Lucas Espada — First ShowNxt, Now IDEA
As the world begins to adjust to the new normal, we’d like to announce that the 12th Altschuler-Meyer CEO of IDEA, Northeastern University’s Venture Accelerator, Lucas Espada, is a CEO not quite like the others. Lucas Espada is a 4th-year Business major concentrating in Entrepreneurship with minors in Computer Science and Psychology, and also is the first IDEA CEO to simultaneously be a current venture in the Northeastern Entrepreneurial Ecosystem.
Lucas Espada’s entrepreneurial journey began on career day in the Second Grade. Where other kids came in with dreams of being doctors, lawyers, or engineers, Espada had been so inspired by Walt Disney’s life story that he wanted to be an entrepreneur. For Espada, the notion that Disney could come from a background of poverty and become a man who created a whole universe with a lasting legacy was life-changing. So, he decided to become an entrepreneur, to become someone who creates value and leaves a lasting impact.
Espada has come a long way from those dreams of grandeur, and he is even more dedicated to reaching for the stars and entrepreneurship. In Espada’s own words, “creativity is at the core of why I want to be an Entrepreneur.” This creativity, motivated by Espada’s passions, has led him to pursue a great many ideas. His most notable idea is the venture ShowNxt, which is currently in the Go Stage of the IDEA Acceleration process. One of Espada’s greatest passions in life is soccer. Espada has played soccer and a great variety of sports all his life — most notably, having played eleven sports in kindergarten and dabbling along the way before settling on soccer as ‘the one’ in his sophomore year. This love of soccer is central to who Espada is as a person, so naturally, many of his business ideas have been related to soccer.
ShowNxt originally existed as a different business called Captiv, which consisted of Espada making highlight videos for other athletes. Espada started it as a high school senior and brought it into the Husky Startup Challenge in the Fall semester of his freshman year at Northeastern. He made it all the way to the finals, where he got invaluable experience pitching for Captiv, and it inspired the first inklings of the idea for ShowNxt. He noticed that the opportunities for amazing student-athletes to get recruited were limited by their financial situations and began trying to come up with solutions. As Espada got more involved in the Northeastern Entrepreneurship Ecosystem, Captiv continued to grow and evolve.
In the Spring semester of his freshman year, while Espada was co-directing the Husky Startup Challenge with Fernanda Lopez, he began building the team that currently makes up ShowNxt. Also during this semester, Espada was the only walk-on from tryouts to make the Northeastern Division 1 Soccer team, despite not having been recruited. Espada became more firm in his resolve to find a way to bridge the gap he noticed the semester before — especially now that he knew he possessed the skills to play for Varsity; he just had not been seen by recruiters.
In his Sophomore year, while Espada was co-Vice President of the Entrepreneurs Club with Neil Bhammar, Espada and a few of his like-minded friends continued to rework the venture. The idea of building a mobile app platform that allows athletes to showcase their skills directly to recruiters with the initial cost of simply having a smartphone did not quite come to them until January 2020, mere weeks before the Coronavirus shut down Northeastern University and the world at large. At this point, is when the concept of ShowNxt as it currently exists was born. ShowNxt began to really take flight after the team decided to change the name to ShowNxt, as they felt that ‘Captiv’ was not truly reflective of the platform’s goal. They started building the app around mid-February 2020. Despite some difficulties they faced working around Coronavirus, the team and the user base of the app grew, reaching 1100 users by September of that year and even garnering them interest from 34 different universities. Around this time is when Espada first began to get involved with IDEA as a venture.
Espada had already been acquainted with Karan Kishorepuria, the previous IDEA venture director, but had not considered getting involved with IDEA management until Kishorepuria reached out to him and asked him if he would be interested in being IDEA’s first CEO to also be a venture. Initially, Espada did not see himself interested in becoming IDEA’s CEO, as he wanted to instead do his third co-op with the Sherman Center focusing on ShowNxt. However, Espada realized that he would always find time in his life to dedicate to ShowNxt and that he also wanted to take the opportunity to give back to the Entrepreneurship community that he feels supported him. So Espada put together a plan for what he wanted this year to look like, presented it, and got the position.
As someone who has been a venture working with IDEA and directly involved in the greater Northeastern University Entrepreneurial Ecosystem for his entire time studying at Northeastern University, Espada is more than prepared to bring great changes this year. Espada credits this year’s spirit of change to the Northeastern University Center for Entrepreneurship Education (also known as NUCEE), especially noting “this is the first time a venture has been the IDEA CEO, and I think that says a lot about the management team in terms of what they’re looking for. Everything about this year is about being more open and inclusive, and that starts from NUCEE.”
To continue with his theme of IDEA being more inclusive and open, Espada has already implemented some changes and intends to implement more in the remainder of this year. These changes range from working with the eleven other clubs in the Northeastern University Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, who all fall under the umbrella organization of MOSAIC, to implementing the first-ever pitch portion of NEXPO — IDEA’s yearly celebration of entrepreneurship and innovation. Espada mainly wants everything that IDEA accomplishes this year to drive home a point best put in his own words, “Entrepreneurship is agnostic, it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter where you come from. If you have an idea, you deserve to be able to create it.”
Espada describes his goals for this year as being able to “create a record number of opportunities for ventures and entrepreneurs in our ecosystem. “ Espada wants to give more opportunities to ventures and makes decisions based on being able to empathize with ventures on a level previous management teams could not. For example, NEXPO this year, for the first time, will allow four ventures to pitch directly to angel investors for capital ranging anywhere from $30,000 to $300,000 in a portion of the program called NEXPITCH. This addition is directly inspired by Espada’s understanding that one thing he always loves to have for ShowNxt is the ability to pitch directly to investors for more funding. Espada wants the ventures involved with IDEA to know that he can empathize with them and that he wants them to understand that he means it when he says, “I know what you’re going through, I know what this feels like, I know how difficult it is — I’m here to support you in any way that I can.”
This year is IDEA’s first year active in what many call a ‘Post-Covid’ era, and it presents some unique challenges. Despite the quirks involved with planning events in two different mediums to keep everyone within their comfort zones and respect health guidelines, Espada is optimistic nonetheless. To Espada, “everything that IDEA stands for is education. Education of our team, education of the founders who come through our program, and education for everybody who walks through our door,” and he hopes to continue IDEA’s spirit of education. Espada goes on to talk about how IDEA educates, saying, “Education through failure is probably one of the most valuable education that you can get. And coming into the lab, you’re going to fail. — And every time you do, our team is here to tell you why and how you failed, and why and how to improve.”
In summation, the 12th Altschuler-Meyer CEO of IDEA Venture Accelerator Lucas Espada is a very passionate person about a great many things, particularly entrepreneurship, and he hopes to share this enthusiasm and passion not only within IDEA and the ventures associated with it but to the greater Northeastern University Entrepreneurship Ecosystem and community as a whole. He brings a new dynamic outlook to the IDEA management team that has not yet been seen and aims to make a great impact.
If you are interested in getting involved with IDEA or learning more about us, please visit this page or subscribe to our newsletter!
