For this installment of #NUPerspectives I sat down to talk with Andi, a senior studying communication studies, about her experience with Northwestern’s start-up incubator The Garage.  

Kendyl: How did you get involved with The Garage? Have you always been interested in entrepreneurship and being involved with a start-up space?

Andi: I think I’ve had a passion for entrepreneurship in some form since high school, but it wasn’t until after I studied abroad in London and took an entrepreneurship class at King’s college that I fell in love with it. I came back from studying abroad and I knew that I wanted to join The Garage. I had heard about The Garage before, but I didn’t know how to navigate my way into it. So, I was just looking at different start-ups and read about Connect & Care through an article published on their Facebook page. I emailed the co-founder of Connect & Care, Matt, set up a meeting with him, and joined the team. 

Kendyl: Which start-ups do you work with now?

Andi: I’m a part of two different start-ups in The Garage. The first one, which I joined last year, is called Connect & Care, and it’s a nonprofit start-up that connects college students with volunteer opportunities in unique ways. We have a texting platform, and we’re also exploring a corporate sponsorship program to bring companies and students together through service activities and events.

The other start-up that I am involved in is called Ribbon, and it’s an employee-recognition technology company. We’ve been focusing on helping managers better understand their employees’ motivations and values in order to help them better recognize their employees in the workplace. 

Kendyl: What are your roles at Connect & Care and Ribbon?

Andi: At Connect & Care, my role is Communications Chair, which includes everything from marketing campaigns and social media, to working on their website, branding, and overall business strategy. I wear a lot of different hats, which is what makes entrepreneurship really unique and special to me.

I actually joined Ribbon as an intern this past summer when they were a part of Wildfire, the start-up accelerator program at The Garage. Here, I’ve focused more on digital marketing strategy, including a website redesign, and google ads and social media campaigns. I’ve also helped making marketing collateral, assisted with sales, and helped with operations. This all led to a pitch competition at the end of that 10-week program.

Kendyl: Do you feel that you’ve learned a lot about entrepreneurship through The Garage?

Andi: The best way to learn about entrepreneurship is to actually get involved – to join a team or start your own start-up or business idea. It’s really just about learning the practical skills of it. From my year in The Garage thus far, I’ve learned so much every single day that I’ve been working with my teams like this, and I’ve heard similar things from other students.You can have this really great, practical experience from the first day you’re involved with The Garage.

Kendyl: What is the community and the environment there?

Andi: There are two different sub-groups in The Garage: Tinkerers and Residents. Resident teams have a pretty well-developed business or idea, and those teams have a designated workspace. They also have “family dinners,” where they bring in a different speaker from a local business in Chicago every week to talk about how they started their company. Residents also have mentorships and all these different resources from funding. They even have access to a maker space where they can develop actual physical products. Tinkerers are teams that are still exploring how they want to pursue their start-up idea, and they have access to the Garage itself but not as extensively as the resident teams.

Overall, my experience with it is that the more you get involved, the more you gain. I’ve met some really amazing people who I don’t think I ever would’ve met if I had not joined The Garage. I think it’s really neat that there are, of course, engineers and business people involved, but there are also students like me who are studying communication studies or journalism (or a different major), who just have a passion or an idea that they just want to explore. We all cooperate and are supportive of one another, and learn and improve each other in a healthy way.  

Kendyl: You recently went on a trip to Austin through The Garage – what was that like?

Andi: That’s right. I’ve been involved with a program this quarter called “the X-Factor.” It’s the first time The Garage has offered this program, and I was one of eight students selected. Each of us students are all in different start-ups, and we spent some time asking each other for advice and bouncing ideas off of one another. It was just a really cool environment to be in with eight like-minded people, in the sense that we all have this shared passion and mentored each other from peer-to-peer. In an effort to hone in on our leadership skills, we also had been working with psychologists from Northwestern’s psychology department to assess our motivations, values, strengths and weaknesses.

The trip to Austin was a fun perk. We visited three companies’ headquarters: Bumble, Silver Car by Audi, and Blink Identity. We met with workers and the C-suite of the companies there. It was awesome hearing their experiences within the companies and their advice for us. We also met beyond their time on-campus. 

Kendyl: How do you think The Garage has ultimately been helpful with narrowing down and envisioning your post-graduation career path?

Andi: My experiences have helped me realize that I truly want to continue exploring the start-up space. I think one thing about Northwestern that can be good or bad is that most people really look at joining big-name companies or starting off at a really high-level company. What I’ve learned is that starting off at a smaller company actually might give you the experience that you probably would not likely gain early on in your career at a large company. Being in The Garage and having the network I have right now of students, mentors, and staff, I feel like I have a solid base to explore entrepreneurship more after I graduate. It’s also just critically and positively shaped my past year at Northwestern.

Kendyl: If you had to give a piece of advice to an aspiring entrepreneur looking at Northwestern, what would it be?

Andi: If you have any inclination and you think entrepreneurship is really cool, just come to The Garage and see for yourself what it’s about. Even if you don’t have a business idea. I went the unconventional route and put myself out there to a start-up. It seems scary because the environment may seem intense; to me, it seemed like everyone had an idea or had super smart and intuitive knowledge and a fantastic skillset. However, we’re trying to erase that misconception in our community. 

We’re all working hard on what we’re trying to do – and it includes struggles and failures (in fact, we celebrate them!). So if you have an idea, bring it to The Garage and see who you collaborate with and meet. If you just want to join a start-up, there are easy ways to do that, so just be open to the entire experience. I wish I had joined the Garage sooner, so if you have any passion for it, come here when you first get to campus! I’m sure you’ll find the same close-knit and supportive community that I’ve found there.

Still curious about The Garage? Watch our Live from Northwestern to hear more from its executive director and current students!

One thought on “Kendyl: #NUPerspectives: Exploring Start-ups in The Garage”

  1. I have a passion for engineering, so The Garage seems like the perfect place for me to do some hands-on work to try to bring my ideas to life.

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