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Family business owners strategize for longevity in new certificate program

Workers review documents while standing in front of items on a store shelf

For Joseph Astrachan, a co-author of Cornell’s Family Business Leadership online certificate program, a family-run business is a generational tradition. Since Astrachan was young, his family has operated businesses in fields ranging from pharmaceuticals to shipping. He is no stranger to the difficulties that come with owning a company tied to the fabric of a family, including managing close relationships in the face of business challenges.

With Daniel Van Der Vliet, executive director of the Smith Family Business Initiative within the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, John Engels, president and CEO of Leadership Coaching Inc. and Holly Isdale ‘86, founder of WealthHaven, Astrachan has blended academic theory and industry practice in a certificate program that helps others navigate the obstacles and opportunities of running a family business successfully.

“There is no way around it: Navigating a family business is distinctly different from the traditional corporate model,” said Astrachan, a Professor Emeritus and former executive director of the Cox Family Enterprise Center at Kennesaw State University’s Coles College of Business.

The certificate program uses a hands-on approach to address how the personal and professional overlap in family businesses. Courses include:

  • Family Business Leadership Fundamentals
  • Managing Family Relationships
  • Stewarding Family Wealth and Values
  • Implementing Family Governance Systems

Just like with any other business, management in a family-run venture evolves over time. For family businesses, there is often an added layer of grief associated with leadership changes. Sometimes assumed agreements and familial relationships complicate these transitions.

“Continuing a family-run business requires perpetuation through transition, passing it from one generation to the next,” Van Der Vliet said in a recent conversation with eCornell. “Even though all business begins with family . . . some of this expertise around family business does not exist in academia. Family business is very specialized.”

To help learners understand the nuances, the Family Business Leadership program combines advisory parties – like lawyers and accountants – and family members into one cohesive group of learners. The courses organize behaviors in family businesses into familiar workplace relationships and help make sense of common patterned dynamics. Learners gain practical insights they can immediately apply to their own operations.

“Family members are not asked to share anything deeply personal,” Van Der Vliet said. “Their projects could become more personal if they choose, which can be beneficial for their takeaways from the course… and for those that are not family members in the family business, on the advisory or service side, they can have an opportunity to realize [how family dynamics] broadly affect the company.”

Discover how to manage relationships, steward wealth and implement governance structures in Cornell’s Family Business Leadership certificate program. Learn more and enroll now.

Quotes have been edited for clarity.

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Cornell Keynotes podcast: Combining right brain and left brain thinking as inventors, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs

Outline of the human brain with colorful paper chips inside

The entrepreneurial mindset is for everyone, from aspiring inventors to corporate managers.

In a new episode of the Cornell Keynotes podcast from eCornell, Richard Cahoon, a professor at the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, explains how we can combine the creative and analytical parts of our minds—the right brain and left brain—to give our ideas life and longevity.

Read more on the Chronicle.

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New eCornell certificate highlights customer-centricity as the key to product launches

Launching a product is no walk in the park. From identifying the right customer base and pricing strategies to winning over investors, the path is fraught with challenges. To truly excel, professionals need guidance that is rooted in real-world experience.

Cornell’s Marketing Strategy online certificate program – authored by S.C. Johnson Professor of Marketing Stijn van Osselaer – offers a comprehensive approach to launching a product with a customer-centric view.

“What distinguishes this course from other marketing courses is that it’s really built around all the steps you need to go through to market a product, to bring a product to market,” says Osselaer.

At its core, the program emphasizes customer-centricity as an approach to marketing strategy and decision-making. This paradigm shift encourages learners to consistently prioritize and empathize with the customer’s viewpoint. Students in the program learn to calculate metrics such as customer lifetime value and the proper interpretations of such analysis. There are multiple projects at every step of the go-to-market plan, providing participants much-needed experience with authentic scenarios.

“In venture capital, investors place great importance on numerical evidence; getting the right metrics and understanding which ones to highlight in your pitch is critical to securing an investment. The course thoroughly covers the essential metrics venture capitalists will expect founders to know,” says Osselaer.

