Unlocking Alumni Network Effects: Announcing the Mizzou Startup Community
Reach out to Brett Calhoun, General Partner at Redbud VC, at brett@redbud.vc to learn about Redbud, and subscribe to our newsletter here.
Before we dig into why alumni network effects are a key driver to a student’s success, let me quickly introduce a passion project of mine. I’m pumped to announce the Mizzou Startup Community (“MSC”), a platform for alumni and student builders to connect and access curated resources. We are launching MSC in tandem with the incubator for students we support on campus at Mizzou — if you’re a UM System student, apply here. There is a community of over 350k Mizzou alumni worldwide joining, building, and founding successful companies. These companies have already raised over $15B and surpassed a market cap of over $500B. Redbud VC is building the infrastructure for Mizzou alumni to support, connect with, mentor, and invest in alumni. The Mizzou Startup Community consolidates Mizzou data on thousands of alumni founders, execs, and investors, all Mizzou-founded companies, mentors, and a Slack community to connect with alums. Some resources include discounts and credits, over 20 hours of behind-the-scenes sessions with successful founders, a database of over 18k VC investors, dozens of mentors, and much more. Stay tuned for future tech and venture in-person events.
Join the Mizzou Startup Community here.
- Join, invest, and mentor startups
- Connect with alumni virtually and in person
- Access resources to build and grow your business
A common misconception about attending a university is that completing a degree with above-average results is the sole foundation for a successful career. A more accurate indicator of success is students who take advantage of networking opportunities outside the classroom accelerated by University channels, which will build intangible wealth before graduation. The thesis, network effects, and relationships are more valuable than monetary capital and education. Today, education is accessible anywhere, anytime, and consumable from any learning style. Textbooks are watered-down information dumps taught with some unique professor commentary, and few classes prepare someone for conquering the world instead of a test.
Enter entrepreneurship, an opportunity for students of all types — straight-A students, creative, rebellious, neurodivergent, or simply curious. To some extent, it doesn’t matter who you are. A good university supports entrepreneurial endeavors outside the classroom for everyone. The entrepreneurs are the ones who go on to build massive companies, change the world, and return as the largest donors to their alma matter. For example, a majority of the largest donations ever are by founders. In addition, launching a company can accelerate someone’s career by 2–3 years more than working a corporate job.
One of the reasons why Stanford University has been so successful is because they’ve created a flywheel effect with their alumni network. Stanford is among the top three universities and the leading university for entrepreneurship, accessing venture capital, and building massive companies. Stanford enacted the Stanford Alumni Mentoring (SAM) program in 2002, a prime example of leveraging alumni networks for student success. SAM connects students with over 200,000 alumni through an online platform, offering various engagement models such as open forum-style discussions and structured one-on-one mentoring. This program provides students with industry-specific career advice and mentorship tailored to their career paths.
The alumni community for universities like Stanford or Harvard is more than just a phone call and pat on the back; they change lives. Roughly 33% of all VC deals go to alumni of the VC’s alma mater. In addition, 40% of VC investors went to Harvard and Stanford, implying 13% of all VC deals are going to Harvard and Stanford alumni. Already, only 0.05% of startups raise VC money, which drops drastically if you go to a non-target University. Because of this, people in the industry will hide or not speak of their alma mater due to social embarrassment, discomfort, and unimportance. Even though you could be an accomplished first-generation graduate or a student-athlete or have decided to go to your parent’s alma mater. For whatever reason, this beautiful accomplishment has turned into a chip on your shoulder.
That said, many universities have produced unicorn founders (billion-dollar VC-backed tech startups) or even dozens of them. For example, the University of Missouri (Mizzou) has had seven unicorn founders, and other Middle America public Universities like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota have produced 46, 31, and 16, respectively. Moreover, the graphic below depicts that the University of Cincinnati and Utah have the highest likelihood of producing a unicorn; this is a great example that the prestige of the academic institution doesn’t matter when it comes to building companies.
In addition, many of these universities have produced successful bootstrapped founders. At the Unversity of Missouri, there are over 20 billion dollar company foundings; most didn’t even raise VC money. Mizzou founders have raised over $15B, with a market cap well above $500B. YC, one of the world's most notable investors, has two of its top 25 companies founded by Mizzou alums (e.g., EquipmentShare and Zapier).
Quick stats on Mizzou:
- >20 multi-billion dollar companies founded
- >$15B raised by alumni
- 2 of the top 25 YC companies had Mizzou founders
- The market cap of Mizzou-founded companies is well over $500B
- >350k alumni across the world
Based on the facts, it is clear that network effects and entrepreneurship are mutually beneficial drivers of success for universities and their students. This is why we at Redbud VC support an incubator on campus at Mizzou for student entrepreneurs and are building the Mizzou Startup Community. We aim to build the infrastructure for network effects, empower student entrepreneurs, and accelerate resources for the Mizzou network.
In addition to the Mizzou Startup Community, we organize Missouri Startup Weekend, which has historically been 50% students. In our first year organizing the event, Nick Farquhar, a Mizzou student, won and then decided to drop out of Mizzou. We invested in his company, Appreciate, through Redbud, and Nick went on to raise a Pre-Seed round and is now continuing to grow the business. Now, dropping out doesn’t necessarily have to be the case if the university has the right support around the student founder. Not dropping out can be beneficial due to the mentors, resources, and network effects a student could access. With the guidance of a strong mentor, students can walk through our guidebook on ideating, starting, building, and growing a startup and tap into our massive network. What we are doing at Mizzou can be replicated at many universities. It’s time to get students the resources to build massive companies. MIZ!
Reach out to Brett Calhoun, General Partner at Redbud VC, at brett@redbud.vc to learn about Redbud, and subscribe to our newsletter here.
