“Artists are entrepreneurs. We are our own business.” That’s what Fordham Theatre grad Marjuan Canady, FCLC ’08, says when she teaches creative entrepreneurship at places like Georgetown University and NYU. Her words ring true for many Fordham alumni who have cut a professional path with their arts and business acumen.

“There’s creativity in everything that is going on in the room, whether it’s the business side or the actual creative side,” said Canady, who founded Sepia Works, a multimedia production company, and Canady Foundation for the Arts, a nonprofit that creates educational and career opportunities for youth of color by connecting them with professional artists. “That’s what makes it fun.”

SaVonne Anderson, FCLC ’17

Founder and Creative Director, Aya Paper Co.

After graduating from Fordham in 2017 with a degree in new media and digital design, SaVonne Anderson worked at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she had interned as a student. Being around inspiring art got her gears turning, and she decided to start her own greeting card and stationery business, Aya Paper Co., in 2019. The following year, she decided to focus on Aya full time. Since then, her work has been featured in Time, Allure, and Forbes magazines, and carried in stores like Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Whole Foods. And while it can be difficult to balance her design and illustration work with the demands of running a business and the challenges of parenting a toddler, Anderson feels it’s all worth it.

Martha Clippinger, FCRH ’05

Artist and Designer

Like many textile artists, Martha Clippinger, FCRH ’05, was greatly influenced by the Gee’s Bend collective, a group of African American quilters whose work she first saw at the Whitney Museum as a Fordham student. “It ignited a desire to explore color and shape and rhythm,” she says. More than 20 years later, Clippinger has made a career out of that artistic exploration, displaying her work in museums, galleries, and corporate collections, and selling bags, rugs, and tablet covers on her website. Some of those items are woven by her professional partners in Oaxaca, Mexico, where she spent time on a Fulbright-Garcia Robles grant in 2013.

Katte Geneta, FCLC ’06

Founder, Narra Studio

Katte Geneta grew up thinking she was going to become a doctor. But when she arrived at Fordham and took a fine arts class, she discovered a talent for drawing. After graduating in 2006, she exhibited her paintings and later pursued a master’s degree in museum studies at Harvard. Soon, she took up weaving—the smell of oil paint made her nauseous while she was pregnant. Motivated by a conversation with a weaver in the Philippines who was hoping to find broader exposure, she started Narra Studio. The studio sometimes designs goods and sometimes just works on distribution. It partners with upward of 15 weaving communities in the Philippines and sells the pieces—from jewelry and blankets to jackets and traditional barong tops—through its website and at markets.

Bryan Master, FCRH ’99

Composer; Founder and Executive Producer, Sound + Fission and Partner in Crime Entertainment

Bryan Master has been writing and playing music for as long as he can remember—he apologizes to any Fordham neighbors who may have heard his frequent drumming at Rose Hill. But when he graduated in 1999 with a degree in communications, his passion took a backseat to his job in advertising—until 2022. That’s when his side hustle—a music, production, and creative services company called Sound + Fission—became a sustainable, full-time endeavor, thanks, he says, to a boom in audio storytelling listenership. Along with his other company, Partner in Crime, which focuses on creating and developing series, Sound + Fission was behind Can You Dig It?, an original Audible series about the birth of hip-hop that featured narration from Public Enemy’s Chuck D.

Courtney Celeste Spears, FCLC ’16

Co-Founder and Director, ArtSea

Courtney Celeste Spears had achieved many of her dreams as a dancer: She began dancing with Ailey II—Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s second company—while she was still a student in the Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance program, and she joined the main company in 2018, two years after graduating. Last summer, though, she made the leap to devote herself full time to ArtSea, a Bahamas-based arts organization she founded with her brother, Asa Carey, in 2017. Now living on the island, where she spent time visiting family as a child, Spears works to bring high-level dance education and entertainment to the Caribbean and expose young artists to the wider dance world.

The annual competition featured eight companies—four “general track” businesses and four social impact organizations. The Fordham-connected teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges and more than 200 members of the Fordham community during the event, where $25,000 was distributed among the winners to provide seed funding and support for early-stage businesses.

Al Bartosic, director of the Fordham Foundry, said that this was “the largest field ever—we started off with 186 teams.” Through the mentoring process, the field was narrowed down to the eight finalists that made an official public pitch.

General Track Winner

Mila Mend Inc., a women’s health company that provides community and “comprehensive solutions for women seeking to balance their hormones.” The company also features multiple social media platforms with more than 600,000 members.

