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When you hear the phrase “wearing many hats,” you may not picture literal hats—but the phrase dates back to the mid-1900s, when those in different occupations indeed wore different corresponding headgear. And watching the students from the inaugural I&E+ program present their final projects working with Triangle-area startups, one could understand why many of them used the phrase.
“[My partner] Tyler and I got to wear a lot of hats,” noted Montana Lee ’26 with a laugh, detailing her team’s broad-ranging experience over the summer. “And while it was definitely a steep learning curve at first, ultimately we learned a lot more because of it.”
Over 10 weeks, the students in the program partnered with local startups to experience entrepreneurship while launching new products, completing a website redesign, performing customer interviews and market research, and learning a host of new tools.
Their company partners—five startups including chief program sponsor Teamworks—curated projects for the students, mentored them, taught and explained new concepts, and ushered and guided them through startup life, with students splitting time between the startups and the Duke I&E Bullpen, where they learned entrepreneurial concepts and skills, participated in workshops, met with local startup founders and Duke alumni (see “Community Voices”), and enjoyed cohort community-building activities. The program culminated in final presentations attended by Duke faculty and staff, as well as representatives from each of the startups.
“Our goal was to give students rich learning experiences in real startups, along with providing exceptional student talent to local companies who may not otherwise have been able to compensate interns,” explained Duke I&E Senior Program Coordinator Anna Jacobs. “I hope this peek into startup life also helped to inform students’ broader career decisions and empowered them to explore beyond traditional paths.”
Partnering on Real Projects With Real Impact
The students, who worked in pairs, hailed from a wide range of backgrounds, programs, and majors—from biomedical engineering to visual and media studies—with some already comfortable with entrepreneurship concepts, and others completely new to the world of startups.
Montana Lee ’26 and Tyler Doan ’26 worked with Cadence Cash (mentored by Andrea Inokon ’00 and Charles Inokon), which helps women- and minority-owned businesses get funding.
Updated Cadence Cash’s website, social channels, and newsletter look and feel and created short-form content for social media.
Brandon Shintani ’27 and Cameron Koon ’26 worked with Teamworks (mentored by Yao Shengjie ’19 and supported by Hilary Lerner ’89), an operating system that solves challenges for athletes and administrators.
Explored current trends for student athletes and athletics administrators and pain points in current processes, resulting in interface recommendations.
Evan Bulan ’27 and Joshua Helguera ’25 worked with Opine (mentored by Akash Ganapathi), which helps enterprise tech sellers speed up proofs-of-concept, streamlining the sales process.
Crafted an outbound email marketing campaign with expertise from sales leaders, initiated and tailored outbound campaigns and held market research meetings, and worked on Google Ads marketing.
Catie Barry ’26 worked with CareYaya (mentored by Neal Shah), which empowers pre-health college students as caregivers, making quality care and experience affordable and meaningful.
Conducted research, did concepting and prototyping, and created grant proposal for AI-supported music use with dementia patients.
Sarah Tandon ’27 and Chloe Yang ’27 worked with Hummingbird Healthcare (mentored by Sudha Meghan and Andrew Catalfamo), which makes public health more accessible through programming, education, and telemedicine.
Conducted competitor analysis and made recommendations for areas of expansion; conducted review of leading product to assess impact.
Community Voices: I&E+ Guest Speakers
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- Anuj Thakkar BSE ’20: Translating Your Many Interests Into a Career
- Tim Scales MBA ’17 (American Underground): Tour of American Underground and story of his career
- Paola Ayala (pictured; Trayecto): Leaving a Big Tech Job to Work at a Startup
- Russell Kroeger (Trayecto): Managing Your Finances Early in Your Career
- Jacob Molz (REVGEN): Building a Startup That Lasts: Leveraging Revenue Architecture for Scalability and Durability
- Bill Fields (Bridge Bank): The Funding Side of Startups
- Christina Plante (Duke University Career Center): Maximizing Your Summer Internship Experience
- Mike Murphy (Duke University School of Law): Startup Law 101
- Akash Ganapathi (Opine): Bringing Product to Market
- Kyle Williams (Duke I&E): Design Thinking Deep Dive
- Abby Grubbs (Duke I&E): Moonshot Thinking
- Shep Moyle (Duke I&E): Personal Branding
- Josh Cohen (Duke I&E): Sales 101
- Ben Thomason (Duke I&E): Financial Modeling
Learning by Doing: Lessons From the Startup Life
In addition to wearing many hats, common themes emerged during the students’ presentations—namely, startups move fast, and constant iteration is vital, as are user feedback and clear communication.
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“You need a lot of iterations for a product,” said Brandon Shintani, who worked with Teamworks. “Continuously gathering feedback from users to refine your product is crucial to success.”
Students also pointed to the importance of adjusting work and approach to the project or company at hand—for instance, whereas Teamworks is a larger company, with 400 people, only 10 people were in the office, the company being mostly remote. That environment is a very different one than working with Hummingbird Healthcare, which operated out of American Underground, a Durham startup hub and coworking space.
More Program Takeaways
Brandon: “You talk to a student athlete in a different way than you would talk to coaches, directors, or CFOs. You have to talk to every person on their level and build rapport.”
Montana: “Before my internship, I did shy away from innovation, specifically generative AI, because I just found it scary and unapproachable, and I just had no idea how to integrate it into my workflow. When I started working for a tech company, I had to drop that mindset. I started using a lot of AI tools and integrating them into my workflow. I became a more productive employee because of it, and it's also helped me a lot with my personal projects.”
Sarah: “I really enjoyed experiencing my first nine-to-five job working with the team, but also having a time when I could really focus and get work done in the office. I also was able to learn a lot of important tools, and it was really interesting to see the teamwork and the collaboration—how all the different people in the company have their own respective roles, but also work together to ensure the success of the company.”
Chloe: “It was pretty common for the project to pivot from week to week, and because of that, not only did I learn to be independent, but I also learned to keep myself motivated and accountable, as we worked in a pretty tight-knit team and there were constantly changing deadlines. I also learned to be creative in terms of the different resource constraints that we had.”
Josh: “I didn’t expect to be so impacted by the environment. Being in such a fast-paced environment and having that face time with the CEO and co-founders now gives me a vision for the future in which I have a lot more dedication, a lot more motivation, and I know exactly what I want to do. The criteria for building a business you believe in are hard, undeterred work and clever sales strategy and personal branding.”
Supporting Area Startups
The startup partners were quick to recognize the mutual benefits of I&E+. “This program was a wonderful, win-win way to give back to sharp students by immersing them in a real entrepreneurial environment, while getting some young, creative minds with great energy and spirit,” said Akash Ganapathi, cofounder and CEO of Opine.
Neal Shah, founder and CEO of CareYaya, noted that during his own college experience, he always had to prioritize paid opportunities, which often meant forgoing valuable experiences at early-stage startups that couldn’t match the compensation of larger companies.
“I truly appreciate the vision and impact of this program—giving startups access to top talent we couldn't otherwise afford, while providing students invaluable hands-on experience in innovation and entrepreneurship without financial sacrifice,” Shah said. “As both a former student who would have benefited enormously from such a program, and as a current startup founder, I can't overstate the importance of initiatives like I&E+ in fostering the next generation of diverse innovators and entrepreneurs.”