By integrating customer-centricity into the marketing strategy, professionals can better align their products and services with the market demand, ensuring that their go-to-market plans are successfully implemented and will reach the right target market.

Firms across various sectors seeking a critical competitive advantage can adopt the approach when collecting and analyzing data on customer behavior, preferences, feedback, and satisfaction levels. Companies that successfully implement this strategy can see improved customer retention, increased word-of-mouth advertising and higher returns on marketing investments.

“This program has a lot of useful things that you can take directly to practice. There are a lot of tools and explanatory notes. There are many spreadsheet templates you can take directly into the workplace.”

Ready to improve the odds of success for your next product launch? Enroll in eCornell’s Marketing Strategy certificate program.

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The Age of the Mompreneur: Empowering Working Mothers

Modern societal shifts and emerging trends in the startup ecosystem present new challenges and opportunities for women, particularly for mompreneurs – those juggling the responsibilities of motherhood and entrepreneurship. The success of early-stage enterprises founded and led by women depends greatly on dismantling systemic barriers, including the uneven distribution of venture capital.

In the recent Keynote webcast “The Boss of Me: Entrepreneurship and Motherhood,” Andrea Ippolito – CEO of SimpliFed, director of Women Entrepreneurs Cornell, and lecturer in the university’s engineering management program – shared her experiences as a mother and businesswoman, delivering compelling insights into what it takes for women to thrive as working mothers in today’s competitive, fast-paced labor market. 

How has the landscape of entrepreneurship changed for mompreneurs, particularly during and after the COVID-19 pandemic?

“What happened is that by forcing us to be at home, we showed folks that we can be effective and efficient, despite what some CEOs are saying. We actually saw an increase of women starting companies. When you look at 2019 compared to 2021, in 2019, there were a whole lot less women starting companies, 28%. Whereas during the pandemic, 49% of new companies were started by women. It was a much more flexible work environment.

Before the pandemic, it was all about meeting in person or working through stakeholder meetings in person. My journey looked a lot different than someone that was in their 20s, pre-kids, that could hustle 24/7. And don’t get me wrong, I hustle 24/7. My effectiveness and efficiency of working has always been pretty “right on” with having kids. But the time horizon has taken me a little longer.”

What are some of the largest hurdles working mothers encounter when trying to found a startup, and how does societal infrastructure play a part in this?

“The infrastructure is not in place to help support [founders], especially parents, whether that’s paid parental leave, universal child care support. There are so many things that we need to do as a society to better support entrepreneurs getting their organizations off the ground.

Startups founded by women are more profitable, and they exit faster. If you are an investor, it’s in your best performance interest for your fund to invest in women. If we want to have a more profitable economy, and we know that startups are the engine for that, then we need more folks participating. And the biggest pool of people we’re not taking advantage of right now is women. We need to rethink the structures to help support them.”

What are your secrets to striking a healthy work-life balance that comes with being a businesswoman and a mother?

“One of the things we see often is, especially for women that are parents, is they feel like they have to hide different parts of their life. For me, I have a five-year-old. I have a two-year-old and a T-minus five-week-old. And I don’t try to hide it. There are times where, yes, I don’t want them around because I want to focus 100%. But I also don’t try to hide it.

There’s this big misconception that people are taking off in the middle of the workday, and they’re not focused. The reality is that by giving folks a more flexible schedule, you actually get more out of them. They value their work. They’re aligned with your mission. But you’re also respecting them as a human being as well.”

Can you share your insights on the bias in investment toward women-led startups? How does this coincide with major life events like motherhood?

“We know that women [are] seen as less investable. There are tremendous biases out there, no doubt. And the research has shown that. One of the things that I feel very strongly about is that by the time a woman gets enough experience, expertise, and confidence, it’s around the same time that she’s having kids. One of the challenges is how do you start a company when you have this crazy unpredictable life of being a parent.