Founders: Lucas Labelle, GABELLI ’20 and Camila Magnan

Labelle said that one of the key strengths of the company is the accessibility of its products.

“We provide access to reliable information, we bring science-proven solutions to market and we also innovate,” he said, adding that they work with two medical advisors to create effective products.

Magnan said the idea for the company came from her own experiences trying to treat PCOS and other health issues caused by hormonal imbalances.

“My voice was not being listened to by doctors and this is where my boyfriend came to my appointments—and having a male present, I finally got listened to,” she said. “Something that he says is, ‘This affects 50% of the population but also the other 50% that live with that person—this is as much our problem as it is a woman’s [problem].’”

“It’s incredible that a male committee of judges believed in a woman-focused product, and it just shows how the space is evolving,” Magnan said.

General Track Finalists

Second Place: Spike Cover, a magnetic product that covers the bottom of track and field spikes, founded by Anya Alfonsetti-Terry, a junior in the Gabelli School of Business

Third Place: Credentialed, a vendor that offers streamlined media credentialing services, founded by David Skinner, a sophomore in the Gabelli School of Business

Fourth Place: Libri di Lucciola, a dark romance publishing house, founded by Isabella Frassetti, FCLC ’20

Social Impact Winner

Alliza, a recruiting service that brings people with autism into the workforce and provides them with ongoing training and resources

Founder: Shoval Liel, who will be graduating from the Gabelli School’s MBA program in May

“[The recognition] means a lot; it means that we can help more people. And I believe that what we are doing is really changing lives for autistic individuals, which is something that not many companies are doing. We’re providing help and employment opportunities …. Think about how important and critical it is to have a job.”

Social Impact Finalists

Her Migrant Grounds, a coffee cafe and community-building space that enhances the work of Fordham’s Her Migrant Hub—a resource by and for women asylum seekers that provides them with access to health care resources. Her Migrant Grounds was born from the current group involved with Her Migrant Hub, due to the leadership of women activists Sara Tekle, Marthe Kiemde, Christiane Keumo, and Nneka Ugwu; and Graduate School of Social Work students Catilin Kreutz and Jake Schefer.

Kids Building Wealth, a Bronx-based nonprofit that provides financial education to underserved children. Founded by Olga Baez, MC ’05, GSE ’16

Tap Thread Count, a digital platform that connects designers, seamstresses, tailors, and dressmakers to clients looking for diverse clothing offerings. Founded by Babalwa Nogwanya, GSAS ’24

People’s Choice Winner

Credentialed, a vendor that offers streamlined media credentialing services,

Founder: David Skinner, a sophomore in the Gabelli School of Business

“The Foundry’s an incredible resource that has been there through every aspect of my entrepreneurial journey,” he said, adding that the process of participating in the Pitch Challenge was “exciting, fulfilling, and unbelievably beneficial.”

Directed by serial entrepreneur and executive director Al Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, the Foundry also oversees the Fordham Angel Fund, which offers investments of up to $25,000 to the University’s active student and alumni founders.

Fordham Magazine caught up with a handful of alumni who received funding, coaching, or other support from the Foundry to find out where they—and their businesses—are now, and how they got there.

Mary Goode, FCRH ’20
Founder and CEO, Nantucket Magic
Fordham Degree: B.A. in Economics

The launch: I grew up on Nantucket Island and watched the tourist landscape change dramatically over the years, becoming increasingly popular yet harder to navigate. The company uses local expertise to offer hotel-like concierge service and amenities to vacationers in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Palm Beach, Florida, including pre-arrival fridge stocking, dinner reservations, private chefs, backyard movie nights, beach picnics, wellness experiences, and more.

The challenge: Our biggest challenge has been navigating how to scale the business while maintaining exceptional service. To surmount this, we have recruited hospitality experts to work seasonally in both locations.

The assist: The Foundry has played a huge role in the success of my business! I learned so much during the process of the pitch competition alone. The actual funds I won helped us pay for marketing campaigns as well as expand our team, among other things.

The goal: I have been trying to broaden the definition of what success means to me. No matter what happens in the future, what I have created so far feels like an immense personal success, chiefly because of the incredible people I have worked with over the past three years.

Marquice Pullen, GSE ’21
Co-Founder, DAB Pickleball
Fordham Degree: M.S.E., Curriculum and Teaching

The concept: DAB Pickleball is a one-stop shop for pickleball players worldwide. Comprehensive infrastructure, certified coaching tips, quality equipment, competitive prices. Events, tournaments, and a thriving community. Your ultimate pickleball resource. I can’t take credit for the idea. My business partner and brother, Antonio, stumbled upon the sport at Acworth Community Center in Georgia.

