looking back, what advice would you give yourself at the start of your journey?

I’d remind myself to focus early on building the right partnerships. In healthcare, credibility and access come from trusted collaborations with clinicians, researchers, and health systems. I’d also tell myself not to underestimate the importance of patience. Innovation in medicine takes time, but if you stay close to patients’ needs and keep the long view in mind, the impact is worth it.

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

I see medara^™️’s technology integrated into routine care, helping clinicians identify cancer risk early and giving patients the clarity they need to take action sooner. Personally, I hope to still be building at the intersection of science, technology, and healthcare and continuing to turn breakthroughs into tools that make a real difference in people’s lives.

How did VentureWell contribute to your leadership development and your professional trajectory?

“Catalytic” is the word I think of when I think of VentureWell. VentureWell was catalytic in forming my entrepreneur mindset as an engineering student; it was catalytic in my financing journey, and ultimately allowed me to see that there are different pathways on the founder’s journey—including coming full circle to join the Ventures team [at VentureWell] and be a catalyst in our innovators’ journeys.

What’s the biggest change or milestone your institution or venture has experienced since participating in VentureWell programming?

There are many! After participating in an E-Team Program hosted at Penn State in 2009, I kept in touch with the VentureWell program team, who mentored and advised me. They supported me in taking the leap to incorporate DayOne Response in 2010 following an OPEN conference, helped me develop my 12-18 month roadmap, and advised me on my first pre-seed investment, including participating in the financing round.

Looking back, what advice would you give yourself at the start of your journey?

It’s hard to choose—I keep coming back to this article I worked on [with The Lemelson Foundation] that highlights my entrepreneurship journey.

Learn more about Tricia’s innovation journey.

What’s a key learning or takeaway from the VentureWell program you participated in, and how did it impact your journey?

The biggest takeaway for me was the community. [During the Ecosystem Futures Fellowship workshop], VentureWell put me in a room with people asking the same kinds of questions and testing new ideas at their schools. It showed me different ways of approaching things, and I brought a lot of that energy back to Old Dominion University. Even now, I find myself drawing on those conversations when I’m building something new.

Looking back, what advice would you give yourself at the start of your journey?

I’d tell myself not to hold back waiting for everything to line up perfectly. At the start, I was hesitant to put ideas out there because I thought they weren’t “ready enough.” What I’ve learned is that the act of sharing an idea—whether in a grant proposal, a pilot project, or even a classroom activity—creates momentum and brings people alongside you. I’d remind myself that progress comes from taking small, imperfect steps and building on them.

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

In 10 years, I see myself leading major initiatives that shape how engineering education integrates sustainability, innovation, and entrepreneurship. My goal is to drive change at a national scale, working across universities and with partners in industry and government to make these approaches the norm rather than the exception.

Learn more about Dalya’s innovation journey.

How did VentureWell contribute to your leadership development and your professional trajectory?

VentureWell gave me the foundation for understanding the entrepreneurial/venture capitalist (VC)–backed founder journey. Participating in [each of the] three phases of VentureWell’s accelerator programming and learning about different challenges we might face helped me be more confident in building and leading MITO^® Material Solutions as a recent college graduate. Now, I have an established career and the ability to grow professionally in different areas.

What’s a key learning or takeaway from the VentureWell program you participated in, and how did it impact your journey?

File organization and stress tests. We still use the VentureWell Google Drive outline for our internal filing. It has helped me raise and close multiple funding rounds, and I always know where to find things. The stress tests at the beginning helped set a temperature gauge of reaction to different scenarios throughout my entrepreneurial journey. While you can never imagine which scenarios you will face, these test experiences helped me and my co-founders understand what areas of the business we were better at handling and how to come up with a proper response plan for unexpected events.

What’s the biggest change or milestone your institution or venture has experienced since participating in VentureWell programming?

The macro environment has made funding quite difficult in recent years, and when you pair that with climate and materials-based companies having fewer VCs investing in the space, our biggest challenge was finding investors who could do more than just add funds to the company, which prevented proper investment in growth activities.

Read more about Haley’s innovation journey.

What’s the biggest change or milestone your institution or venture has experienced since participating in VentureWell programming?

My company, Medtric, is commercializing an antimicrobial platform technology that employs botanical actives. Our primary shift was pivoting away from a medical device-focused sector to more consumer-oriented, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency–regulated product offerings. The medical space was too crowded, and there were some U.S. Food and Drug Administration–related rule changes (in addition to a high bar to market entry) that made pursuing health/medical products difficult in the United States. As a result, we looked at overseas markets (over-the-counter segment) and ended up licensing to a foreign partner.

Looking back, what advice would you give yourself at the start of your journey?

We came into easy, non-dilutive money when we first started. While not frivolous, we spent that money on expenses and consultants that ultimately did not provide the value or the type of de-risking that we wanted. We could have been more deliberate in maximizing return on the dollar. Having mentors with our best interests in mind and who have similar lived experiences would have been very helpful. You learn hard lessons along the way, and some things you just don’t fully understand (whether technical or business-wise) until you are older and have more grey hairs. Such wisdom only comes with age.

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

With VentureWell, of course! For Medtric, I’d like to see our business expand into the domestic market. It’s been a real desire and dream to be able to have our own products in the consumer space and be able to purchase our technology off the shelf. We’d really like to find the ideal business/commercialization partner that is aligned with our values and mission and can deliver best-in-class products to the customers. We’re still working on developing new technology variations and use cases.

What’s the biggest change or milestone your institution or venture has experienced since participating in VentureWell programming?

The biggest milestone since participating in VentureWell programming has been moving from a research concept into a fully validated device platform, with T33 Dental’s first commercial product scheduled for launch this fall. VentureWell’s support helped us clarify our regulatory pathway, strengthen our technical validation, and accelerate toward manufacturing readiness.

