Peter Silverman (Co-founder & CEO, Majorwise)

Young Founders Podcast

In our inaugural episode of the Young Founders Podcast, we've got Pete Silverman on.

Pete is the co-founder and CEO of Majorwise, an ed tech platform connecting students to job and internship opportunities.

In their own words, Majorwise "focuses on simplifying the job search process, connecting students with the gig economy, and helping students gain more knowledge and experience to succeed in their field."

In 2017, Pete's startup became the first student-run business to win the LaunchVT pitch competition, the oldest and largest business pitch contest in the state.

We discussed:

• The importance of their board of advisers and what they've been able to do for the company
• The challenges of starting a business at age 19
• How Pete & Max raised $200,000 for their startup before they left school and the perils of raising money for your startup at a young age
• How Pete brought talent into his organization in the early stages with Air Jordans
• Getting from idea to revenue and the point at which you realize your idea might actually work
• Pete's definition of entrepreneurship
• The importance of having a co-founder
• Product-Market Fit
• Why you shouldn't be focused on generating revenue (Hint: Solve the problem first)
• How to get value from sales calls that don't convert
• How to use email marketing as a growth hack
• Why every founder and CEO should pay for third-party audits of their website
• The best and worst advice we've received in our short careers
• Pete's advice to the young entrepreneur with an idea: Sell something.

We closed out the podcast with a quote from Pete's co-founder Max Robbins:

“We were at an event every single day learning to network and better succinctly pitch our idea. Persistence was the key. Ideas are worthless without execution, and to execute, you need to explain your idea succinctly and convincingly. To do that, you need to constantly talk about what you are doing, network with everyone, and leverage your connections. It opens up a world of free resources for you.”

Listen to more episodes of the Young Founders Podcast or check out our other podcast series.