The process: We participated in three pitch challenges: Fordham Foundry Rams Den, Fordham vs. Bronx, and Black Ambition, all within one year, and were successful in all three, thanks be to God. Social media marketing, risk management, inventory management, tax filing, bookkeeping, and opening our first facility in July 2023 were all challenging aspects of the process. However, we found our momentum in late December 2023.

The foundation: Initially unfamiliar with Fordham University, my enrollment through the Army Civilian Schooling (ACS) program, driven by my aspiration to become an instructor at the United States Military Academy, inadvertently initiated our entrepreneurial journey. Rooted in Jesuit principles, my education at Fordham eventually led me to the Fordham Foundry. Without Fordham University as a catalyst, I might not have discovered the Foundry or ventured into entrepreneurship.

The win: Success is evident through our community of players and dedicated volunteers and supporters. Seeing the smiles on our consumers’ faces as they enjoy the game of pickleball and, more importantly, witnessing the competitive spirit of our elderly pickleball players, is a success story in itself.

Rachel Ceruti, GSAS ’20
Founder and CEO, Reclypt
Fordham Degree: M.A. in International Political Economy and Development

The vision: I kind of fell into the sustainable fashion scene in New York City and upcycling—when you or designers take something that was going to be thrown away and repurpose it, diverting textiles from landfills. I started a blog that transitioned into a marketplace for fashion, but our community told us they wanted to do the upcycling, not just buy it. We listened, and our mission is to use our platform to explore circular economy structures, with Reclypt as a hub that explores how we create change.

The challenges: Funding really comes to mind. You can’t rely on unfair wages and volunteers. Another challenge, too, is letting people know why circular fashion is needed and what it is.

The assist: I would go into the Foundry space and pop ideas off of the other entrepreneurs and the Foundry team. I benefited from the free office hours with a lawyer. The business aspects that are behind the scenes, I would have never been able to navigate without the Foundry.

The next step: We want to host consistent events; be able to grow and hire, including start monetizing my team’s time; gain more visibility; and establish a steady revenue stream.

Usman “Ozzy” Raza, PCS ’14, GABELLI ’21
Founder and CEO, Equepay
Fordham Degrees: B.A. in Economics, Executive M.B.A.

The concept: Equepay is at the forefront of simplifying billing and payment processing, not just in health care but extending our innovative solutions beyond. We aim to convert the complex financial operations in hospitals and clinics into streamlined, user-friendly processes, ensuring easy and efficient financial management for all involved.

 The launch: Equepay was born out of discussions with friends in the health care sector who highlighted ongoing challenges with payment processing and collections. Recognizing the untapped potential in this underserved market, I founded Equepay. Since launch, Equepay has been expanding its solutions across various hospitals in the U.S.

The foundation: My EMBA from Fordham has been crucial in shaping my entrepreneurial journey. The knowledge and skills acquired laid a solid foundation for Equepay’s strategies and operational methodologies.

The goal: Success is an evolving target. Our immediate goal is to integrate our platform into 196 hospitals by the end of the year, continuously enhancing our services to meet the growing needs of the healthcare sector.

Emmit Flynn, FCRH ’21
Co-Founder, Awful Cloth
Fordham Degree: B.A. in English

The brand: We started Awful Cloth to be an online apparel company for street and lounge wear, with a lot of colorful designs and bright, vibrant ideas. All of them were hand-drawn original designs and I was the designer.

The launch: For eight or 10 months, it was all planning. We got all the domains, Twitter, and Instagram very early on before we had anything produced. That made all the difference when we finally did start to get traction. Then it was a lot of workshopping and pushing it out to our friends and family to see what the response was.

The hurdles: The true hurdles were things that are intangibles. It wasn’t “where do we find this factory” or “how do we do this.” Those things were small hurdles, but we were so driven that there was nothing like that that would stop us. It was more about the mental hurdles: having patience and confidence and being sure of ourselves. Especially early on when things were slow, and we weren’t making any sales, and we weren’t making any profit.

The win: We recently sold the business to a medium-sized retail group called Lilac Blond. We were very happy to do it because selling was a goal of ours and we knew these people—and we were sure that they wanted the best for the brand.

One of history’s great startup success stories, the nearly 500-year-old Catholic religious order built a global network and helped create higher education as we know it.

