To the drawing board: Syracuse’s Startup Garage in action

The door to Newhouse’s Startup Garage is often open. Not just anyone, though, can walk through the door. Guided by Center for Digital and Media Entrepreneurship Director Sean Branagan, this selective space is a central hub for students’ media entrepreneurship, where conversations revolve less around homework and more around the next step in launching a new business.

Rachel Moskowitz, a student associate of the Startup Garage and a graduate student in Newhouse’s Bandier Music Business program, says that although she is not directly involved in entrepreneurship, her role is to support students in the Garage and help them make progress.

“This is a workspace for them, and valuable in terms of connections,” said Moskowitz. “We get donations and things to bring alumni back, have events, things like that. It’s really valuable in terms of networking.”

Students can use the Startup Garage not only as a workspace, but as a way to reach out and collaborate with fellow students, Moskowitz said.

Some students, Moskowitz added, will stop by simply to write down a position they are looking to fill, along with their contact information, and use the space as a way to recruit fellow motivated students.

One student, Teagan Rowland, a senior studying Television, Radio and Film, came across the Garage through a class in entertainment innovation and entrepreneurship.

Through the class, Rowland said that Branigan’s goal is to help students make an idea and launch it. Rowland’s take on the assignment was to create a production company.

“Me and my friend [sic] were making a production company that helps people who may not be in specifically Newhouse and VPA start with the same mentality of ‘just start it,’” Rowland said. “If they ever want a TV show, or a podcast, or a film, or something visual, then we help them in a pre-production and post-production stage.”

Rowland said through this, she wants to help people bring an idea to life when they don’t know how.

“They can come to the production company and say, ‘I don’t have a cinematographer,’ and I can say ‘Okay, let me connect you with people that I know,’” Rowland said.

Rowland hopes by using her knowledge from this capstone, she can take her production company, with the working name “Crush Your Dreams,” into her future with more production knowledge. 

Advertising senior Cole Meredith, another Startup Garage member, has a different origin story with the space. While Meredith did not start a business, he helped build a visual brand and website design for a startup called “Mirror,” a fully virtual outpatient center for people struggling with eating disorders.

Offering statistics on the severity of eating disorders in the United States as well as treatment costs, Meredith shared a basis for a startup company that, while still in its early stages, is on the rise with collaborative effort from everyone involved.

“A lot of our people are full-time students,” Meredith said. “This is a great, very convenient place for us to do any of those super important work meetings that we have in order to do app development, creative review, any of that kind of stuff.”

The effort to further the idea for “Mirror” has been a fast, yet effective one, Meredith said. Only five weeks ago, the team involved was still talking about the design for the app. Now, they have a working prototype, ready to show to investors.

“It’s all been word of mouth and very hands-on with gathering this team,” Meredith said.

Rowland passed on the words of Professor Sean Branagan: “Just start it.” When Rowland, like so many others, enters the Startup Garage, the fear of failure is meant to go out the window in pursuit of an idea.

“Make something you know consumers need,” Meredith said.