Female graduates find entrepreneurial success

Lehigh’s Venture Lab in the Business Innovation Building is a subprogram of the Office of Entrepreneurship open to students from any college who have an idea they would like to bring to life. The lab allows students to take their ideas from the drawing board and into the design process.

Michael Rinkunas, class of 2002 and class of 2008, began his role as director of the Ventures Lab in May to support students on their entrepreneurial journey. He said female students should feel encouraged to consider a career in entrepreneurship.

Rinkunas works with students and alumni to support them through the various stages of entrepreneurship, including developing an idea, launching a startup, and running a business full-time.

“The opportunity to give back is one of the greatest things for me,” Rinkunas said. “This is the best thing I can do to help Lehigh succeed.”

He said he wishes the program he is currently running had existed when he was a student.

“I hope to help people avoid the mistakes I made,” Rinkunas said. “They will make completely different mistakes, but we can help them progress faster and faster.”

Rinkunas said that the entrepreneurial field is dominated by men, which is why it is particularly important to encourage women to enter this field.

Several successful female entrepreneurs have graduated from Lehigh’s entrepreneurship programs, including Olivia Abrams, Sarah Mack, Ali Kaminetsky and Erin Talgo.

(Courtesy of Olivia Abrams)

Olivia Abrams

Olivia Abrams, ’21, is CEO and co-founder of TICK MitTTa product that helps prevent tick-borne diseases.

Abrams said she always knew she wanted to be an entrepreneur.

“I grew up as an only child in a family of entrepreneurs, so dinner table conversations usually revolved around branding and franchising,” Abrams said.

As she toured colleges, Abrams said she fell in love with the atmosphere of the Lehigh campus and the entrepreneurship department. At Lehigh, Abrams served in various organizations, including rising to news editor The brown and white.

During her senior year, Abrams presented a business proposal for her now-founded company, TickMitt.

“I had to create a business plan for my degree, so I thought I might as well come up with an idea of ​​how we were going to launch TickMitt and what our branding was going to be, our logo, our fonts, who our target customers were going to be,” said Abrams. “And then I never really stopped thinking about it.”

In 2021, Abrams graduated with a degree in political science with minors in marketing and entrepreneurship. After completing a summer internship at Morgan Stanley, Abrams accepted an offer to return to the company full-time after graduation.

About a year later, Abrams left the company to pursue her dream of making TiCK MiTT a reality.

“I always wanted to have a job where I could help people and make money at the same time,” Abrams said. “I felt the best way to achieve this was to create products that protect people and their pets.”

TiCK MiTT is a chemical-free, reusable glove that can be swiped over a pet’s skin, clothing or fur to find and remove ticks before they embed themselves in the skin and potentially transmit disease. The company’s mission is to reduce cases of tick-borne diseases and make tick inspections more efficient and easier for people.

Abrams said TiCK MiTT’s long-term goal is to develop more products that help protect people and pets from ticks.

While Abrams developed the product for pets, TiCK MiTT has expanded its advertising to an outdoor market with hikers, campers and hunters, as well as people who encounter ticks at work, such as: B. Plumbers, electricians, building contractors, farmers and landscape gardeners.

“I realized over time that the customer is much larger than I thought, and therefore the market is much larger than I thought,” Abrams said.

Abrams said graduating from Lehigh opened doors for her that she said would not have been accessible if she had attended another university. Through her Lehigh network, Abrams said she was able to connect with graphic designers, shop owners and other entrepreneurs.

“The best part about being a Lehigh alumni is the other Lehigh alumni,” Abrams said.

Aside from the connections Abrams made after graduating, she remains in close contact with the Lehigh Ventures Lab program. In collaboration with the lab, Abrams hosts weekly sessions with current students and young alumni who have recently started their own businesses.

(Courtesy of Sarah Mack)Sarah Mack

Sarah Mack, 14, is CEO and founder of Vinata European wine made by women for women.

Mack graduated from Lehigh with a degree in finance and supply chain management and began working as a financial analyst after graduation.

In 2021, Mack enrolled at IESE Business School in Barcelona, ​​Spain to complete her MBA. During her stay in Spain she learned about the role of wine in everyday life.