Venture capitalists have to raise money from somewhere. They have to raise money from what are called limited partners, or LPs. And those limited partners are pension funds, college endowments, sovereign wealth. And so we need folks like limited partners, like college endowments, to actually invest more in women-led funds.”

How can businesses better support working mothers, particularly with regards to incorporating child care into their business models?

“I think more and more, we need to have universal child care as a federally-funded entity. The companies that find ways to support child care or maybe fund it as a benefit will do better. And so I think there’s a responsibility of larger organizations to have this as a benefit. And then for, say, small businesses where they don’t have, frankly, those types of funds or resources, I do think [we need] a government federal response. It’s good for our economy. It pays for itself. It creates an engine in our economy.”

In a rapidly evolving entrepreneurial world, businesswomen are breaking down barriers, mastering the juggling act of work-life integration, and shaping business models to include family needs. Learn how to navigate a tech career as a woman leader in Cornell’s Women in Product certificate program, designed by Andrea Ippolito or gain a better understanding of funding models in Cornell’s Startup Funding and Finance certificate.

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Entrepreneurship program emboldens spice startup founder

For Abena Foli, the farm-to-table lifestyle is a birthright. Each day she uses the knowledge she gained from growing up on her father’s farm in Ghana to enrich her career as a food scientist and regulatory affairs leader.

“Working in the food industry, I get to sit in marketing ideation sessions, and research and development meetings. Whenever we talk about innovation in ingredients or products, West Africa is never mentioned,” said Foli, who now lives in Texas. “There was a lack of West African-originated products on shelves. I wanted to leverage my food science background as well as my West African heritage to solve that problem.”

She decided to start small for maximum impact: “When people are new to cuisines,” she said, “they tend to try seasonings first.”

Foli founded POKS Spices in 2016 to bring flavors from West Africa into American home kitchens. In 2021, she became one of the 60,000 women to participate in the certificate program offered by the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell, which is managed by the Cornell Law School and powered by eCornell.

Funding from Bank of America makes it possible for the students to gain the skills and resources to build a successful venture – and earn a business certificate from the university – at no cost.

Read the full story on the Cornell Chronicle Website.

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Women’s entrepreneurship institute set for major expansion

Two years ago, the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell launched their certificate program delivered through eCornell. Demand for the program was so strong that the original goal of providing free online education to 5,000 entrepreneurs quickly increased to 20,000 – thanks to a follow-on grant from Bank of America – and seats in the program were filled as soon as they were added.

On Nov. 19 – Women’s Entrepreneurship Day – the bank announced an additional grant that will allow another major expansion, more than doubling total enrollment. The institute in the coming months will add another 30,000 seats – for a total of 50,000 – while continuing to emphasize diversity, including the development of a Spanish-language component.

“We at Cornell are extremely proud of the impact the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship is having on aspiring entrepreneurs,” said President Martha E. Pollack. “The institute builds on Cornell’s commitment to the public good and on the strength of our faculty in providing practical, focused, accessible education.”

Bank of America will partner with nonprofits – including the National Urban League, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders and Prospera – to increase opportunities for Black and Latinx entrepreneurs. Those partners will offer their members access to the certificate program beginning in January 2021.

Already, more than 80% of the institute’s roughly 22,000 enrolled students identify as women of color. Registration is open to anyone worldwide, regardless of gender identity, educational background or business stage.

Students take a series of two-week online courses designed by Cornell faculty to help women develop and grow businesses, access resources and join a network of fellow entrepreneurs.

Instructors support students and moderate discussions in the six classes:

  • Creating Your Venture;
  • Laying the Legal Building Blocks;
  • Assessing and Obtaining Financial Resources;
  • Growth Leadership for Women Entrepreneurs;
  • Product Development and Digital Marketing; and
  • Communication, Negotiation and Persuasiveness.

“A human instructor is present in each course, so the students are receiving feedback on their course projects and in their discussion forums, as well as engaging and networking with each other,” said Kirsten Barker ’92, program director for the institute.

