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“My uncle brainwashed us all,” Becca Kuperschmid ‘23 says. “I think I’m number 16 or 17 in my family to go through Duke.”
"Duke was always where I wanted to go. I grew up loving sports and I really wanted that atmosphere, so Duke ended up being the perfect combination of a great sports school and a world-class education."
Long before Becca arrived on campus, she was already building.
“I’ve always been a builder,” she says. “A running joke with my dad is I always have a startup of the day.”
Combining Theory and Practice
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When she arrived at Duke, Becca did not arrive with a fixed path or major in mind. Instead, Becca focused on the competencies and outcomes she would gain. She found a major in Public Policy with a certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) to be a perfect combination. Her Public Policy major trained her to write clearly and think critically, learning how to convey complex messages efficiently to different audiences. I&E provided the sandbox to experiment and apply those skills.
Pursuing the I&E certificate was, in her words, “a no-brainer.” Becca was introduced to I&E through a class with Jamie Jones, Director of Duke I&E and Associate Professor of the Practice of Management. “When I saw New Ventures Discover, I was like, this is a really awesome opportunity to learn and truly understand the science of entrepreneurship,” she says. “What does it mean for there to be product-market fit? How do you find a customer? How do you know if you have a good idea?”
Learning the Science of Building
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“My parents always told me my ideas were good,” she says. "It wasn’t until Jamie Jones’ class that I learned, ‘Becca... that’s not really a good idea,’" she recalls. "And that is incredibly powerful.”
“Good ideas take iteration. They take time. Not every idea is going to be a hit.” Duke I&E became “a really great safe space to fail and learn and experiment.”
“I was self-aware enough to know that I was not ready to create something of my own,” she says. “I wanted to learn. I wanted to get my hands dirty.”
Throughout her I&E certificate, Becca had the chance to work with fellow I&E Certificate alum John Antonelli '23, co-founder of Real Sports, a social sports data platform that engages fans around live sports events. She worked alongside an interdisciplinary team of undergraduates and MBA students. This taught her the value of “showing up confidently and knowing she has value to contribute,” key skills that would help her later in her career.
Managing Uncertainty with Disciplined Action
Senior year did not unfold the way she expected. She felt "behind the curve" in the senior year job hunt while her friends secured offers in banking and consulting.
In December 2022, she made it to the final round for a role in Tech Sales at Google. Then layoffs hit. Her recruiter was laid off, and she graduated from Duke without a job.
Instead of panicking, she leaned into the Duke network and treated her job search like a startup: “I felt like I was the founder of my job journey,” she says. “I pulled out a Google Sheet, and every single day, I would reach out to two people on LinkedIn.”
This time was challenging, with a lot of uncertainty. Without a clear path forward, Becca relied on the entrepreneurial competencies she developed at Duke: Bias for Action. Navigating ambiguity. Learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Building at Scale
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Her resilience paid off when she found Google’s Associate Product Marketing Manager (APMM) program—a highly selective program where she was one of 30 people to be accepted into the cohort.
Today, Becca works on products used by billions, such as Google Photos. She describes her environment as an "MBA of Marketing," where she is constantly "intellectually stimulated" and her Gen Z perspective is treated as a valued edge in product decisions.
Becca now uses the exact storytelling and deck-building skills she honed in her I&E courses. “I pitch all day, every day nowadays,” she says. “Understanding your audience, what it means to craft a story on slides, is an incredibly valuable skill to have.”
She recently won "Dragons' Den," an internal innovation competition modeled after Shark Tank, which involved pitching to a marketing organization of 6,000 people and the CMO.
"My idea gets to go live within Google," she says. "It’s moments like that where it’s really cool to see it all come together."
Advice for Current Duke Students: Building the Path Less Taken
Becca’s advice to current Duke students is simple: Do not be afraid of being "cringe."
"The line between cringe and being successful is so thin," she says, noting that many students hold back their best ideas for fear of being judged. "Embarrassment is just a frame of mind... Anyone can be a builder." “Put yourself out there. Don’t be afraid to get feedback.” "I give so much credit to the I&E program for learning that it's okay to fail, you just gotta fail a little faster."
She encourages students to view I&E not as a path exclusively for aspiring founders, but as a way to "light a fire" for any career. “The concepts you learn along with the ownership mindset you develop will set you apart in any competitive recruiting environment.”
"You just have to expand your surface area for luck... that’s when you start to make major movements in your life.”