Pulse: Entrepreneurship Newsletter

David Lewis is a Senior majoring in Urban Planning at Arizona State University. He is also the CEO of M.O.D.A.L.E.W., an event planning company gaining traction in the Valley.

I like to tell people that although you can never learn enough, you must always learn. With advice like that, I share with others that they can reach success by staying open-minded and being prepared for unexpected obstacles. This is a lesson that all entrepreneurs must learn.

I am a young entrepreneur—21 years old—and a senior Urban Planning major at Arizona State University, graduating in May 2011. When I leave ASU, I want to leave a mark that this university has molded an entrepreneur that can really make a difference through the work I do and the way I go about doing it.

For ASU student Michael Moon and his business partner Quoc Bui, the idea was simple: make something useful and then give it away.

What started as a casual discussion last summer over the amount of revenue developers were generating through the Apple iTunes App store turned into a starting point that would lead the two self-described "tech-geeks" to become digital entrepreneur rock stars.

ASU student Arielle Hurst and Sam Lowy work on a music project at Sequence, a music production school started by an ASU alum. Photo by Michael Arellano, The State Press

Brandon Weinberger is a man on a musical mission.

The recent ASU graduate and former DJ returned from formal training at a New York electronic music production school and noticed something immediately.

"I realized the need for people...to learn the art of music creation and production right here in our home state," Weinberger said.

Only New York and Los Angeles have well-established music production schools, a fact that Weinberger calls inconvenient. His solution? Start his own school and teach it himself.

ASU senior Marcus Luckendeder, a 2010 Edson winner, placed his first six advertising and coupon-printing kiosks in a west valley shopping center two weeks before Black Friday.

ASU senior Marcus Luckeneder doesn’t mince words describing what he’s learned as an entrepreneur.

“You really learn the effort and sacrifices it takes to start a company,” Luckeneder says. “You find out right away how dedicated you are to your idea. How much you believe in it.”

Luckeneder is the founder of isave media, which some day hopes to put its advertising and coupon-printing kiosks into malls, supermarkets and big-box retailers nationwide.

ASU junior Chad Fogg crosses College Avenue with a food drive collection box. Fogg is engaged in ASU's Service Learning Program. Photo by Kyle Patton

A single student can make a huge impact given the tools, opportunities, and guidance to do so. Entrepreneurship major Chad Fogg knows well the truth of this statement.

Fogg is engaged in Arizona State University’s University Service Learning Program, which offers courses (USL 210, 402 and 410) designed to encourage students to apply academic knowledge and skills to best serve communities in need. In USL 410, students complete 100 hours of service and attend weekly seminars to make connections between their community work, course curriculum and future career goals.