Founded in 1540 by the former soldier St. Ignatius Loyola—and starting with little more than a mission to help souls and do it heroically—the Jesuits quickly established themselves around the world and became known as the finest educators of their day. Today there are more than 180 Jesuit institutions of higher learning—including Fordham—on six continents.

How did the Jesuits succeed? For one thing, they believed in the ultimate importance of their mission, which “breeds a level of resilience and determination and creativity,” said Chris Lowney, FCRH ’81, GSAS ’81, a former Jesuit, former managing director at J.P. Morgan, and author of the 2003 book Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World. In interviews, Lowney and other Fordham alumni spoke to the parallels between the Jesuits’ mindset and the entrepreneur’s approach to startup success.

Lesson #1: They didn’t carry the mental baggage that can hinder entrepreneurs.

The Jesuits made a virtue of detachment—that is, detachment from things like status, possessions, and settled ways of doing things, which enabled risk-taking. Asked by Ignatius to depart for India, Francis Xavier readily responded “good enough, I’m ready”—and took it on himself to establish Jesuit outposts not only in India but across Asia, Lowney writes in Heroic Leadership. Offering a present-day interpretation, he noted that attachments like greed or pride can hamper entrepreneurs by breeding a fear of failure and a reluctance to try new things.

Lesson #2: They led with love.

Unlike Niccolò Machiavelli, one of his contemporaries, Ignatius counseled Jesuits to lead with “greater love than fear,” tapping the energizing power of mutual affection, Lowney writes. Traveling in Asia, Francis Xavier carried papers bearing his fellow Jesuits’ signatures as an inspiring reminder of their love for him. For modern-day entrepreneurs, this might mean wanting one’s team members to flourish and reach their potential—which could mean challenging them when necessary, Lowney said.

Lesson #3: They adapted to new environments.

The Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci made inroads in China, after so many Europeans had failed, through enculturation: He learned Chinese, adopted Chinese dress, and shared his knowledge of geometry and astronomy, Lowney writes. Ricci’s predecessor in Asia, Francis Xavier, also “showed a remarkable respect for the cultures he was meeting” when he traveled to Japan, Lowney said. “He was way, way ahead of his time.”

Lesson #4: They reflected deeply on their purpose.

Former Jesuit Sal Giambanco, GSAS ’90, sees parallels between the entrepreneurial mindset and the self-knowledge fostered by the Spiritual Exercises, the four-week system of meditation and prayer created by Ignatius. “It’s about seeing things and patterns that haven’t existed before,” said Giambanco, an early employee and senior executive at four startups, including PayPal, where he was the first head of human capital, administration, facilities, and security. “You go into the silence, [and] you embrace that silence, such that you can then bring those insights into having effective change in the world. And if you think about it, that really is the mindset of the entrepreneur.”

Lesson #5: They sought input and brought out the best in others.

Contrary to the idea of the solo creative genius driving an enterprise, the best leaders foster collaboration—and innovation—by stepping back and “leaving the room” after posing a tough question to their teams, said Angelo Santinelli, GABELLI ’84, an entrepreneur and business educator who co-chairs the advisory board for the Fordham Foundry, the University’s entrepreneurship hub.

He often saw the Jesuits take that approach in the classroom when he was a student at Fordham, he said. In a collaborative workspace where everyone feels valued, “you’re constantly pushing the envelope and getting something better,” he said.

Since 2010, the Student Managed Investment Fund has helped launch graduates’ careers in the financial world.

Researching companies in diverse sectors. Analyzing stock market data to understand trends. Deciding how best to invest more than $2 million of someone else’s money. This type of work happens daily at investment firms across the country. It also happens at Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business.

Through the Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF), a two-semester course run by James Russell Kelly, students manage $2 million of the University’s endowment in a portfolio of stocks, bonds, and alternative assets.

Students start as analysts and are paired with second-semester students who work as portfolio managers. The analysts monitor sectors such as health care, energy, and real estate, while portfolio managers help make investment decisions and can take on additional roles, such as chief investment officer or quantitative analyst.

The fund started in 2010 with $1 million and has grown to more than $2.1 million, said Kelly, a senior lecturer in finance who also leads Fordham’s Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis.

“The primary theme is student empowerment—students make all the investment decisions,” he said. “My role is to set the parameters to give guidance, guardrails.”

At the first-ever networking event for SMIF, held on February 6 in the 12th-Floor Lounge at the Lowenstein Center on the Lincoln Center campus, current students connected with alumni who shared how their experiences helped them in their careers in the finance and investing worlds. Attendees also shared their SMIF stories with Fordham Magazine.