Upon completing all six courses, students earn a certificate in women’s entrepreneurship – the only one of its kind offered by an Ivy League university. To date, students have completed nearly 21,000 courses and earned nearly 2,400 certificates.

Citing a study by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company, Bank of America noted that the coronavirus pandemic has more adversely impacted the careers of women, who accounted for 46% of U.S. employment before the pandemic but 54% of job losses this year.

At the same time, the institute’s leaders say, women, and specifically women of color, represent the fastest-growing segment in entrepreneurship, but historically have lacked access to training, resources and networks.

“We’ve been amazed by our students’ resilience throughout COVID-19,” said Deborah Streeter, the institute’s faculty director and Professor Emerita in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, part of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

Responding to an institute survey about their transitions to working from home, students reported dealing with caregiving challenges that have disproportionately fallen on women, as well as disrupted businesses, longer hours in essential jobs and fatigue. Some also said they had found opportunities to bond with family and friends, expand their businesses online and improve efficiency.

After completing the program, one student proudly posted an image of her certificate to her LinkedIn page and stated “COVID-19 season has had a silver lining. I feel equipped and empowered.”

Having launched as an online certificate program serving students from across the nation – and a small international contingent representing dozens of countries – program leaders say the institute is well-positioned to grow and support more students despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.

“This expansion will allow us to improve the chances that these entrepreneurs will be successful,” said Stewart Schwab, the Jonathan and Ruby Zhu Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and executive director of the institute. “That’s our goal, to give our students the tools for success.”

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Bank of America expands the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell

CHARLOTTE, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–As part of Bank of America’s $1 billion, four-year commitment to advance racial equality and economic opportunity, today – Women’s Entrepreneurship Day – the company announced a further expansion of the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell. Due to the program’s success, Bank of America will add 30,000 seats – bringing the total enrollment of small business owners to 50,000 – and will work with Cornell to develop a Spanish language curriculum and hire Spanish-speaking teaching assistants to more effectively support Hispanic-Latino entrepreneurs.

The Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell is the only Ivy League program offering a certificate in women’s entrepreneurship, and at no cost. Since its launch in 2018, the institute has enrolled more than 20,000 individuals, primarily women, of whom 86% identify as women of color. Registration is open to anyone worldwide, regardless of gender, educational background or business stage.

As part of the program expansion, Bank of America will partner with several nonprofits, including the National Urban League, U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders and Prospera, to create more enrollment opportunities for Black and Hispanic-Latino entrepreneurs.

The challenges that women entrepreneurs face have multiplied over recent months. According to a recent McKinsey study, while women made up 46% of U.S. employment pre-coronavirus, they account for 54% of overall job losses year to date – with women of color the hardest hit.

“With women bearing much of the economic brunt of the pandemic – and particularly women of color – our further investment in the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell has never felt more important,” said Anne Finucane, vice chairman at Bank of America. “Amid the unforeseen challenges and events this year, we must continue to invest in women entrepreneurs to drive economic growth, because when women-owned businesses thrive, our communities flourish.”

“We at Cornell are extremely proud of the impact the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship is having on aspiring entrepreneurs,” said Martha E. Pollack, president of Cornell University. “The institute builds on Cornell’s commitment to the public good and on the strength of our faculty in providing practical, focused, accessible education.”

Through coursework that draws on curricula from across Cornell’s schools, the instructor-led classes and limited class size provide women the opportunity to learn new skills, connect with a vibrant network of entrepreneurs and social innovators, and access the resources they need to manage and scale a successful business. These courses include Creating Your Venture; Laying the Legal Building Blocks; Assessing and Obtaining Financial Resources; Growth Leadership for Women Entrepreneurs; Product Development and Digital Marketing; and Communication, Negotiation and Persuasiveness.

