Indiana University student Eli Serrano is a community manager at IU Innovates. As a community manager, Serrano said he wants to help less experienced entrepreneurs.
(Isabella Vesperini, WTIU)
Inside the Von Lee Building, Indiana University students Eli Serrano, Izzy Branam and Brian Rosen talk business.
Rosen’s waiting on a huge delivery for his energy drink company, Evervive. Branam — CEO of Relate XR — shows how artificial intelligence and virtual reality could help people with addiction by creating digital doubles. And Serrano wants to make social media healthier for people with his app Airoma.
The three students are working with IU Innovates, a program that helps entrepreneurs develop their startup businesses. It launched last fall, and the university said it has worked with more than 125 student startup founders and 30 startup teams.
“At its core, entrepreneurship and innovation is about problem solving,” IU Innovates director Julie Heath said. “Each person who's here can probably answer what big problem do you want to see solved in the world? This is an opportunity to do that.”
IU Innovates offers programatic support, sponsors supporters of entrepreneurship and spotlights IU entrepreneurs.
IU Innovates, located in the Von Lee Building on Kirkwood Avenue, is open to staff, students and faculty. (Isabella Vesperini/WTIU News)
The connections between higher education and entrepreneurship are natural, said Travis Brown, assistant dean for innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization.
“I firmly believe that entrepreneurship is something all students should engage in, primarily because it's about bringing their ideas to fruition,” Brown said. “I've said it a million times — my students probably cringe every time they hear it come out of my mouth — but it's an effective vehicle for self-discovery.”
Heath came into the job with experience in public and private entrepreneurial spaces. Most recently Heath worked as vice president of entrepreneurial ecosystems for the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
Heath said young companies are a major driver of Indiana's economy.
“We can look at the economy of tomorrow, quite literally, through the jobs that our students here will end up either creating or being part of,” she said.
IU Innovates sponsors pitch competitions and peer groups. It also spotlights and advertises founders’ stories. Every Thursday, IU Innovates hosts an open house. Anyone can walk through the Von Lee doors for help.
“We'll ask them, where are you on your journey?” Heath said. “What are you trying to solve? Where do you want to go? Where do you hope to be in six months?”
Serrano pursued entrepreneurship for most of his life, starting with software development and selling extra toys. Then in 2016, Pokémon Go inspired Airoma. Serrano later expanded it with another student, co-founder Jimmy Hoover, when he came to IU.
As a student mentor, another role Serrano fills, his goal is to know what everyone’s working on and to help them get to the next step.
“We figure out what everyone's working on, what kind of metrics that they're looking to achieve, anything that they're stuck on, any hurdles, and we all just kind of brainstorm it together,” Serrano said.
IU Innovates took over existing programs such as the Shoemaker Innovation Center’s Shoebox incubation program, now called Sparklab. Incubation programs help entrepreneurs early in the startup process
Brown is executive director of the Shoemaker Innovation Center. He said now IU Innovates can reach all students with Sparklab. Before, the Shoebox attracted students mostly from the Kelley School of Business students and Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering.
“Programs like IU Innovates, with Julie here, it enables us to be more inclusive,” Brown said. “The incubation program is certainly better served within the umbrella of IU Innovates.”
IU’s incubation program was pivotal for student and entrepreneur Matt Gacek. Last fall, Gacek sold his award-winning AI therapy and personal growth app Theia to Miri, an AI coaching company in California.
IU student and Theia founder Matt Gacek said he's on to his next idea, micro-internship platforms. He's graduating early this year from Indiana University. (Devan Ridgway/WTIU News)
Gacek’s success came from his own struggle. As a man coming from an Eastern European family — Gacek is Polish — seeing a therapist initially wasn’t an option. But he said it changed his life. He tried to tell his friends to go to therapy, but they also pushed back. So, he created an app that took judgment out of therapy.
“A machine inherently can't judge you. A machine can't gossip about you,” Gacek said. “So, why not make an AI therapist that, one, learns and understands who you are and, two, is built to help you in your own personal way?”
He said Theia’s development was chaotic, constantly breaking the app and staying up late to make it better. But people loved it, and Theia’s team grew. The number of users kept growing.
“In about six short, but fast, months, we got bought out,” Gacek said.
He said managing a startup can be a long, stressful and sometimes lonely journey. No one knows all the answers, he said, but being in a room with other students on the same path makes it easier.
“You're surrounded by people who are sometimes in the exact same step of the process that you are,” Gacek said, “And it's one of those things where you don't feel alone anymore.”
This story has been updated.
Aubrey is our higher education reporter and a Report For America corps member. Contact her at aubmwrig@iu.edu or follow her on X @aubreymwright.
