OUR PURPOSE

Rice Ventures is a student-run organization that bolsters student entrepreneurs at Rice University.

WHAT WE DO

Rice Ventures Discovery is a 10-week program in the Fall semester for future founders - talented engineers, product people, and builders - who are thinking about starting a company one day but haven’t yet gotten started. We’re excited by students who are interested in entrepreneurship, but perhaps don’t yet understand the full breadth and depth of what being part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem means. Perhaps you're already working on a specific project during off-hours, or still looking for co-founders, or haven't even yet settled on an idea. We’d like to create more surface area in the Rice community to have students engage with their peers in problem-rich areas, ideate innovative solutions, guide them along the entrepreneurial process, and expose them to leaders in the startup ecosystem. Rice Ventures Discovery is a community, network, and set of resources focused specifically on Rice undergraduates.

The purpose of the program is to identify, encourage, and collaborate with future founders at Rice to help them better prepare for the journey of starting a company. Rice Ventures Discovery is completely free - all we expect is passion, grit, and a willingness to learn. Ultimately, we’re building the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Rice from the ground up, aiming to be the premier undergraduate organization for anything and everything entrepreneurship at Rice.

WHAT WE HAVE DONE

We have:

• Informed the Rice community about entrepreneurship opportunities and resources

  • Internship/job applications

  • Start-up competitions

  • Newsletters

• Organized annual Start-Up Pitch Events

  • Connected founders to team members and interns

• Created two cohorts of founders

  • Provided continual support for founders through bi-weekly accountability meetings and mentorship opportunities