A variety of resources are available for members of the Media Lab community interested in starting their own companies, from courses and other learning opportunities, to early-stage funding and networking events.
Media Lab lecturer Joost Bonsen (jpbonsen@mit.edu), who co-teaches a number of ventures-related courses, and E14 Fund managing partners Habib Haddad (habib@e14fund.com) and Calvin Chin (calvin@e14fund.com) are always happy to talk to members of the Media Lab community about entrepreneurship, whether you’re just beginning to consider starting a company, thinking about joining an existing startup, or have already founded a venture and are looking to expand it.
The E14 Fund has a fellowship program, which offers investments of approximately $50,000 to founders who are early in their journeys, in addition to its core investment program of $1 million per company—more than 30 recent MAS grads have received these fellowships. While receiving a fellowship does not guarantee additional funding from the E14 Fund, they can be helpful in getting a new venture off the ground without tapping into personal savings or asking friends and family members for donations.
Calvin and Habib have collected a number of free resources, from reading recommendations and email templates to AWS credits, to assist E14 Fund Fellows and other members of the extended community. The list is updated regularly and available here. (You’ll need to input an email address, but only Calvin will see it.)
Keep an eye out for the next Media Lab Venture Summit, which will be held in virtual space in February or March, 2021. More information will be posted here, and also included in MLWeekly.