Check out the third episode of Smart People Should Build Things: The Venture for America Podcast, a play.it original in collaboration with CBS!
This week, co-hosts Jeremy Shinewald and Miles Lasater sit down with Shara Mendelson, the founder of Plum Benefits and a fellow VFA board member. Shara’s story starts in a surprising place: a hole-in-the-wall theater company, where she volunteered as a recent college grad to escape the misery of a bad job. Inspired by a desire to help the tiny but passionate company through new streams of ticket sales, the idea for Plum Benefits—which today provides millions of employees with discounts to live entertainment events—was born.
For everything in between—from how she avoided early-stage entrepreneurship’s “zone of loneliness,” to the process of selling her company, to what it’s like being “insanely optimistic”—download the latest episode.
About our hosts:
Host Jeremy Shinewald is the founder of a portfolio of companies dedicated to supporting the unique aspirations of students and professionals. Jeremy’s firms include mbaMission and jdMission (admissions advisory services for prospective MBAs and lawyers), MBA Career Coaches (career coaching for MBA students and post-MBA professionals) and M7 Financial (accessing graduate student loans). Jeremy was also a founding Venture for America Board Member and is currently the Chair of VFA’s Entrepreneur Board.
Jeremy’s guest host, Miles Lasater, is the Founder and Chairman of Higher One, an organization that partners with colleges and universities to streamline and manage the financial aspects of campus life, freeing both students and institutions to focus on the most important thing: education. He’s also the Founder of SeeClickFix, an app that allows residents to report neighborhood issues and see them get fixed. Miles is on the Board of the Yale Entrepreneurship Institute and is a member of VFA’s Board of Directors.
