Abe Wade ’22 — This summer, I had the opportunity to work with the Techstars Sports Accelerator in Indianapolis, IN. The Techstars Accelerator is a program from June-September, where 10-12 companies work directly with Techstars and get help scaling their business. These companies go through three phases, Mentor Madness, where they pitch their business to various Techstars mentors. They move into pitch decks and working on their investment opportunities, and lastly, demo day, where they showcase their business. I heard about the opportunity with Techstars through a Wabash Alum, Ben Stachowski ’19. In my internship, I worked with two companies, directly Kairos and Freeplay. Kairos is a communication software for professional sports teams that helps the athletes feel less stress on game day because they could focus on what pertained to them and not excess information. Freeplay is a marketplace for independent fitness instructors to grow their business and make more money than working for a gym or studio. Freeplay allows the instructors to teach their classes online and in-person to reach a broad range of clients. I have done several projects for these companies and displaying the Wabash work ethic daily!
This internship has been very insightful for me as a person pursuing a career in sports and business. I have learned a lot about the sports industry and entrepreneurship and the challenges that come along with that. For example, these CEOs are so focused on their businesses that they often do not have time for smaller tasks, and so I was able to help them with these issues. I got the chance to work on some cool projects. One of them was building a website for one of the companies. Before they asked me to do this, I had no experience with web design, but I used my Wabash attitude to take on this challenge and succeed in the face of adversity.
I want to thank the Michael Dill Fund for the opportunity to pursue this internship. I have met many great people and grown my network. Wabash has equipped me with the right tools to seek connections and feel comfortable talking with high-level people. With Wabash, I feel very comfortable walking into uncomfortable situations, knowing that I am equipped with the tools to make any situation work. I would also like to thank Ben Stachowski for introducing me to the Techstars family. Lastly, I would like to thank Andrew Hippert and Jordan Fliegel for bringing me onto the Techstars crew and allowing me to spend the summer learning transferrable skills firsthand from CEOs