Rohit Roy, Class of 2024
SMIF Role: Portfolio Manager, Health Care
Major: Finance with a Minor in Computer Science

“It’s active learning—you’re not learning from a textbook, you’re not learning theory. You’re looking at active real-world events and how they’re affecting the markets.

“Full time, I’m going to be working in trading [for Apex Capital after graduation]. So it’s a very, very direct kind of jump—you don’t really trade here, it’s more of a long-term investment mandate kind of thing. But a lot of the skills are obviously transferable. Like, you have to follow the markets closely, you have to understand how things work, be able to digest high-level information very quickly and act upon it. A lot of the skills link up quite nicely.”

Rishika Pal, Class of 2024
SMIF Role: Former Managing Director
Major: Finance with a Minor in Computer Science

“I learned about [SMIF] my freshman year and I was like, what a wonderful opportunity, given the fact that not many schools trust their students with a section of their endowment. Being able to actively manage it and gain mentorship was so important to me. It was a really great experience—I ended up becoming managing director for the fund, so that was a very full circle moment.

“It’s one thing to learn about [investing] in theory, but when you’re looking at it from a holistic portfolio perspective—what data is accessible to us? What should be our benchmarks? How do we forecast and manage our allocation and risk? That type of hands-on learning, I think, is very different and unique.”

Ria Naidu, Class of 2024
SMIF Role: Portfolio Manager, Information Technology
Major: Global Business with Concentrations in Finance and Economics

“I started looking into [the SMIF experience] my junior year, when I was figuring out my path. I thought it was a good opportunity to be able to [invest] money in an educational environment where there’s slightly more room for error than when you start in the real world. Whatever [work I’ll do as an equity research associate at Jefferies] will be pretty similar to what I’m doing now. So I think that’s been very helpful to get a glimpse of it, and actually be hands on and work with it, but also learn from Professor Kelly.”

Adam Arias, Class of 2025
SMIF Role: Analyst, Health Care
Major: Finance

“It’s kind of opening my eyes a little bit. It’s a very collaborative place. In SMIF, I can already tell your voice matters more. Your ideas are encouraged to come out.

“I’m going to be working in more of a client-facing role [in my internship at PIMCO this summer]. But [through SMIF] I’m getting experience in how to work in a team, where you kind of have an equal say, and then also just developing communication skills with everyone, being able to know what’s happening in the market and convey that to your manager. In my future role, hopefully I’ll be able to convey that to clients.”

Stephen Hearn, GABELLI ’15
Vice President, Public Finance & Infrastructure Direct Lending, J.P. Morgan

“I work in the bank’s public finance infrastructure portfolio, so [we’re] kind of taking all the management risk, very similar to what SMIF did. In SMIF, I learned the proper way to analyze risk, risk-reward, which is something I kind of carried into my job.

“[The SMIF experience is] something on your resume that most other kids from other schools won’t have, even if they’ve gone to an Ivy or something like that. You may not actually have practical investing experience unless you’ve done a program like this.”

Yaakov Musheyev, GABELLI ’20
High Yield Credit Research at J.P. Morgan

“I work in credit research, looking at industry trends, company-specific trends—and covering a sector in SMIF, I feel, was pretty similar: looking at headlines, looking at news for the sector we covered, building a model for one of the things we were trying to pitch, and then doing the whole presentation. So, building out the investment thesis and presenting it.”

Brigida Caruso, Class of 2024
SMIF Role: Co-Managing Director
Major: Global Business with Concentrations in Finance and Economics

“The hands-on research that we’re able to do—it’s more independently driven, so if you have an idea that you want to run with, you’re allowed to do that. And our class is done in the trading room at Rose Hill, so a lot of Bloomberg terminals are accessible there.”

Tyler Hoffman, Class of 2025
SMIF Role: Analyst, Industrials
Major: Finance

“I’m sort of working under someone who I learn from—[that’s] not to say that the professor doesn’t teach, but he’s there more to moderate and kind of give structure to things.

“I’ll be [interning] in banking this summer. A lot of it is just analyzing companies, and when you’re in a position of investing and having your money at stake, like Fordham’s money here, it kind of ups the ante in terms of how much work you put into looking at things. I think being able to transfer that to a banking context is really important.”

That’s the philosophy of Albert Bartosic, executive director of the Fordham Foundry, a hub where Fordham community members learn how to launch and grow their own businesses. 