Investing in women

Bank of America’s investment in women as they make meaningful contributions within the company and in communities around the world includes a focus on being a great place to work for its female employees, improving the financial lives of female clients, and advancing women’s economic empowerment worldwide. The company has several long-standing partnerships, through which it has helped more than 30,000 women from 85 countries grow their businesses, including:

  • Tory Burch Foundation Capital Program: Since 2014, Bank of America has committed $100 million in capital to the Tory Burch Foundation Capital Program, helping women business owners gain access to affordable loans. To date, more than 3,400 women have received nearly $57 million in loans through community development financial institutions (CDFIs) to help them grow their businesses.
  • Global Ambassadors Program: A partnership between Bank of America and Vital Voices, the Global Ambassadors Program pairs women entrepreneurs with senior women executives for a week of one-on-one mentorship and workshops designed to build business acumen. To date, the program has impacted more than 400 women from 85 countries – helping mentees grow their businesses and organizations through more than 8,000 hours of training and mentorship.
  • Cherie Blair Foundation: Since 2013, Bank of America has partnered with the Cherie Blair Foundation on its Mentoring Women in Business program, which has matched more than 2,700 women in developing and emerging countries to online mentors, including more than 500 mentors from Bank of America.
  • Kiva: Through a partnership with Kiva, Bank of America has committed more than $2 million in funds to women business owners, assisting more than 17,200 women entrepreneurs from 45 countries.

Recent Bank of America announcements focused on racial equality, diversity and inclusion, and economic opportunity include:

Bank of America Environmental, Social and Governance
At Bank of America, we’re guided by a common purpose to help make financial lives better, through the power of every connection. We’re delivering on this through responsible growth with a focus on our environmental, social and governance (ESG) leadership. ESG is embedded across our eight lines of business and reflects how we help fuel the global economy, build trust and credibility, and represent a company that people want to work for, invest in and do business with. It’s demonstrated in the inclusive and supportive workplace we create for our employees, the responsible products and services we offer our clients, and the impact we make around the world in helping local economies thrive. An important part of this work is forming strong partnerships with nonprofits and advocacy groups, such as community, consumer and environmental organizations, to bring together our collective networks and expertise to achieve greater impact. Learn more at about.bankofamerica.com, and connect with us on Twitter (@BofA_News).

For more Bank of America news, including dividend announcements and other important information, visit the Bank of America newsroom and register for news email alerts.

www.bankofamerica.com

Contacts
Eliza Murphy, Bank of America
Phone: 1.347.603.6845
eliza.murphy@bofa.com

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eCornell gives high school students an analytic edge

A collaboration between eCornell and the nonprofit National Education Equity Lab is giving high school students in underserved communities the opportunity to develop skills in business analytics while also gaining the confidence to recognize they can excel in college, even in the Ivy League.

The partnership has resulted in eCornell’s first certificate course aimed at high school students. Pre-college Analytics and Spreadsheet Modeling is a four-week pilot course that launched June 24 with a class of 132 students, who are learning how to organize and analyze data in Excel and use that information as a decision-making tool.

This course follows a “buy one, give one” model, whereby 60 students recruited by eCornell each pay $150 to enroll, which helps offset the costs of 72 students selected from Equity Lab’s network of partnering underserved high schools across the country. All of these schools receive Title 1 federal funding because of their high concentrations of poverty and families in need.

“Highly talented, motivated students in our lowest income communities – who tend to be largely students of color and first-generation students – are often unable to demonstrate that they’ve got what it takes to be a successful college student,” said Leslie Cornfeld, founder and CEO of Equity Lab. “Research shows that current college admissions metrics can mask talent, particularly for low-income students. Education, we know, is the number one lever for social and economic mobility, and the future success of our country.”

Equity Lab works to advance educational and life opportunities for highly talented, low-income students and students of color by collaborating with philanthropic, nonprofit and academic institutions such as the Common Application, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Harvard University. Equity Lab and eCornell were brought together by Steven Carvell, vice provost for external education strategy, at a crucial time. COVID-19 has created an enormous surge in the need for innovative online education models, especially in communities that the Equity Lab targets, which have been hit hardest by the pandemic.

