When it comes to the stories of how our Fellows chose VFA, no two are the same. We wanted to check in with our upcoming class of 2015 Fellows and hear why they made the move to go VFA.
Lizzie, a native of Mobile, Alabama, will graduate as an honors student from Tulane University with a degree in Marketing and an Entrepreneurship specialization. She discovered her passion for entrepreneurship at the young age of 9 when she and a friend started a gourmet dog biscuit business called Dog Dayz. Her love for startup culture was rekindled this summer as a marketing and communications intern for VertiFarms, a local New-Orleans hydroponic farming business. She devotes countless hours and energy to her community, whether it is as a Tulane Community Service Scholar or as an HIV/AIDS Unit Intern in Cape Town, South Africa. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring new places and eating snoballs in New Orleans.
Curious about who’s joining Lizzie in the class of 2015? Check out the rest of the 2015 Fellows here.
Name: Lizzie McDonald
College or University: Tulane University ’15
Major: Marketing
Hometown: Mobile, AL
Fellow Class: 2015
When I found out about Venture for America my freshman year of college, my post graduation life seemed eons away. My mom had read about the new fellowship in the Wall Street Journal and passed the article along to me. When I started my senior year five months ago, I still couldn’t seem to shake the idea of being a VFA Fellow.
I guess you could say I’ve been destined to join VFA since I was younger; 9 years old to be exact. In 4th grade, my best friend and I founded a gourmet dog biscuit company called Dog Dayz (yes with a z). And this wasn’t just a rainy day activity – we had a full-fledged business. Once we developed a customer base by attending events around the city, we spent every moment baking dog biscuits and developing new products.
I learned many of my first business lessons from this startup. We optimized production, discovered and marketed to our target customers, and managed our own finances.
On one occasion, we printed a huge stack of business cards without realizing we had made a typo. Instead of including “collars” on our product offerings, we had typed “coolers”. Being resourceful (and not wanting to waste the $10 we had spent to print the cards), we decided we should just create a new product offering: beef broth “coolers,” or ice cubes, for dogs to enjoy on a hot day.
When spending every Saturday at Farmers Markets and every Sunday baking dog biscuits in matching “Dog Dayz” polos suddenly became “un-cool”, Avery and I slowly disbanded our business. But as a (almost) college grad, I once again find myself wanting to explore my entrepreneurial side.
When I came to Tulane I decided to join the business school, and I quickly realized how uninterested I was in corporate America and how intrigued I was with social ventures. However, I know that I need a bit more training and experience before I’m able to start a venture of my own.
The training, networking, and exposure VFA provides its fellows with is unmatched by any other program I’ve come across. Through VFA, I hope to gain the confidence and the network to be able to begin my own venture. Not only does VFA provide an incredible web of established professionals, but also the opportunity to create and brainstorm with like-minded recent grads. For me, this is all really exciting and exactly how I want to kick of my career.
And hey, if I ever need a back up plan, I have a really killer dog biscuit recipe.