Most people already use the skills required for entrepreneurship in their daily lives, including pitching new ideas and working in a team, said Bartosic. What most people don’t know is that we are all capable of coming up with the next big idea—and bringing it to life. In a recent interview with Fordham News, Bartosic explained how to get there: 

Answer three key questions: What problem are you solving? How is that problem being addressed now? And why is your idea new, different, and better? “Why are people going to change their behavior and take your solution, as opposed to the solution that they’re using now?” 

Narrow your market. “The least successful thing you can do is say that your idea is for everybody. This won’t be successful, at least initially. Focus on a market that really needs this solution and is willing to pay for it.” 

Present something tangible. “If it’s a product, you can construct something using a 3-D printer. If it’s a service, you can try offering it to people on a test basis. You could use a GoFundMe or Kickster campaign if you need some money to put this together.” 

Survey your target demographic. “One shortcut is to construct a three-question survey and share it with your social media followers. You might get a small response rate, but you’re going to start to gather some data. That’s going to tell you if you’re on the right track. But don’t just talk to friends and family. They’re going to tell you, ‘You are brilliant, and this is the best thing I’ve ever heard of.’ You really want to speak with people in your target demographic who are friendly-adjacent—willing to give you both time and honest, valuable feedback.” 

Learn from the feedback—and try again. “It’s an iterative process. Take what you’ve learned and try it again, adjust it, and keep trying until you either know that you have a product that makes sense, or you don’t.” 

Learn from the process. “The skills and tools that you learn through entrepreneurship—how to sell an idea, how to get people to work with you, how to build a team, how to deal with setbacks, how to stay resilient in the face of failure—will help you, no matter what.” 

Finally, you need to convince the world that your idea is worth investing in. Watch a brief crash course video featuring Bartosic and other experts from the Fordham Foundry—Associate Director Shaun Johnson and alumna and Entrepreneur-in-Residence Lauren Sweeney—on how to pitch your idea to the public.

Sweeney is the CEO and co-founder of DeliverZero, a service that makes it easy for restaurants and grocers to offer customers the option to order in returnable reusable packaging, eliminating emissions and waste with every order. She’s also the entrepreneur-in-residence for the Fordham Foundry. Below, she shares five common myths about entrepreneurship.

Myth #1: Your startup idea has to be fully developed in order to launch.

Often aspiring entrepreneurs have a “really big vision of where they want to go,” but don’t have the resources to make that happen immediately.

“They’re like, ‘well I couldn’t start the next Uber for dog walkers,’ so then they just don’t start at all,” Sweeney said. “Whereas I think the best thing you can do is start in a smaller way that feels actually doable for you.”

By launching with a smaller product, Sweeney said, it allows them to get their idea out in front of customers and try different things before committing too much time and money. By engaging with customers early, she said they can learn more about the problem they’re working to solve in a timely manner and gain increased access to resources.

Myth #2: The first business idea is the best idea and never has to change.

Gathering customer feedback is incredibly important, Sweeney said, because it allows the entrepreneur to change course if they need to.

“The likeliest scenario—and this is the thing that really scares everyone—is that customer feedback is going to actually show you that you should pivot, which is a terrifying word for entrepreneurs, but also kind of the key to every successful outcome,” she said.

For example, her own business pivoted away from a “zero waste version of Grubhub” to a network
of reusable packaging that allows customers to access reusable packaging at all points of sale. This pivot
was due in large part to hearing customer feedback on how they would like to see the packaging waste problem solved in a bigger way.

One way for entrepreneurs in the Fordham community to start getting that feedback, she said, is to participate in activities and competitions, such as the Foundry’s Pitch Challenge.

Myth #3: All entrepreneurs are funded through venture capital or angel investors.

According to Al Bartosic, head of Fordham Foundry, and Sweeney, only between 1% and 5% of startups receive venture capital funding, meaning 95% of startups are not backed by venture capital funds. More than 70% of startups are funded through loans, personal savings, or friends and family, they said.

The amount of venture capital available to early-stage startups is also decreasing, according to Sweeney, particularly following an increase in interest rates. Before 2022, many venture capital firms were deploying capital at a faster rate, often into businesses with little or no market validation.

“I think what we’ve really learned in the last few years is that venture money really should only go towards companies with some proof of concept,” she said.

Myth #4: All entrepreneurs are immediate success stories and don’t have to work hard.

Sweeney said that before FTX failed, its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried—who has been convicted of fraud—was seen as “this mythological creature.” But the failure “reset a lot of thinking about what it means to be an entrepreneur.”

