The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center has launched the Milestone Makers Program. The Milestone Makers Program, seeks to help early- to mid-stage entrepreneurs set, hit, and celebrate milestones that drive their businesses forward.
It’s our great honor to graduate 12 talented early stage entrepreneurs in our second Milestone Maker cohort. Selected from a competitive talent pool, these founders have exhibited the grit, determination and resilience required daily to make big visions a reality.
These Milestone Makers, represent ten industries including: healthcare, technology, virtual reality, food, wellness, and social impact. Each have their own unique story and background that propels them to build solutions for the problems that they are most passionate about solving. And together, these founders embody a rich, diverse perspective of what success as an entrepreneur means.
In a short three months, some of these founders achieved business goals that tripled their revenue in what seems like an impossible feat. Others developed a go-to-market strategy that forces them to predict an uncertain future, navigate complex partner landscapes and competitive markets. And some graduates had to figure out how to take a handful of existing customers and create a repeatable, scalable product that a larger group of customers will buy.
This intense and challenging 12-week program was designed to serve the whole entrepreneur; strengthening their business and leadership skills while giving them a safe, honest community to grow personally and professionally. With no single goal or universal definition of success, each founder designed and embarked on their own custom learning experience pulling from a robust offering of classes, mentors, and resources. Each entrepreneur worked with a business coach who helped hold them accountable to their highest vision for their company and themselves all while tactically helping them focus on achieving the business goals they set for this program. Collectively, over 500 learning hours were provided by over 90 mentors and coaches – strengthening the community and network support these founders need to thrive.
We are honored to introduce the Spring 2017 Graduating Class of Milestone Makers:
Cheong Ang, LucidAct Health:Validate Product-Market Fit
Rajatesh Gudibande, GraphWear Technologies Inc.:Design and test beta prototype for launch
Savina Hawkins, StatSoup:Secure white labeled partner
Ryan Marshall, Syngency:Increase revenue 300%
Magali Mathieu, Atlas Unlimited Inc.:Launch Atlas with first campaign
Anjali Menon, Sextant:Move Sextant from alpha to beta
Georgina Miranda, Altitude Seven:100% month on month unique user growth
Tsadae Neway, Yahshi Bakes:Define go to market strategy
Jennifer Pattee, Basic Training:Validate external shareholder interest
Meena Sankaran, Ketos Inc.:Secure Seed Financing
Nina Vir, Daily Dress Me:Secure advertising partnerships to validate new revenue stream
Peter Wilkins, Emergent VR:Showcase VR experience created with new content tool
Follow us onTwitterto be connected to their stories, as they continue to unfold.
This program continues to thrive from the contributions of our sponsors, mentors, trainers, coaches and teachers. Each of these founders will return to teach, mentor, and pay-forward what they learn – the same spirit that defines Silicon Valley and continues to deepen the resources and benefits the Center can offer to a growing community of entrepreneurs. We thank all of our partners who support us in fueling the growth of these founders bringing new innovations to the world.
Know a talented entrepreneur you’d like to nominate for a future program? Applications for Milestone Makers Bay Area Silicon Valley Fall 2017 will open in May. Follow us on Twitter to learn more.
Nasdaq's Education Foundation helped launch The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in the fall of 2015. Located in San Francisco, it has quickly become the go to destination for the next generation of risk takers and idea makers who take the plunge into entrepreneurship.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