“These are the families that are on the front lines in our country right now. They are not only the essential workers. They are suffering the highest levels of unemployment, food and housing insecurity, and illness,” Cornfeld said. “And in the midst of this crisis, these students leaped at the opportunity to take this course.”

While some teenagers might blanch at the idea of spending a month of their summer vacation learning about spreadsheets, most of the slots Cornell made available to the Equity Lab students were filled within 24 hours of posting.

“These students don’t get opportunities like this very often, and they are determined to take full advantage of it,” said Cornfeld, a former federal civil rights prosecutor who served as an adviser on education equity issues for former President Barack Obama’s administration.

Knowledge of data analytics is essential for anyone hoping to join the 21st-century workforce, and it’s also a practical tool for managing personal finances, according to Donna Haeger, professor of practice in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, who created and teaches the course.

“I always tell students that understanding how to make decisions with data is becoming just as important as reading and math,” said Haeger. “Businesses are really challenged right now to find qualified individuals who know how to model and make decisions using data. It doesn’t matter what industry you choose to enter. Data is everywhere.”

Haeger previously created a professional development certificate course in business analytics for eCornell. She modified those materials for a high school audience by simplifying the terminology and using age-appropriate examples. Rather than investing in a diversified portfolio, students solve problems like organizing a bake sale or buying clothing for a sports team. Haeger worked with eCornell to develop explanatory videos that are incorporated into the modules. And she added a weekly hourlong synchronous group session, so students can ask her questions directly and feel more connected.

“This course is a great equalizer. Everybody is able to jump in and try it for the first time. And it’s low risk for them,” Haeger said. “I think people are really intimidated by terms like ‘big data’ and ‘business analytics.’ I try to demystify all of that and make sure the students have a really positive experience. They realize, ‘Wow, I can do this.’”

The Equity Lab team has also been meeting with the students in weekly sessions to track their progress. Their feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, Cornfeld said. While the material is difficult, it has given them a chance to prove to themselves, and to higher education institutions, that they are able to meet the challenge.

For Donovan Blount, a rising senior at Rockaway Collegiate High School in Queens, New York, the certificate course is potentially life-changing.

“Opportunities like this are important for students like me because most students who grow up in low to average income neighborhoods cannot afford prestigious classes,” he said. “So a free, informative class like this can open up doors of opportunity that we did not know were even possible.”

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Cornell launches online entrepreneurship program

To bring a startup business to market, an entrepreneur needs to assess the viability of their concept, develop a strategic framework and navigate the due diligence required to finance it.

On Nov. 19, National Entrepreneurs Day, Cornell launched a new Entrepreneurship certificate program, designed to develop the necessary knowledge and skills to take a new idea from theory to realization.

“Ideas are easy to come by, but the real challenge comes in getting them off the ground,” said Tom Schryver, program author, visiting lecturer in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, and executive director of the Center for Regional Economic Advancement. “This program will help students understand how startups raise capital to execute on their plans, both from the perspective of an entrepreneur seeking to raise money as well as from the point of view of an investor looking to make an investment in a startup.”

The program will enable participants to structure a business model to protect their interests, assign fair valuation to an opportunity and secure funding. Participants will also explore many types of funders, from equity and angel investors to venture capitalists, crowdfunders and grant programs. Courses in this program include:

  • Assessing Startup Viability and Funding Options
  • Pitching Your Business Opportunity
  • Protecting Your Interests
  • Financial Planning, Valuation and Dilution
  • Company Structure and Due Diligence
  • Post-Investment Best Practices

After completing the six courses, participants will receive an Entrepreneurship certificate and 60 professional development hours. Visit the eCornell website to learn more about this program.

— Bailey Karfelt

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How to Successfully Pivot Your Startup

The fundraising and engagement platform GiveGab made waves in January 2018 by purchasing one of its biggest national competitors. With the acquisition of Kimbia, GiveGab is one step closer to becoming the biggest charitable software program out there.

