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How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I was inspired to launch STEM Muse as a result of the success of a mentorship program that we developed at UT. We were thrilled to learn that mentees in our program were landing internships and full-time positions at their mentors’ companies, and it was inspiring that we could have such a meaningful impact on womens’ professional trajectories. We wanted to extend our impact to women beyond UT and recognized that we’d discovered a novel way for companies to recruit diverse, highly qualified candidates through the sustained interactions our program catalyzes.
Here’s a sampling of our participants’ feedback that spurred this initiative:
Mentor testimonials
"Participating in this program has been so fulfilling and valuable for me. I observed so much growth from my mentee and looked forward to our monthly meetings. She was open and willing to try new things, asked great questions, and was very engaged throughout the year. I helped coach her to prepare for an internship interview which she was offered and accepted! It was really exciting and rewarding to see her develop and her confidence to grow. The conversation guidelines made our meetings flow really well and sparked a lot of great conversation."
"My mentee grew so much over the year. She earned and worked for a wonderful internship over the summer and did a great job at it. I am so proud of her growth."
"Conversation guidelines are GOLD. They keep the meetings flowing and a lot of great conversation comes from them. They set this mentoring program apart from others I have participated in."
“I believe this mentorship program was incredibly beneficial to my mentee and me. I was able to assist my mentee with learning skills for applying to research programs, contacting faculty members for research jobs, and navigating the process of applying to graduate school. My mentee was successful in securing an REU at the Mayo Clinic last summer and has also been hired in a long-term research technician position as an undergraduate student in a lab on campus.”
Mentee testimonials
"Getting to know my mentor really humanized the STEM field and made it look ‘achievable’ to me as a 1st gen college student..."
“I feel a larger sense of belonging than I did before…; I feel like I have narrowed down the career field I want to be in and what I want to do after graduation”
“10/10 would recommend everyone sign up for the mentorship program. I have been in a lot of mentorship programs and events and this was by far the best and most organized.”
What does the average day look like for you now as an entrepreneur (especially compared to past jobs/days)?
Unlike many other graduate student founders, STEM Muse does not relate directly to my PhD research, and I play a dual role as an entrepreneur and scientist in a lab coat. I spend the majority of my day in my research lab balancing running experiments and analyzing data for my dissertation while popping out for occasional meetings with mentors, lawyers, and customers/potential customers. I typically work well into the evening, sometimes heading home to grab a bite to eat or to play a quick game of pickup soccer (my favorite reset) before returning to the lab later that night. This has been the busiest time of my life, and I typically stay quite busy, but as I approach graduation and we scale STEM Muse beyond UT, we’re working on building the team to ensure sustainable growth.
What are some of the top things you have learned so far?
Stepping from the field of science into the startup world has been an eye-opening experience, and it’s been nice to learn how transferable many of our skills as scientists and perspectives are to being effective founders. The education and research experiences that accompany PhD programs equip graduate student founders with critical thinking and wire us to apply a hypothesis-driven approach, both of which have been very helpful in the foundation and early evolution of STEM Muse.
I have also learned that having a multifaceted network of mentors who can mentor you across a variety of areas can be essential. We’ve leveraged the experiences of a diverse group of mentors– people from many different backgrounds, in academia and industry, steeped in the startup ecosystem and not– who have shaped my journey in founding STEM Muse from multiple angles and have been instrumental in our successes to date.
Who or what inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
I had never strongly considered becoming an entrepreneur or thought that was the path for me, but that changed when my mother started considering starting her own company and as I became exposed to the incredible startup ecosystem at UT. I was inspired to explore the UT startup ecosystem because I viewed founding a student organization as a baby version of launching a startup (which I think in hindsight holds up), and I figured I would be able to gain important insights into leadership and effectively running an organization by better understanding how to start and run a successful company. I decided through my experiences with Texas Venture Labs and a strategic management course I took through McCombs that I would enjoy the fast pace and challenge of startups, and that if I were to launch one, it would be ideal to do so in the context of UT, where there are so many incredible resources available to founders. One of my male lab colleagues once commented that I was going to be a “bada** business woman”, which bolstered my confidence and in combination with my mother’s ambition likely had a real impact and helped me seriously consider the idea of founding STEM Muse, when I might not have otherwise.
What have been 1-2 of your proudest moments in creating your business?
We have been proudest of the impact our mentorship program has had on the women we serve (numerous have landed land jobs and internships as a result, and many report enhanced confidence and feelings of belonging in their STEM field). We have learned of these successes all the more as we collect feedback to continue to develop our program with our users front and center and to tout to potential investors and sponsors. We’re also proud to have commitments from our first official founding customers after mere months of building, taking an idea to fruition while working full-time on our separate graduate research projects. We attribute this milestone to the fantastic mentorship we’ve received as well as to our prioritization of customer interviews, which have enabled market discovery and the honing of our MVP.
What’s the best advice you have received along your journey?
“Done is better than perfect”. As a scientist, I have been trained to be very detail-oriented, which is often advantageous but on rare occasions can get in our way of productivity. We have gotten better at embracing the process and the dynamics of imperfect decision making, coming to accept the minimal nature of an MVP while continuing to iterate and make improvements, keeping a long-term vision in focus.
“Execution can be as critical as the ideas“. Scientists are wired to think of novel and revolutionary ways to approach and solve problems. In the context of STEM Muse, we’re directing this capability towards addressing the obstacles surrounding recruitment, retention, and advancement that are inhibiting the success of women in STEM, and our solutions have ranged from taxing initiatives with high impact to small changes in our approach that have had similar impact. Through the course of our program’s development, we’ve quickly come to realize that an idea is only as good as your ability to execute it well and consistently. We’ve become adept at prioritizing ideas that have a high ROI and are both executable and high-impact.
About The Author:
Sophie Sanchez '23
Founder of STEM Muse