How 2 Survive from Failure

The Blank Center’s #How2Tuesday series continues on Tuesday, March 5 at 5pm in Olin 225: How 2 Survive from Failure!

Failure is a word that most entrepreneurs fear. But there are opportunities that come along with failure. How can founders learn from their own failures and the experiences of others? Moderated by Mary Gale, Senior Lecturer of Entrepreneurship, a panel of Babson alumni and professors - Emily Lagasse MBA'15, Petwell Supply; Kenneth Neilson MBA’11, entrepreneur; Ian So ’08, Chicken and Rice Guys; and Professor Yasu Yamakawa, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship - will share war stories, the ups and the downs of the entrepreneur’s journey, and how failure, though sometimes tough, is something that all entrepreneurs can survive.

About Emily Lagasse MBA'15
Emily Lagasse is the Founder of Fedwell Pet Foods. She founded Fedwell based on home-cooking recipes and created a line of all-natural, synthetic-free, baked pet foods in order to help pet owners address the health concerns of their dogs and cats. She offers these products via e-commerce and at her brick and mortar location, Petwell Supply, in Somerville, MA. Previously, she served in the Small Enterprise Development (SED) program of the United State Peace Corps and founded Sukuvi Microloans, a program that provided microloans to students in Togo. She has her MBA from Babson College and her B.B.A. from Ohio State University.

About Kenneth Neilson MBA’11
After graduating with his MBA from Babson in 2011, Ken worked for Staples, Inc. as a marketing and project manager before following a long held dream to leave the Northeast behind and move to the Caribbean. In 2013 he and his soon to be wife moved to the Island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Soon after he started what was to become the Caribbean's first hydroponic container farm. Unfortunately, on September 6th 2017, the Island was devastated by the most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record. Two weeks later, a second Category Five hurricane hit the island. The destruction to the island, Ken's business, and his home forced him to move back to Massachusetts with his wife, who was three months pregnant when the storms hit.

About Ian So ‘08
Ian So is the CEO and co-founder of Chicken & Rice Guys and has led Chicken & Rice Guys through impressive growth. From 2012 to 2016 alone, he and his co-founder scaled CRG to become the 206th fastest growing private company in America (officially recognized by Inc 5000) and the 10th fastest in Massachusetts. Ian's goal is to be the first global food truck brand. And, with a 4 year growth rate of over 3,000%, his business is quickly on track for that global expansion. What started as one food truck the team bought on eBay is now 4 trucks with permanent locations, three restaurants, and a full service catering business.

Chicken & Rice Guys has won numerous awards including 2017 Boston Business Journal's 2017 Fast 50 (Private Businesses), Boston Business Journal's 2016 Diversity in Leadership Award for Corporate Impact, Boston Eater's Hottest Restaurants of 2015, Thrillist's Best Food Trucks in Boston, Reader's Digest Nationally Top Ranked Food Truck, and Boston A-List's Best Food Truck of 2013, 2014 and 2016, and has enjoyed top rankings on Yelp.com.

Some of Ian’s greatest accomplishments are winning Boston Business Journal's 2016 40 Under 40, Mayor Walsh's 2016 Spark Impact Awards, and Smart CEO's Future 50 2017 award.

Ian is frequently featured on the speaking circuit for his entrepreneurship. Notable appearances include sitting on a panel with Bizarre Food's Andrew Zimmern & Top Chef's Gail Simmons at Babson College's Food Day and appearing as a guest on NBC's Asia Focus with Mary Sit. His most interesting speaking engagement was doing a reading with Pulitzer Prize winner Cerise Jacobs.

In his spare time, Ian is very active in the Asian community serving as a board member/leader for the National Asian Chamber of Commerce and Entrepreneurship and the Boston Hurricanes Athletic Club. He also recently joined the City of Boston's Food Truck Advisory Committee. To balance out all his hard work, Ian spends his free time doing yoga, meditating, hiking, biking, and, his favorite past time, playing basketball.

About Yasu Yamakawa
Dr. Yamakawa is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Babson College. He received his Bachelor of Laws from Keio University (Tokyo, Japan), obtained his M.B.A. in Strategic Management from Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management (Claremont, CA), and completed his Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship at the School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson, TX). Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, Dr. Yamakawa spent ten years working in Japan’s utility and telecommunication industries where he engaged in numerous corporate venturing activities and entrepreneurial startups. Dr. Yamakawa teaches in the areas/intersections of entrepreneurship, strategy, and international business. He comes from a multi-cultural background, having lived in eight different countries around the world.

Dr. Yamakawa’s research explores the stimulants and constraints behind entrepreneurial learning and growth. His current research interests include: learning from entrepreneurial failure, dilemmas inherent in corporate venturing activities, failure of industry emergence, and bankruptcy laws and entrepreneurship development around the world.

About Mary Gale (Moderator)
Ms. Gale is an entrepreneur, business leader, and consultant with over 20 years of strategic, marketing, and operations experience across a broad range of industries including software-based services, diagnostics, telecommunications, surface preparation, consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods, and education.

Ms. Gale has been involved in eight start-ups as an investor, director, and/or senior executive. Most recently, she served as CEO of a start-up software services business, Pet Health Network, Inc. She was also a senior marketing executive at IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. during a period of early growth through IPO. She began her career in product management at General Foods. Her consulting experience includes Booz, Allen; Marketing Corporation of America (boutique consulting firm in Westport, Connecticut); and her own assignments.

She currently serves on the boards of Sponge-Jet, Inc., Portsmouth, NH (advanced, recyclable, industrial surface preparation technology); and Gould Academy, Bethel, Maine.

What are #How2Tuesdays?:
Want to learn something really practical to get your startup moving in the right direction? #How2Tuesdays are short, workshop style sessions meant to bring you very specific, user friendly instruction on some of the most important things you need to know for your venture. Every Tuesday at 5pm in the Blank Center!