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A Student's Guide to Startup Internships (2024 Revised)

So let's start by answering what might be the only question that matters: is it even a good idea to intern at a startup? Not for most people. Here's the thing: If you're going to intern with a startup, you need to be ready

Catalyst's Story and Lessons Learned

It's only taken 100 instances of my students asking "Why did you start this?" for me to write this, but here it is: how and why Catalyst XL got started and what I've learned. Catalyst wasn't the result of some "light

The Startup Ecosystem

Catalyst's Cohort curriculum is divided into 4 weeks and 4 topics. The first is The Startup Ecosystem. We define the startup ecosystem as the network of individuals who influence a startup's success, and the concepts that govern how these individuals interact with one another. Here'

The Power of a Clear Mind

Two of the most impactful things I've learned in the past year are 1. the importance of a clear mind and 2. how to get one. So I wanted to write about that. This is going to be very closely related to "Outward and Forward". In

Practical Creativity and the 95% Rule

So I've spoken about the importance of a creative outlet before, mostly in my fifth essay. What I want to do with this post is bridge the gap between creativity and practicality. How do you find a creative outlet that's worth something? I'm not

Are you "Authentic"?

Something I've been thinking a lot about is authenticity, and the reason I've been thinking a lot about it is because everything else I think about seems to point back towards it. This thing we talk about so often that nobody really knows the meaning of.

How to Break into Entrepreneurship or VC as a Student

It recently occurred to me how strange it is that I haven't written this yet. So here it is: the things you need to know if you're planning on making a name for yourself in the entrepreneurship/VC ecosystem. My goal here is to share what

Study Yourself

When I interview a student for Catalyst, I'm trying to really figure out who that person is at their core. And I don't hide that at all. This makes for some very interesting, sometimes pretty intense conversations. But I don't do this for the

Build, Learn, Mentor

If there's one thing all college students spend a LOT of time on, it's discernment. We are in a constant debate with ourselves about what path we should take to do something that is meaningful and fulfilling to us. The story's been no different

Outward and Forward

I've been thinking about this for a while and think it's one of the most important lessons I've learned in my professional and personal life. I guess this might border on sounding like a psychology lesson, but I'll try not to go

The Problem of College and Creativity

I think everyone is in agreement that there are some serious inefficiencies when it comes to higher education in the United States and beyond. Now don't get me wrong--college has been unbelievably beneficial for me in more ways than I can count. But much of what I'

Impulsive Productivity

The other day I was sitting at my desk working on something pretty tedious. It had to get done, but I didn’t really want to be doing it at that moment. And because of that, I wasn’t doing that great of a job getting it done. There were

How to Start a Startup on Accident

So for our first post we wanted to throw out something that would give you a little bit of background on Catalyst and at the same time, shed some light on a very interesting concept in entrepreneurship. We’ve been working pretty under the radar up to this point, so