But that success would not have happened if the company hadn’t decided to completely change direction from its original vision of being a social network connecting volunteers and nonprofits. In 2015, GiveGab pivoted to focusing on helping nonprofits attract and maintain donors rather than volunteers.

The company’s CEO and co-founder, Charlie Mulligan, spoke with eCornell’s Chris Wofford about his “painful” yet highly successful pivot decision and to share tips on how to decide when it’s the right time to change strategic direction. What follows is an abridged version of Mulligan’s presentation, delivered as part of eCornell’s Entrepreneurship webinar series.

Mulligan: I’ve met thousands of entrepreneurs at this point. I think almost all of them would describe themselves as having a vision of what they want to happen and being very persistent. While I agree that these are really important traits, they can also impact the challenges of pivoting. If you really pride yourself on what you are doing, it can be very hard to have to admit that your vision was wrong. When reality hits, it’s sometimes like you suddenly realize you’re climbing the wrong mountain. It’s not a matter of changing little tactics. You have to change your entire strategy. That’s what a pivot is to me.

When you are starting out, there is really no way to predict the future. Yeah, some people get lucky but for a lot of startups you’ll find that the reality is different than what you envisioned so you’ll have to decide what to do. You can quit or you can be flexible and make a different choice.

Wofford: How do you know when it’s the right time to change direction?

Mulligan: It could come at any stage. When you’re starting out, you have this idea of what the customer wants. Well, you better talk to as many customers as you can and you need to realize that oftentimes you will hear what you want to hear so you have to be very careful and make sure that you start to listen before you get too far down the road. You might have to pivot very early once you’ve assessed the demand and done the research.

The key thing about a startup is a lot of times you’re trying to create something new or completely different, but when you’re doing research, the research is about old products or old ways of thinking. So you won’t really know for sure whether your new way is going to be right.

Wofford I’m sure the audience would love to hear the details of your decision to switch tactics at GiveGab.

Mulligan GiveGab set out to be the social network for volunteers, which meant that we were a connection portal to help volunteers and nonprofits find each other. We interacted with a lot of nonprofits and they were really happy to talk about this. They loved the idea and then as we built our product they thought it was great. We had a free product so we had thousands of nonprofits and hundreds of universities sign on. We passed 100,000, things were growing and moving fast and we were getting great press and great feedback.

But it didn’t take us long to realize that there was really low engagement. Nonprofits would sign up but then only come back like every six months to do something. It was really challenging to get them to actually post volunteer opportunities.

When I first started I thought it was going to be really easy to get nonprofits to post volunteer opportunities because they were consistently telling us that they need more volunteers. But we couldn’t get nonprofits to actually sign in and create volunteer opportunities. That meant that we were having a hard time matching the volunteers who had signed up with opportunities in their area. You know, a volunteer in Montana and a nonprofit in Minnesota don’t really match up.

That’s why we decided to go after universities to help build an ecosystem because a lot of times they have volunteers and nonprofit partnerships. The problem we found there was that it was a super long sale because we were talking to low level employees. We should’ve noticed this problem earlier but if you want to know what a nonprofit really cares about, you need to go see what the executive directors are doing. What the directors are doing is looking for donors, not volunteers.

Raising money is really what mattered the most and we weren’t listening to that. So we decided to go down a new path. We sat down and really looked at what the nonprofits were using their volunteers for. Almost always, the volunteers were being used as a direct or indirect way to get donors. It’s really about money for nonprofits and volunteers are a way to get donors more engaged. One of the things we kept hearing all of the time – and the research backs this up – is that only 19 percent of first-time donors ever come back. Nonprofits spend all of this time getting donors and then four out of five of them are gone and never come back. We were skirting around the edges with volunteering but the core problem was how to get more donors and keep them coming back. So that’s now the problem that we decided to solve.

