Why we’re launching YES Incubator
The mission, vision, and purpose behind the Yale Entrepreneurial Society’s new initiative: the YES Startup Incubator.
Yale is a top-tier academic institution but it’s not a top-tier hub for tech entrepreneurship. We at the Yale Entrepreneurial Society are ready to change that.
Yale has the intellect, resources, and talent it needs to be an elite entrepreneurial ecosystem. The problem facing our campus isn’t one of resources or allocation, but a cultural one: we, as a collective, value a stable career in finance/consulting over the risk that comes with bringing something new into the world. With the YES Incubator, we’re on a mission to change that culture, for the better.
The YES Incubator is Yale’s premier community for students to ideate, build, and launch their own tech ventures. We help Yalies bring their ideas to life by empowering them with workshops, peer mentorship, and a community of like-minded individuals. The Incubator crescendos at the end of each semester with a Demo Day.
To sum it up, we’re about getting passionate people into the same room and watching the magic happen.
Our mission is three-fold:
- Inspire the next generation. You can’t be what you’ve never seen. We inspire Yalies earlier in their careers, not only by telling them they can create impactful tech products but showing them those who have done it before. From day one, we want to ingrain the fact that they have the potential to create something that people want.
- Create a culture of execution. Pursuing new ideas for the first time is hard- stagnation and the idea disease are contagious. Entrepreneurship is more about execution than it is ideation, so we help students get the ball rolling, and we’re fostering a culture where ideas don’t just stay ideas.
- Establish a strong community of Yalie entrepreneurs. If inspiration is our acquisition strategy, then community is our retention plan. Building in a community > building alone. Entrepreneurship is about learning fast and iterating quickly. Through a community, we’re hoping to shorten learning curves, share different perspectives, and pay it forward.
So, what’s the big deal?
At the Yale Entrepreneurial Society, we are extremely tactical in our approach to community building. To foster this (counter-)culture unfamiliar to Yale, we’re focusing on Yalies early in their careers (’24s and ’25s) to create a flywheel effect that the entire campus will feel for years to come.
We’re investing heavily into our community. This not only means late night building and brainstorming sessions, but also working closely with each and every student to help them get over the hurdles of turning an idea into a reality.
We’re strong believers that you can’t be what you can’t see. So we’re leveraging successful Yalie student founders and recycling them back into the ecosystem.
The Vision:
Turn Yale into a top-tier hub for tech entrepreneurship. 🚀 We envision a startup ecosystem at Yale where everyone’s creating something new, everywhere you look. This starts with creating a counter-culture that embraces pursuing new ideas in their earliest stages.
If you’re someone who resonates with our mission (student or not) of putting Yale on the map as a hub for tech entrepreneurship, shoot me an email at jonathan.pierre@yale.edu or DM me on Twitter @jonathanpierree.
Learn more about the Incubator here.
Jonathan Pierre is a sophomore at Yale University studying Economics and Math. He is the Director & Founder of the YES Incubator, the premier community for Yalies to ideate, build, and launch a tech venture.
Founded in 1999, the Yale Entrepreneurial Society is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to creating a new generation of Bulldog entrepreneurs. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and of course, our very own Yale Journal of Innovative Ventures.
