In Episode 15 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen Garten chats with Shayna Dunitz, the former Director of Operations at 3 Day Startup and the current Chief Operations Officer at Central Athlete.
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3 Day Startup (“3DS”) teaches entrepreneurial skills to university students in an extreme hands-on environment. This proven program provides students the tools they need to start successful companies. Over 12,000 3DS alumni from 400+ programs across 6 continents–at over 150 schools including Harvard, MIT, WHU (Germany), Technion (Israel), and the University of Texas–have launched more than 90 companies that have collectively raised $130 million in investor capital.
Over 38 companies emerging from 3DS have been accepted to prestigious accelerators such as Y Combinator, TechStars, and Capital Factory. While early programs focused strictly on technology- and web-enabled startups, demand has led the team to expand the program to function across broader entrepreneurial endeavors. Schools have hosted 3DS programs focused on themes such as social innovation, energy, culinary, hardware, and more.
Foregoing a grant-supported model, the founders developed an earned-revenues strategy—3DS charges universities, governments, and corporations to deliver programs—which allowed the organization to grow in a scalable and sustainable way while preserving mission autonomy. Running 3DS as a successful business operation keeps entrepreneurship in the organizational DNA and allows the organization to remain faithful to the philosophy of learning-by-doing.
