Tutoring changed the course of Andrew Shenouda’s academic career.
The young Northeastern University computer science and business major struggled with reading until third grade, when extra help helped him place at the top of his class.
When he got to high school, he wanted to unleash that same potential in other students. He started a non-profit tutoring service with over 20 tutors. Ultimately, he fell into the same trap that many businesses fall into: the administrative aspect took more time than the tutoring itself.
Shenouda arrived in the Northeast in the fall of 2020 with a dream of starting a business, perhaps one that could help solve problems like the one he faced in his previous project. That’s how he ended up entering a business pitch competition hosted by the Entrepreneur’s Club, the largest student-run organization on campus. His idea placed third.
“Participating in this pitch competition put me in the shoes of someone who felt like I was the real deal,” Shenouda said. “It gave me the confidence to push myself and try to bring the idea to life.”
Shenouda’s company, Tadpole, a platform that allows tutors to manage the administrative side of their business, has now raised $30,000 in grants and is about six months away from user onboarding. It is also an example of how Northeastern’s entrepreneurial organizations under the Mosaic umbrella can help bring the ideas of aspiring founders to life.
“At every step of my journey to building a business, whether it was ideation or product development or getting to the point where I’m trying to sell to customers… there was some kind of organization from the Northeast to help me and a lot of those organizations were under the Mosaic umbrella,” he says. “I didn’t even realize Northeastern had the resources that it did and I was pleasantly surprised on a few different levels.”
Mosaic was designed as a way to unite Northeastern’s various entrepreneurial student organizations, many of which were often working on the same projects at the same time. It started about seven years ago with three groups of students and 30 students. Today, it is made up of 11 student-led organizations, with 400 students in leadership roles and 500 projects benefiting from their support, impacting more than 3,000 students and community members across the Northeast.
“Mosaic is sort of the hub of all the student-led entrepreneurship organizations here at Northeastern,” says Tyler Farley, Mosaic program manager and D’Amore-McKim School of Business graduate. “Each Mosaic member group directly supports (entrepreneurial) businesses through acceleration or advisory work.”
Mosaic organizations provide a range of offerings from networking opportunities to connecting entrepreneurs with investors and venture capital firms. They also offer more technical support. Generate, a student-run product development studio, provides hardware and software development to clients.
Ryan Lonkart, a fourth-year computer engineering student and executive director of Generate, says the studio welcomes eight to nine clients each semester. The work goes beyond just writing code: The group recently built a prototype of an automated date slicer for a snack company.
“We’re here to be that support network for those who don’t come from an engineering background,” Lonkart says. “We exist to help advance companies that are looking for a little technical development in their work.”
However, the benefits go both ways. While students help entrepreneurs build businesses, they also develop their own skills.
“It’s an incredible resource, and it’s also experiential learning,” Farley says. “I’ve seen tons of students get co-op placements and full-time jobs purely because of their experience with Mosaic because they were building a prototype or designing packaging for a company in their time outside of class.
Many of the student leaders in Mosaic organizations are entrepreneurs themselves, so they know how intimidating it can be to start a business. However, these organizations not only provide support, but also make the prospect of starting a business more feasible, says Izabella Pivo, CEO of IDEA and a third-year business and communications major.
“The startup industry can seem very competitive,” she says. “Imposter syndrome is so common and we feel like we’re the only ones experiencing it. It’s important to have a community you can go to for feedback and talk about similar issues you’re facing. You may work in completely different industries, but you can always find a common thread. At IDEA and Mosaic, you can meet people who believe in themselves and seek to help everyone succeed.
Mosaic’s presence has expanded beyond Boston. Last fall, the London campus launched Northeastern’s Young Entrepreneurs program, which falls under the Mosaic umbrella. NYE offers programs to develop students’ entrepreneurial skills and introduce them to what entrepreneurship looks like in different industries. Piranas Jeyanthan, student leader at NYE, says the group applied to join Mosaic as soon as it launched to collaborate with the other student organizations under its umbrella.
“We give students the opportunity to see what entrepreneurship in the UK is really like and the chance to network with a variety of entrepreneurs and small businesses,” Jeyanthan added. “We also enable them to develop key skills that are essential to the success of a startup, but which are also transferable to other sectors and careers.”
The Oakland campus will also open its own chapter of the Entrepreneurs Club this fall, Farley said.
Any student is welcome to join one of Mosaic’s organizations, even if they are not studying business. Farley says bringing together students from all disciplines is one of Mosaic’s most valuable assets.
“What’s really impactful for entrepreneurs around the world is working in an interdisciplinary context,” he says. “It’s helpful to have someone from the Bouve College of Health Sciences be able to sit down with law and business students. When all these different points of view come together in the same room, people end up learning a lot more.
It can also provide clarity to students on their career path. Sari Finn, a fifth-year industrial engineering student, never planned to go into business, but she is now finishing her studies at Northeastern as co-director of WISE (Women’s Interhistorical Society for Entrepreneurship) and doing a co-op internship at Sherman Center which allows him to focus full-time on developing his business (a faith-based app called Joyvine).
Finn had originally planned to pursue engineering, but his involvement with WISE made him realize it was possible to start his own business. His goal is now to be self-employed by 2031.
“WISE was a personal introduction for me to the belief that I too could (be an entrepreneur), she says. “By being so heavily involved in the WISE and Mosaic ecosystem, I realized… that I could build something and lead a group of women and non-binary people who also help others build something.
Mosaic is hosting two events for students interested in getting involved. THE Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fair will take place at the Library Quad from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on September 13. There will also be a Entrepreneurship and Innovation Launch Event in EXP from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on September 27.
Erin Kayata is a reporter for Northeastern Global News. Send him an email to e.kayata@northeastern.edu. Follow her on Twitter @erin_kayata.
