Photo via Isla Xi Han.
The next cohort begins on January 18th.
Want to learn more about the entrepreneurial process? Have a company idea you want to pitch? Want to become part of an innovative cohort of prospective entrepreneurs? Then sign up for the Princeton Startup Bootcamp, Powered by VentureWell!
Open to all graduate students and postdocs at Princeton, this bootcamp spans 2½ days during Wintersession 2023. Teams of people with diverse skills will focus on matching technology or product ideas with markets and customer needs.
Several Bootcamp teams such as PolyGone (formerly known as Project Plastic), Adventurelist, PureLi, and Inverse Optimization have continued to develop their ideas, with some even receiving outside funding for their startups.
Isla Xi Han, a current graduate student in Architecture Technology at Princeton and former Bootcamp participant, believes that, “the Princeton Startup Bootcamp is a fantastic opportunity to test out your interest, an idea, and a team with low risk. It's more hands-on and market-oriented than a course in a classroom.”
As someone who always dreamed about starting a company, Isla believes the Princeton Startup Bootcamp was an opportunity for her to confirm her interests and to do some initial product-market exploration, while enabling her to get from “planning mode into action mode.”
“Although very intense, the Bootcamp is a lower investment than a months-long incubator or an accelerator. You get to quickly review the essential terminologies and concepts for entrepreneurship and to assess the feasibility of an idea and a team through a series of hands-on assignments,” she wrote. Isla took her experience in the Bootcamp working on a concept for a journaling app, to being with startup Treun, developing virtual reality environments for therapists to use during phobia exposure therapy which won this year’s E-Club Princeton Pitch, and most recently to her current startup, MoVA, which delivers art experiences in an immersive way for those who cannot access art easily.
For those who want to bring their entrepreneurial ideas to reality, the Bootcamp is a fantastic opportunity. Applicants will build and strengthen a variety of skills, including: an understanding of what types of research are needed for startups, the ability to put together a strong pitch, an understanding of budgets, the importance of reaching out to speak with a variety of people in the ecosystem, and more.
Registration is open through the Wintersession platform, after which applicants will be assembled into well-balanced teams. The 2½ day program will run on Wednesday, January 18 (1 to 5 pm ET virtual), Wednesday, January 25 (9 am to 5 pm ET, in-person/on-campus) and Thursday, January 26 (9 am to 5 pm ET, in-person/on-campus).
Any questions should be directed to Anne-Marie Maman ’84, Princeton Entrepreneurship Council (PEC) Executive Director, at [email protected]. The Princeton Startup Bootcamp, Powered by VentureWell is a collaboration by PEC, GradFUTURES, the Office of Technology Licensing and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty.