Bill Gross (BS '81) guest lecturing in fall 2024 for an entrepreneurship course at Caltech; photo: Chris Flynn

Invention and innovation are entwined in Caltech’s legacy, and a new generation of undergraduates is carrying forward that legacy through entrepreneurship. To support students’ interests, entrepreneurs-in-residence Jay Chiang and Julie Schoenfeld and colleagues from the Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Partnerships (OTTCP) have been leading efforts to offer programs attuned to their strengths and challenges.

“We really tried to envision the journey of a student entrepreneur and aligned our offerings to fit their needs,” Chiang says. “This allows us to be there for the students as they go from learning about start-ups to actually launching their own.”

The journey begins with a Caltech course that teaches the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. Idealab co-founder and Caltech trustee and alumnus Bill Gross (BS ’81) taught the class last fall and shared his decades of experience as a serial founder with students. He also helped them brainstorm potential start-ups and draft a business plan.

Next, the OTTCP Summer Internship in Entrepreneurship gives students first-hand experience identifying Caltech technologies ripe for venture funding by performing market research, conducting financial modeling, and using other analysis tools. Interns also leave the 10-week program with a network of venture funders and executives.

For many, the student entrepreneur experience culminated last term with the Bill Gross Business Plan Competition with prizes made possible by Bill Gross, Sunstone Management, Inc., and the American Lending Center. Students created business plans and were guided by mentors on how to develop and refine them before they pitched their ideas to a panel of judges. The inaugural 2024 competition attracted more than 80 applicants, whose ideas ranged from algae farms that reduce greenhouse gasses to an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that interprets patients’ medical test results. The winning business, CAD.it, converts 2D engineering sketches into 3D computer-aided design (CAD) models using AI.

Launching a start-up while in college has some advantages, Schoenfeld says. Students generally have fewer financial obligations and can take on more risk, yet their biggest obstacle can be themselves, she adds.

“Sometimes conservatism can get the better of us,” Schoenfeld says. “We tell ourselves that we need more research or more money, but if the idea is good, the market is big, and the team is strong, go for it. Why not give it a shot?”

The Advantages of Starting Now

Fourth-year student Logan Beharry dreams of curing diseases and saving lives as a bioscientist. In high school, he developed a potential immunotherapy for rheumatoid arthritis, but the process of bringing a drug to market was too involved for the then-teen.

“I didn't think it was feasible for a high school student to get millions of dollars to develop a drug and navigate the regulatory process,” Beharry says. “But it was interesting to know the steps that come after research and development.”

The experience convinced Beharry he could be a bioscience entrepreneur. The summer after his first year at Caltech, Beharry worked as a process development intern at A2 Biotherapeutics, a start-up that develops cancer cell therapies and is staffed with Caltech alumni. A year later, Beharry participated in OTTCP’s internship program. With support from Chiang and entrepreneur Shiv Shukla, Beharry investigated how to commercialize a wearable sensor developed in the laboratory of Wei Gao, professor of medical engineering, Caltech’s Ronald and JoAnne Willens Scholar, and investigator for Heritage Medical Research Institute. Using minute amounts of sweat, Gao’s sensor can reveal levels of estradiol, the most potent form of estrogen. After conducting research, Beharry advised to market the product to the fertility industry.

Beharry had not considered launching a start-up in college until he learned of the Bill Gross Business Plan Competition. As he weighed different business ideas, Beharry remembered how the drug approval process, known as Investigational New Drug (IND), posed formidable challenges for him, A2 Biotherapeutics, and countless other pharmaceutical companies. Beharry partnered with computer science undergraduate Katherine Xu to develop IND CoPilot, a tool that uses AI to streamline the IND process for applicants.

Beharry and Xu were runners-up in the competition and received a $10,000 prize. They are using the funds to finalize IND CoPilot’s prototype and plan to pitch to funders soon.

The experiences from the competition and his OTTCP internship have helped frame Beharry’s career outlook. “OTTCP helped me explore what my career could look like,” Beharry says. “I know now I can get a PhD and still move into venture capital or private equity.”

A Gift That Empowers Dreams

Encouraging students like Beharry to gain real, hands-on experience while studying at Caltech has drawn the support of Gross and Marcia Goodstein. The Gross-Goodstein Fund provides undergraduate scholarships, paid OTTCP internships, and prize money for the Bill Gross Business Plan Competition, allowing Caltech to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem for undergraduates. Last year, donations from both the Sunstone Community Fund (Sunstone Management, Inc.’s donor-advised fund) and the American Lending Center donor-advised fund allowed for generous cash awards. The top three finalists in the competition shared a combined prize of $70,000, and each of the 12 runners-up received a $10,000 award.

Gross, Goodstein, and Sunstone/ALC’s support is part of the Initiative for Caltech Students, a $250 million fundraising campaign to enhance a best-in-class student experience.

Gross understands the value of experimenting with business ideas while being a student. He built stereo speakers for friends and Caltech classmates that became so popular he took a sabbatical after his sophomore year to open a shop on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. The venture provided the foundation for even more ingenuity. The experience of advertising his business in the Yellow Pages inspired his paid search model. Goto.com, founded by Gross, pioneered the concept of paid search, giving relevant advertisers’ websites priority in search engine results.

“There are Caltech students in their dorms right now who are daydreaming about what they discovered in the lab,” says Gross. “They are asking themselves, ‘How does what I learn benefit society?’ Those are the students this gift was aimed to help.”