Betty Wong

My interest in entrepreneurship started when I got to college, although my grandfathers had been entrepreneurs on both sides of my family. My mom came from a long line of entrepreneurs – her grandfather was an antiques dealer, her father an auto parts supplier, and my uncle owned a restaurant in Florida. My father’s father had owned a laundry in America until he lost it when he was conscripted and joined the Navy’s SeaBees. So it was no surprise, when I became a free-lance consultant after working in corporate a few years after my graduation from Columbia Business School.

After a career balancing entrepreneurship with stints in new product marketing and consulting at and with brand giants such as Ferrero, Whitbred, Colgate-Palmolive, NY Times Magazine Group, Johnson & Johnson, Honeywell and Mars and experience volunteering and working at nonprofits, I have started  the volunteer organization called Stage2Startups.org for people who have already gained work and life experience before they started their companies or nonprofits and were grownups. Hence the name of our blog – Startups by GrownUps. 

Emelie Smith Calbick

My path to entreprenuership has been fairly typical.  After graduating from Columbia Business School, I pursued the corporate path working in a variety of marketing and strategy jobs at Fortune 50 companies like American Express, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase. But after awhile, I wanted something different. I had always been attracted to the idea of doing a startup so when I reconnected with two former American Express colleagues who were running a startup, I jumped at the chance of joining them.  It was two exciting years in a fast paced, dynamic startup environment before we eventually sold the company.

Now in addition to helping non-profit organizations enhance their fundraising capabilities, I have joined up with Betty on Startups for Grownups.

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