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Breakthrough Austin / RISE Mentoring for 9th Graders

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This weekend I was excited to participate as a mentor for 9th grade students in Breakthrough Austin. The whole thing was organized in partnership with RISE Austin. The students came up with business ideas and we helped them to think it through and come up with a pitch. Ruben Cantu was there along with 10 other mentors. At previous sessions, Bjorn Billhardt and Marc Yagjian also mentored.

One of the students named Ben spoke to the group about his experience creating, promoting, and selling his own hip-hop music. He played some of his music too! Ben exemplified many of the traits I look for in an entrepreneur that I would invest in:

  • passion about the problem he's solving
  • resourcefulness in bootstrapping the early stages
  • innovative ideas

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Mentors were paired with a group of 4-5 students. The students had started on the business idea at a previous session that I did not attend and were now finishing up the plan and working on their pitch.

My group was planning a company to create customized bathrooms with televisions and interned in the shower, colored lighting in the shower head, music, and fragrances. They came up with a plan to partner with contractors and building supply companies to reach their customers and listed out all of the different expenses they would have.

I was very disappointed that I had to leave early and couldn't see all of the final pitches. One that I did get to see was extremely well done, with one person playing a guitar and 2 others role-playing a mini commercial for the product.

Breakthrough Austin is an incredible program started by my neighbor Jessica D'Arcy. It has all of the characteristics of a philanthropy that I like to support:

  • helps kids
  • makes a measurable impact
  • extremely cash efficient
  • encourages entrepreneurship

Breakthrough works with students who don't have any family members that have graduated from college, starting in 6th grade and standing by their side until they receive their college diploma. The've been at it for long enough that the results are starting to come in – and they are very impressive.

I'm always blown away by the Breakthrough students that I meet. They are confident and full of energy. They are warm and easy to connect with. There are a lot of smiles.

After attending my first Breakthrough event I knew I had to get involved and since then am proud to support them both financially and with my time. Please consider getting involved!


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