Most importantly, Mack said she realized that most wine curators in Europe don’t understand what types of wine are popular with women in the United States.

“Most wine drinkers in the U.S. are women, but most of the people who choose the wine are men,” Mack said. “When you go to these wine shows in France, there are men who talk to winemakers and say, ‘This is what American women want to drink.'”

Inspired by her new discoveries and her love of wine, Mack decided to start a wine brand with her sister.

“A lot of people are really intimidated by wine, so we wanted to make it really accessible,” Mack said.

According to their website, Vinat’s wine comes from family-run vineyards that meet strict EU quality standards. Vinat currently sells three types of wine: Prosecco, red blends and white blends.

In addition to their clever names like “Skinny Dip” and “Out of Office,” each bottle has a Spotify playlist linked to the wine.

“The wine industry is very stuffy, and I think there are a lot of ways to make it more fun,” Mack said.

Vinat currently ships to 35 states across the country, including Washington DC

Mack said she credits her brand’s success to the lessons she learned through Lehigh’s entrepreneurship programs. One mistake she says startup founders make is forgetting to protect their intellectual property

“The name and our logo are both currently trademarked, and that’s directly due to Lehigh,” Mack said.

(Courtesy of Ali Kaminetsky)Ali Kaminetsky

Ali Kaminetsky, 16, is the founder of Modern picnica company for high-quality, sustainable lunch bags.

Kaminetshy graduated from Lehigh with a degree in Supply Chain Management and Marketing and a minor in Communications. Outside the classroom, she worked as a reporter The brown and white and a member of the tennis team, where she served as captain her junior year.

She went through the college recruiting process for tennis and Kaminetshy said she was drawn to Lehigh because of its academic reputation, beautiful campus and strong sense of community.

“I felt like it was a place where I could thrive both academically and personally,” Kaminetshy said in an email.

The idea for “Modern Picnic” came to Kaminetshy while she was working in New York City. She said she had a hard time finding a lunch bag that combined fashion and function. She decided to create a brand that she felt was both functional and resonated with consumers.

Modern Picnic started with its “Luncher,” a lunch bag that the brand originally debuted on Shark Tank. The brand has since expanded to include totes, pouches and other food storage solutions.

“We believe in eating well, living well and looking good by combining fashion and function,” Kaminetshy wrote in an email to The brown and white.

Kaminetshy wrote that being a Lehigh graduate helped her tremendously in business development. Aside from the training, she said she was able to build strong relationships that she still relies on for support today.

“My professors, coaches and classmates instilled in me the value of resilience and the importance of asking for help when you need it,” Kaminetsky wrote.

(Courtesy of Erin Talgo)

Erin Talgo

Erin Talgo, ’14, is CEO and founder of Erin Talgo Tradinga sustainable carpet company inspired by her travels.

She graduated from Lehigh with a marketing degree and a minor in global studies and said she was drawn to the university because of the variety of programs and sense of community.

“It really ticked all the boxes for me, but especially the academics and the business program really solidified it,” Talgo said.

After graduating from Lehigh University, Talgo joined the purchasing and merchandising team at Ross Stores, where she interned last summer. After five years at Ross, she moved to Burlington’s buying and merchandising team.

Two years ago, Talgo quit her job and took a trip to Morocco after working in American companies for over a decade.

There, Talgo learned more about the carpet industry and how men sold women’s work. She then returned to Morocco several times to meet directly with these women and cut out the middlemen.

Talgo began collaborating with these women to create designs that she describes as “East Coast sophistication meets West Coast California cool.”

“They are elegant and sophisticated, but also have a little bohemian touch,” Talgo said.

Talgo returned to Los Angeles and began selling the rugs door-to-door. She eventually took them to two stores in the area and held her first trade show at the Pacific Design Center last month.

“I came up with the idea because I was curious and saw the white space possibilities of these rugs, which had a very specific aesthetic but were not designed for a Western-style home or color palette,” Talgo said.

She said in addition to the academics and skills she gained at Lehigh, the connections she made helped her succeed a decade after graduating.

“You are the person you surround yourself with, and the vast majority of my best friends are from Lehigh,” Talgo said. “It’s really the community that it has given me, not just from a networking perspective, but the people that are in my corner.”