She said now there’s more of an “understanding that you have to put work in and that there are no overnight billionaires—and a ten-figure net worth might not be what you’re looking for anyway.” From the outset, she said it’s important to outline personal goals and what fulfillment means, and then work to meet that definition of success.

Myth #5: Entrepreneurs have to develop their business alone.

While entrepreneurship can at times feel isolating, Sweeney encouraged entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs to find community where they can. At Fordham, that can mean meeting fellow student entrepreneurs, guest speakers, and coaches at the Foundry.

“What spaces can you consistently show up in, just be welcomed in, maybe not even have to talk about entrepreneurship, but just be a human being near other human beings?” she said. “I think it’s important for entrepreneurs, especially because it can be such a lonely grind in the beginning.”

A Long Island native, Weinstock transferred to Fordham as a junior and quickly set out to make the most of her time at the University. She worked at WFUV, Fordham’s public media station, and interned at the national TV show Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee. After graduating in 1995, she built a career in marketing and publicity at major film studios, including Paramount. She took a hiatus to raise her three sons—now 9, 12, and 13 years old—and a schnoodle named Charlie. But that “break” is over now, thanks to what the Los Angeles resident calls “the Lego incident.”

Fordham Magazine caught up with Weinstock to find out how she went from being a media exec to an entrepreneur pitching her invention on national TV.

How did your Fordham education help prepare you for entrepreneurship?
I wasn’t exactly on an entrepreneurial path from the start, but Fordham gave me a solid foundation on which I built a successful first career—and the overwhelming desire to be a lifelong learner who leans into curiosity and loves the challenge of figuring things out is persistent. Ideas are easy; I’m probably not the first person to think of something like this, but the difference is having the will and courage to jump in and figure out how to execute it.

How did you get the idea for Pick-Up Bricks?
I have three active boys with tons of Lego bricks, which is a family favorite, but it was also everywhere, all the time, and seemingly always underfoot. Any parent can tell you the pain is real! I’m not just talking about the pain of stepping on Lego bricks or other little toys, but the pain of trying to get kids to pick up their stuff. That’s why we made Pick-Up Bricks a toy. We wanted to empower kids to want to do it themselves by making cleanup fun.

Walk me through the creation process.
I had had enough and ended up vacuuming [my kids’ Lego] pieces up with my Dyson—maybe not my best parenting moment, but it was oddly satisfying and kind of fun to suck them up. The incident sent me and my brother-in-law Steve, who has entrepreneurial experience and an advanced business degree, on a four-year quest to save feet everywhere. We started sketching on a scrap piece of paper, and that was the launching pad. Fast forward, we launched domestically in late 2022 and had a successful year last year, which we capped off with the Shark Tank appearance.

How did you end up on Shark Tank?
One of the show’s casting team came across Pick-Up Bricks on social media. On one hand, we were just blown away to have drawn Shark Tank’s attention. At the same time, we were very apprehensive about doing the show and putting ourselves out there. But I’m always encouraging my children to do hard things and to stretch themselves by going outside their comfort zones—this was my opportunity to walk the walk.

You ended up accepting a joint offer from Lori Greiner and Mark Cuban. Tell me more about your experience on the show.
I am so grateful for the opportunity! We had two excellent producers who were our biggest cheerleaders and skillfully guided us through the monthslong process.

The best part for me was the Sharks’ reactions. They totally got it—and they loved it! It was a lot of fun to see them sucking up the Lego bricks, racing to finish first. Even the notoriously spicy personalities responded so positively to us and our invention—it was truly gratifying.

What’s next?
We are in talks to go beyond the direct-to-consumer space into national chain retail placement. Looking forward, we are focused on getting Pick-Up Bricks out to more of the world and capitalizing off that swell [in attention from appearing on Shark Tank].

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Sierra McCleary-Harris.

He’s also a self-described Swiftie.

”That’s an entrepreneur. Taylor Swift fits all the parts of my definition,” Hanno said, adding that her creativity and innovative thinking are just as central to her brand as the music itself.

According to Hanno, entrepreneurship isn’t just about starting businesses—it’s a holistic mindset that can influence how someone approaches anything they do.

“It’s about looking at the status quo and saying, ‘How can we do things differently to achieve even greater success?’” he said.

Rather than looking to solely benefit oneself, Hanno stresses that true entrepreneurship is all about finding a problem that needs solving, and tackling it in a way that is unique to you.

The Entrepreneurial Checklist

What makes a successful entrepreneur? Hanno breaks it down into four parts.

