The former helped with giving us time and space to build our business the latter taught me that a great pitch or speech can be nailed through practice.ĭee: Bridging the American Divide was my most valuable class. Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it?Īlex: Either “Greenhouse”, the CBS incubator program, or Leader’s Voice. It is now a top seller and rated one of the best tasting whiskeys in the world! Being in beverage, I am also paying attention to Fawn Weaver, who started Uncle Nearest, a whiskey brand honoring the role of Nearest Green, a slave who taught Jack Daniels how to distill. I wrote about their stories in my application to CBS and got the opportunity to speak with many of them as part of the work I did for a female-founded media company-so inspirational. Given that Black founders get <1% of VC dollars and females get ~2.3%, they are truly going against the odds. Perhaps, more importantly, they created brands that people love and that have heart-doing the best for their people, customers, and environment.ĭee: I am inspired by the close to only 40 black female founders who have raised over $1MM in VC funding. Both looked to innovate entire categories by creating dramatically better products and brands. What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? We both have different inspirations!Īlex: I am inspired by both Richard Branson (Virgin) and Julian Metcalfe (Pret) who are both British consumer-brand entrepreneurs. We both took classes throughout our second year that enabled us to develop one of these ideas and incubate the business enough so that we were ready for launch on graduation. Both of us wanted to be entrepreneurs before we arrived – coming to the program with a bunch of ideas. How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? We found the Columbia MBA program to be very helpful and supportive. This is considered a major coup in our industry! What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with this venture? Our biggest and most recent accomplishment to date is probably persuading Florence Fabricant of the New York Times to include our launch on her famous Front Burner column. For the most part, the bar industry’s belief that you can only have good taste with sugar is rather old school and male-dominated. What led you to launch this venture? We launched this venture due to our frustration with a lack of tasty, low sugar options at the bar, combined with the feeling that all/most mixer brands were aimed at a previous generation we felt a fresh voice and product were needed in the space. No more tasteless vodka sodas or sugary mixed drinks-AVEC has created a line of premium carbonated mixers that are all-natural and low sugar.įunding Dollars: N/A Friends and Family Round Founding Student Name(s): Alex Doman & Denetrias Charlemagneīrief Description of Solution: AVEC is re-imagining what people mix with their spirit for the modern day-healthier, tastier, and easier.
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