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Video: Yale Entrepreneurial Institute Fellows on Yale SOM’s Supportive Founder Community

One of the many resources available to students entrepreneurs at the Yale School of Management is the 10-week Yale Entrepreneurial Institute Fellowship Program.

Students who arrive at Yale School of Management with an idea for a startup—or who are inspired along their MBA journey—benefit from a wealth of resources and a supportive community that enables them to bring their vision to fruition. Among these resources are Yale SOM’s own Program on Entrepreneurship, a suite of courses dedicated to entrepreneurship, the student-run Entrepreneurship Club, and the university-wide Yale Entrepreneurial Institute (YEI).

We talked to some of the students who spent the summer in the 10-week-long YEI Fellowship program. The program serves as an incubator for startups, providing a  $15,000 stipend, as well as access to legal, accounting, and marketing advice and opportunities to pitch to investors.

“I had a really great experience with all of the mentorship, and it was a super supportive community,” said Cat Wu ’17, whose venture, Re-Harvest Foods, turns “ugly” misshapen produce into a profitable item by transforming it into products like the startup’s Ugly Fruit applesauce. “They were immensely helpful in coaching me—someone with no background in food whatsoever—about all of the things that should be on my horizon.