1. Act on Your Ideas

“There’s so many people that have great ideas. There are so many times where people say, ‘Oh, those are great ideas, I wonder who’s going to do something about that.’ The entrepreneur has to act.”

2. Identify Opportunities

“Seek ideas wherever they are. Figure out a way to take action that aligns with your own values and skills so those become opportunities for you. How does that map with what your community needs or wants? An opportunity for you is going to be very different from opportunities for me.”

3. Analyze Everything

“Sometimes people think the Elon Musks of the world wake up in the morning and say, ‘I’ve got an idea, I’m just going to dive into it.’ And I would argue that Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Bill Gates—they’re not that kind of person. They actually do analyze—and probably their greatest skill is to be able to analyze quicker than you and I can, to look at the landscape and say, ‘If I do this, I have a greater likelihood of success than if I do that.’”

4. Find Your Passion

“In both my undergrad and grad classes, we spend three hours talking about basically yourself—‘What’s really important to you? At the end of the day, what do you think about in terms of what you want to achieve?’ I think that helps people to focus on their values.”

“When I was a college student, I didn’t spend any time thinking about it. It was maybe 10 years later, I really thought, ‘You know what’s really important to me? Education.’ That’s when I shifted my pursuit because I had identified what my passion was, so I’ve never looked back.”

Originally a marketing major, she also thought about going into fields like sustainability farming and fashion modeling before settling on finance.

Now a senior at the Gabelli School of Business, Abdulhussein hopes to combine her interests through Al Ameerat, her startup clothing brand that aims to empower women through modest and stylish fashion. Its debut collection is set to be released this spring with the aid of a surprising partner: Bratz dolls, the billion-dollar media franchise known for its outsized influence on youth fashion and culture.

“Nothing has gone [according] to plan,” Abdulhussein said of changing majors and landing her first big deal. “But it worked out.”

Abdulhussein has created eight original designs for women that will be modeled by select Bratz dolls and made available for purchase this spring.

Seizing Opportunities ‘in the Middle of the Night’

Al Ameerat’s initial rollout will focus on fashionable and affordable designs of the abaya, a religious garment commonly worn by women throughout the Middle East. Growing up between Tanzania and Dubai, wearing an abaya was commonplace for Abdulhussein. But in the U.S, she found limited offerings.

“In America, it’s very old style, traditional. But if you go to the Middle East…you’ll see such a big difference. It’s very flashy, it’s fun, it’s trendy,” she said.

Abdulhussein partnered with her friend Mira al Aqrabawi, based in Dubai, to collaborate on the business plan and manage operations on the ground.

It was an offhand comment between the two that sparked the breakthrough.

“I was telling her, ‘You look like a little Bratz doll,’” Abdulhussein said, conjuring the fashion-forward dolls of their youth. “And then I was like, ‘Wait, this is a great idea.’”

Abdulhussein did some research on the spot and messaged a Bratz representative for brand collaborations, emphasizing the opportunity to expand into a new market—modest fashion—while simultaneously demonstrating a commitment to diversity and inclusion. She didn’t expect to get a response at all—let alone a few hours later.

“It was a happy accident that took off literally in the middle of the night,” she said.

Now she and her partner are finalizing their collection to prepare for their spring launch with Bratz.

From the Classroom to the Market

A global business major with concentrations in finance, business economics, and fintech, Abdulhussein credits her classes and professors for her ability to execute her idea so quickly.

“I couldn’t have told you anything about how finance worked before I got here,” she said. “It’s hard to forecast sales for a company that doesn’t exist yet. My analytics class was really helpful because I was like, ‘Alright, I have to make this balance sheet balance.’”

When it came time to finalize her pitch, Abdulhussein drew from hands-on learning experiences like the Gabelli School’s Consulting Cup event.

But Abdulhussein stressed that the ability to make connections was the most rewarding part of her experience.

“My professors put me in touch with good people. They taught me how to network,” she said. “Toy companies aren’t too scary once you’ve been reaching out to all these JP Morgan people.”

Employing Women

Abdulhussein still has big ideas. She hopes to sell out the first collection, donate a percentage of profits to a worthy cause, and eventually have a fulfillment center fully populated by women.

For now, she spends her nights on Zoom clutching pieces of fabric and trying to communicate her vision to tailors on the other side of the globe.

“You have to be patient,” she said, reflecting on the design process—and the path that led there. “It’s not always going to work out on the first try.”

Follow Al Ameerat’s progress on Instagram @ameerat.abayas.