Hughes hopes his perspective building a successful startup will be valuable \u2013 starting with explaining the difficulty minority groups often have raising money.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlack\u00a0founders are notably underfunded and therefore have to be extremely capital\u00a0efficient to stretch their early investments to get them past the \u2018Trough of Sorrow\u2019<\/a> \u2026 Given the wealth gap that exists (between white and Black people), our friends and family don’t tend to have the pools of capital to be early investors,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cThat said, I believe that the challenges that I have had to overcome have prepared me to navigate unpredictable challenges like COVID-19, and my intent in serving with the program is to help the students avoid the mistakes that I made and highlight resources that are available today that were not available in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Herrera notes that the Paladin Pitch Competition<\/a> in February featured close to 50% gender diversity and 40% racial diversity.<\/p>\n \u201cLess than 2% of venture capital funds go to women founders, and minorities have limited access to new venture mentoring programs and entrepreneurial resources,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd you also need inclusion. They need the opportunity to be at the table, share their ideas, and a chance to launch and succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n Derek Pederson, one of Furman’s entrepreneurs in residence for the 2020\/21 academic year.<\/p><\/div>\n Joining Hughes are Joe Heritage<\/a>, Ana Parra<\/a> and Derek Pederson<\/a>, last year\u2019s entrepreneur in residence and founder of the tech company Fusion Web Clinic. Para is the Women’s Business Center program director at CommunityWorks Carolina, while Heritage is the design lead at Columbia Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Design in New York and Furman Innovation and Entrepreneurship\u2019s first \u201cDesigner-In-Residence.\u201d<\/p>\n Hughes, who is pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Innovation & Entrepreneurship from Stanford University, lives in Austin, Texas. He moved there to expand BANDWAGON\u2019s national footprint and thinks those connections from coast to coast can help Furman as well.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Furman has done a phenomenal job of branding itself not only locally in Greenville but across the state and across the Southeast,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cBut to that same point, I want Furman to be able to use my network and the circles that I’m in \u2013 Silicon Valley, New York City, here in Texas \u2013 to be able to continue expand the brand.\u201d<\/p>\n A Columbia, South Carolina, native who holds B.A. and master’s degrees from Clemson University, Hughes was quick to say yes when approached by Herrera.<\/p>\n \u201cThe value and contribution Furman is making to the Upstate and across South Carolina, I really just wanted to make sure I was part of it in some capacity,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope that the students will be able to see me and all the other EIRs and realize that there is no mold, there is no pattern to match, and that you can do this with the right mentality, proper resources and enough grit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Innovation is, by definition, the introduction of something new. To Furman Innovation and Entrepreneurship Executive Director Anthony Herrera, that means providing students that his office serves with mentors who are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,70,81,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administrative","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-innovation-and-entrepreneurship","category-top-four-news-4th-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Derek](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Derek-Pedersen-768x768-1.jpg\")