Wofford How big was your organization when you decided to make this pivot?

Mulligan We had 90 employees and we had a lot of funding. We had dozens of investors and so I had to go back to all of them and admit I was wrong. Then we had to let about half our company go. These were really good employees so that was a very painful day.

For a lot of people, ‘pivot’ is just a word, just a strategic choice. For me, it’s a painful memory. It was necessary and I’m really glad we did it, but it was painful.

We had to totally re-brand. We were the social network for volunteers so we were highlighting happy volunteers and like things like that, which makes no sense for a fundraising platform. So conceptually we had to change everything. Then we had to build it and go back to our development team and say, “Ok, we’re starting from scratch, let’s learn how to do this.”

There are also laws around fundraising so there was a lot of work in just making sure we were doing things the right way.

Wofford That sounds really challenging.

Mulligan It was, but one of the great things about pivoting is that if you’ve built a great team, as we had, then you’ve already figured out how to work well together. In our case, the employees we were left with were great, so we got a second shot at something and the second product looked a million times better than the first product because we really knew what we were doing by that point and we had a system in place.

There’s also a certain amount of incentive in a pivot situation because maybe you’ve run out of money, so you know that this could be your last lifeline. So you better make progress and you better make it quick. There is nothing like the gallows to give people focus.

As an entrepreneur, it can be very challenging because you have told a lot of people about your vision and you’ve been very persistent and then you have to go and tell them, “OK my vision sucks but now I have a new one.” You’re asking people to buy into this new idea even though your first was wrong.

Wofford That must take a certain humility.

Mulligan Sure, and you also have to make some super painful choices. Like I said, we had to let employees go. We had to go back and talk to investors and let them know that all of their investments just went backwards. Nothing about it is fun but you have to just face it head on, so I just owned it. I think that approach was super helpful.

You have to pick your new course of action and then you have to forget the past. Pick your new vision and just sell that like that was the only one you ever believed in. And of course you’ve got to somehow get everyone to buy into this one as much as they we’re into the first one. These are all way harder things than I think people realize.

Wofford It certainly sounds hard. Was it a challenge to keep morale up?

Mulligan Well, when you’ve just let half your workforce go, keeping morale up was already a challenge. People’s workloads had doubled and then it was like, “Now let’s do it over.” I think what helped us is that we spent a lot of time making sure that our new course of action was picked by everyone, not just me.

Wofford Everyone needs to be on board to make a pivot work.

Mulligan Right. We had conversations with the people that we were going to keep and said, “Look, if your heart’s not 100 percent in this, you need to let us know because there are people we are letting go whose hearts are 100 percent in this.” That wasn’t a threat, it was just the reality. I think people really appreciated the openness and transparency. When we let people go, we really supported them but we also sat everyone down and said, “OK guys, we’ve got to forget about it. There is a lot of pain here, but we need to just move forward.”

When we did our pivot in January 2015, we had five nonprofits raising money on GiveGab.
At the end of the year, we had 700. All paying customers, so we were making money off all of them. We are currently on pace to potentially have well over 20,000 nonprofits by this year. We also have 10 states using us as their statewide giving day platform later this year. So the pivot worked.

Wofford Wow, it’s very impressive. Congratulations.

Mulligan We’re really excited and of course relieved. We saw the bottom and that makes you appreciate it more when things are really working.

So much of the startup ethos is ‘vision and persistence’. I think you need vision and flexibility. You can also think about it in terms of the difference between persistence and resilience. Persistence is putting your head down and running into the wall. Resilience is putting your head down but looking around a little and realizing there’s a door over there and you can walk right through it.

Wofford Charlie, thank you so much for sharing your experience and giving such great advice about changing strategic direction.

Mulligan Thank you, Chris. I enjoyed being with you.

Want to hear more? This interview is based on Charlie Mulligan’s live eCornell WebSeries event,The Startup Pivot: Changing Strategic Direction. Subscribe now to gain access to a recording of this event and other Entrepreneurship topics.