Looking back, what advice would you give yourself at the start of your journey?

I would remind myself to stay focused on the core problem we’re solving and not get distracted by side opportunities. Clarity of purpose makes it easier to make tough decisions and keep momentum.

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

In 10 years, my team and I see ourselves leading a thriving company that has set new standards of preventive and restorative care to dentistry, while continuing to mentor other founders building impactful health technologies.

Read more about Daniel’s innovation journey.

How did VentureWell contribute to your leadership development and your professional trajectory?

I was the principal investigator for two E-Team Program teams. VentureWell gave me a taste of true partnership, alignment in values, complementarity of skills and resources, a similar work ethos, and an extension of the resources available at the university so my students could have a longer runway. From this partnership, I went on to co-create the E3 partnership with CodePath, which we piloted at Georgia State University three years ago, and is now deployed in 18 universities across 14 states—and growing—training thousands of students every year and connecting them to bigger opportunities.

What’s a key learning or takeaway from the VentureWell program you participated in, and how did it impact your journey?

The value of early funding and external validation for teams of students who may not yet believe in the commercial potential of their venture.

What’s the biggest change or milestone your institution or venture has experienced since participating in VentureWell programming?

The DelivHer venture [which participated in the E-Team Program] has gotten more patents, completed the design, and contracted with manufacturers, which included multiple rounds of designs, testing multiple materials, and getting molds produced, etc. We are ready for distribution. [This fall] we launched the pre-sale, followed by the Kickstarter; they were among the finalists of the Black Ambition prize (founded by Pharrell Williams) at Demo Day in Miami, hopefully getting the funding and national visibility to amplify the launch and secure distribution deals.

Looking back, what advice would you give yourself at the start of your journey?

I would remind myself that it takes 10 years to create an overnight success. #WorthIt

Read more about Isabelle’s innovation journey.

How did VentureWell contribute to your leadership development and your professional trajectory?

VentureWell was a great training program that taught me a great deal about developing an enterprise as co-founder of Hazel Technologies. It also introduced me to potential advisors and investors, as well as founders of other enterprises with whom I could collaborate and who could benefit from my expertise.

What’s a key learning or takeaway from the VentureWell program you participated in, and how did it impact your journey?

The analogy of the fundraising ladder came from VentureWell. At each step of the ladder, one has to assess what led to it and what it leads to next. That’s the tale of capitalization, market approach and growth, customer acquisition, partnership development, and more.

What’s the biggest change or milestone your institution or venture has experienced since participating in VentureWell programming?

I successfully raised Series Seed through Series C venture rounds, and was exploring international business development in a dozen countries. I exited my enterprise on family leave, but I was already stepping up to international growth modes with corporate partners, well beyond venture capitalist (VC) fundraises, when that occurred. This was after a couple of hundred million dollars in funds raised.

Read more about Aidan’s innovation journey.

What’s a key learning or takeaway from the VentureWell program you participated in, and how did it impact your journey?

I often think back to two key learnings from the E-Team Program: One, value stream mapping in the program gave me insight into the overall landscape that had not been clear to me until that point. Second, peer influence—sharing opportunities and insights with other startup founders—can amplify mutual success. A rising tide truly lifts all boats.

What’s the biggest change or milestone your institution or venture has experienced since participating in VentureWell programming?

After participating in VentureWell programming, we went on to be selected to participate in Chain Reaction Innovations, win several SBIR awards, and demonstrate commercial viability with customers.

Looking back, what advice would you give yourself at the start of your journey?

Keep talking to people and get obsessed with seeing how they solve the problem you think they have.

How did VentureWell contribute to your leadership development and your professional trajectory?

I received three VentureWell faculty grants. The first one was a $7,500 planning grant when VentureWell was still the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). This allowed us to prepare a submission for a $21,000 grant the following year. The grant was seed money for what has become the Office of Academic Innovation at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona! This office curates experiential learning opportunities for Cal Poly Pomona students, faculty, staff, and industry and community partners. We grew from a staff of two in the Student Innovation Idea Lab (iLab) to a team of over 40 focused on student success. My leadership growth from inaugural director of the iLab to associate VP of Academic Innovation can be directly attributed to these grants.

What’s a key learning or takeaway from the VentureWell program you participated in, and how did it impact your journey?

Compared to a recently awarded $7.5 million National Science Foundation grant, a $24,050 VentureWell grant seems small. But the funding enabled us to grow the entrepreneurial ecosystem on our campus into what it is now. Now we can get large grants, but we started with faculty grants from VentureWell that allowed us to conduct small experiments, develop minimum viable products, and create and expand our entrepreneurial ecosystem. I learned not to despise the days of small things. We started small and changed the DNA of a campus!

How did VentureWell contribute to your leadership development and your professional trajectory?

As first-time founders, it gave us access to an amazing network of mentors who helped us confidently make strategic decisions. It is easy to get distracted by things that don’t push the business forward. VentureWell helped us ask hard questions and make key pivots, which ultimately led to TRIC Robotics’ success with early customers.

What’s the biggest change or milestone your institution or venture has experienced since participating in VentureWell programming?

The team at VentureWell helped us understand how to articulate our messaging to different stakeholders, pick the right early customers, and even how to raise funding from the right kind of investors. Knowing some of the challenges we would encounter beforehand made it much easier when we ran into them along the way. Some examples include: how to talk about value-based pricing with customers, how to understand the negotiation dials you can turn during your fundraising rounds, and even how to build out a data room for investors.

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

I hope that I have learned enough to help other founders achieve amazing things.

Learn more about Adam’s innovation journey.