By Caroline Ponseti '15
During his years at Rhodes, chemistry major Eric Mathews ’02 supplemented his classroom experiences by building learning systems for artificial intelligence research in the psychology department. A decade later as the founder and CEO of Start Co., Mathews applies those same skills to build software with entrepreneurs.
Mathews’ post-graduate studies exposed him to the research and business side of the technology development world and sparked an interest in the start-up industry. After getting a master’s degree in cognitive psychology, he became associate director for corporate research and development at the FedEx Institute for Technology.
“We were building all of these cool technologies, but I was wondering where all of these cool tech start-ups were,” says Mathews. “We needed to provide the infrastructure for those who are unsure if they have good ideas so that they can get to resources like incubation and venture capital that exist in our community.”
Since his entrance into the technology development sector, Mathews has been instrumental in establishing the start-up world in the region. The journey began in 2006, and in 2008 he founded what would become Start Co., a nonprofit that works at the early stages of entrepreneurship. Start Co. invests in four areas: women-led tech start-ups, logistics technology, enterprise software, and social entrepreneurship. “Those play to the strengths of our Memphis community and have attracted people from all over the world to come here and build,” says Mathews.
Start Co. focuses on the three early stages that an entrepreneur goes through before they can get to incubation and venture capital. In the “idea sandbox” stage, Start Co. provides workshops, business boot camps, start-up weekends, and office hours for entrepreneurs to test and develop their ideas. The core of Start Co.’s work lies in the subsequent accelerator level, where the company provides mentorship and investment capital to help entrepreneurs progress. In the final post-acceleration stage, Start Co. provides companies with new strategies and tactics to help them transition from product success to business success. It has also created an entrepreneurial ecosystem including an angel network and professional service providers to offer an infrastructure for successful start-ups.
Mathews credits his liberal arts curriculum for providing him with diverse skill sets at an early stage in his career. “I can think of a lot of courses that have impacted me and how fortuitous it was to take those courses like architecture to financial accounting,” he says. “I took business classes even as a chemistry major. I gained communications skills through my writing courses. In order to be an excellent entrepreneur, you have to be an excellent communicator.”
He emphasizes the value of having engaged in active research as an undergraduate student. “I think it’s certainly not just the education of the classroom,” he says. “As always, Rhodes is continuing to iterate and think through what the future of this education is supposed to look like inside and outside the classroom. And the liberal arts education has been directly applicable to the work that we are doing here at Start Co.”
The world of entrepreneurship has grown immensely since Mathews attended Rhodes in the dot-com era, and he has offered his experience and expertise to Rhodes students. “Being an entrepreneur, I’ve been wanting to get back into the campus and build the campus ecosystem,” says Mathews. “As we are local to Rhodes College, we are uniquely positioned to do that. All of the knowledge skills that we have accumulated in the past decade, we can now apply to Rhodes College.”
For students interested in becoming entrepreneurs, Mathews and his Start Co. team have offered office hours each semester, hosted entrepreneurship workshops on campus, and conducted business idea competitions. The company was also instrumental in helping business students establish an entrepreneurship club last year. Rhodes students have become immersed in the entrepreneurial world through internships at Start Co., and one of the company’s latest hires was a recent Rhodes graduate.
“The nature of the collaboration is that we are long-term partners in expanding entrepreneurship throughout the Rhodes campus and also throughout the broader community, because we are visiting with alumni now in different parts of the country and talking with them and getting them involved and engaged,” explains Mathews.
Mathews has found that his work has also enabled him to give back to Memphis. “We aren’t doing start-ups for start-ups’ sake,” he explains. “We are doing this to change our community in a very fundamental way through entrepreneurship. We believe that, if we do a good job, there will be economic vibrancy that will last beyond our lifetimes, transforming this community.”