"This wasn't glamorous; this wasn't Hollywood. The first time we saw four people logged in was a huge moment for us because when we saw only three, we knew it was just the three of us sitting around at our desks. Twenty months after starting on Weebly, traction started to grow. The moral of the story is to stick around. It took three years to get us to this point - it doesn't just happen overnight."
--David Rusenko, a 2007 graduate of Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), who is the CEO and co-founder of Weebly, a tech start-up based out of San Francisco. Rusenko spoke at the University Park campus April 12 during IST's Start-up Week, a week-long celebration showcasing talented young entrepreneurs from around the country, including several Penn State alumni. More than 10 million people have created a website with Weebly, and 12 percent of the U.S. population visits a Weebly website every month. Rusenko was named to Forbes' "30 under 30" list in 2011, and is the youngest recipient of the prestigious Penn State Alumni Achievement Award. To learn more about Start-up Week, visit http://ist.psu.edu/startup. (more)
Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) has received a $400,000 gift -- the largest from a graduate in its 13-year history -- from San Francisco CEO and IST alumnus David Rusenko. The gift will create the David Rusenko Scholarship for Entrepreneurship, which will help IST students to launch their own companies while they are still in school.
"IST has done a tremendous job creating well-rounded technical graduates," said Rusenko, a 2007 graduate and co-founder of San Francisco firm Weebly. "I'm excited to help encourage students to think seriously about creating and joining startups." (more)
"Keywords are very important when having a web-based start-up company. Be mindful of what and how you use the information that you obtain -- web analytics real-time view on how many people are on your site, data on what technology users are using -- so that you can gear towards user. You want to make everything simple for the user."
-- Daehee Park, a 2009 graduate of Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), who works in monetization and analytics at Mulu, a celebrity-supported social commerce platform that raises money for charities. Park spoke at the University Park campus April 11 during IST's Start-up Week, a week-long celebration showcasing talented young entrepreneurs from around the country, including several Penn State alumni. Park leads Mulu's eCommerce team around platform monetization, brand integration, data strategy and analytics. He also co-founded Whim Media, a performance marketing agency based in State College, Pa. To learn more about Start-up Week, visit http://ist.psu.edu/startup. (more)
Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) has launched the first enterprise architecture (EA) program in North America and the first online EA master's program in the world. The program is in response to the rapidly increasing demand for professionals with a unique combination of skills and perspectives to align enterprise information systems and technology with business strategy and goals. (more)
"Seek out people that want to try new things...looking at what else is available out there will open new doors. Your idea will start as one thing and then it is going to evolve. Finding partners is tricky; you need to be confident that you can work together. Go out and do a market survey, find out if that problem you want to solve really exists."
-- Liz Kisenwether, assistant professor in Penn State's School of Engineering Design, Technology and Professional Programs, and co-director of Lion Launch Pad (LLP), a business accelerator program for Penn State undergraduate students and student teams. Kisenwether presented a workshop about Penn State resources for start-up ideas on Tuesday (April 10) at the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), during IST's Start-up Week. (more)
Steve Huffman, co-founder of Reddit, a hugely popular social news website, will share his strategies for success during Start-up Week from April 9 to 13 at Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST). Reddit, which was acquired by Conde Nast, has grown to more than 2 billion page-views per month. (more)
"An entrepreneur is an undertaker. Very few are willing to press through the harder times.... The key to getting started in entrepreneurship is to read widely, learn from the experts, imitate other entrepreneurs and stop talking and start doing. To quote Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, 'The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.' All of the speakers participating in Start-up Week are doers. They figured out what they wanted and started taking tangible steps.... As young entrepreneurs, we have to get over the credibility gap.... Society will reward you for something of value."
-- Drew Mohoric, cofounder of Innoblue, a nonprofit, early-stage business accelerator in State College, Pa. Innoblue starts and supports innovative business, civic and social ventures. The company's vision is a community transformed by entrepreneurship, where people act on the double bottom line -- to do well while doing good. Mohoric is a Schreyer Honors College student in the Smeal College of Business at Penn State with an expected graduation date of May 2012. Mohoric spoke on Monday (April 9) at the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), to kick off IST's Start-up Week, a week-long celebration showcasing talented young entrepreneurs from around the country, including alumni from the College of IST and Penn State. (more)
Exceptionally talented young entrepreneurs from around the country, including alumni from Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), will be visiting Penn State to share their strategies for success during IST's Start-up Week, taking place April 9 -13. The week's events, many of which will be open to the entire Penn State community, will include classroom talks on various topics related to information technology as well as opportunities to meet and mingle with the featured speakers. (more)
The Center for Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems (CIHDS) will hold its fourth annual workshop on Thursday, April 5, at the Penn State Conference Center. Members of academia and industry will converge to discuss improvements to health care delivery through the application of technology, engineering and systems principles. (more)
Online privacy has become a hot-button issue in recent years, as people are increasingly sharing their lives and conducting business on the Internet. With $30,000 in funding from Google, two professors in Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology are investigating the factors that influence individual privacy preferences, and how they can be used to develop services that are in tune with consumers' needs. (more)
