The new Semester has begun!
Last Friday marked the beginning of a new semester at Hildegard and a new chapter for the Entrepreneur Lab!
This was the first time our Hildegard undergraduate students, visiting Vanguard University students, and members of our new Creators Cohorts came together for a full day sprint.
The morning began with our first Creators & Coffee of the semester, featuring Joshua Watson, co-founder of Art for the Isolated.
Joshua shared the story of a question that had stayed with him since art school. While visiting his grandfather near the end of his life, he was struck by the contrast between the meaningful, provocative work he encountered in galleries and the sterile environments surrounding people experiencing illness and loss.
Years later, during the pandemic, he watched bakers give bread to caregivers and florists give flowers. And he wondered: Why can’t artists give art?
That question became Art for the Isolated, an organization bringing art and poetry into spaces marked by illness, displacement, and loss. Today, the organization is working with partners including Brown University Health and Stanford Children’s Health.
But the conversation wasn't simply about art. It became a conversation about what it actually looks like to build something meaningful.
Joshua talked candidly about the tension between mission and money, the temptation to chase funding rather than purpose, the importance of staying close to the people you're serving, and the long stretches of uncertainty that come with entrepreneurship.
His encouragement to the creators in the room was remarkably simple:
Stick with it.
If you want to watch the full video, click here!
After Creators & Coffee, our students and Creators Cohort members moved into a three-hour Sprint focused on Business Model Design & Financial Strategy.
The sprint began with a intimate Q&A with Joshua where he discussed how his six-year journey of turning a meaningful idea into a sustainable organization without losing sight of his vision. Then, our students began asking for themselves.
What are we creating? Who is it for? Why does it matter? And how do we build it in a way that can last?
Each participant began considering the real venture, project, or body of work they will develop throughout the semester. Over the coming months, they'll use that context to build and test a Business Model Canvas, financial model, and pro forma—while wrestling with the larger ethical and strategic questions underneath them.
That's the work ahead this semester.
And we're excited to see what they build.