Building Innovation Ecosystems — Carnegie Mellon’s Steven Guo

Fred Schonenberg
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the VentureFuel Visionaries Podcast. I'm your host, Fred Schonenberg. I'm so excited today to welcome Steven Guo. Steven is the Program Manager at Carnegie Mellon University's Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship. 

Steven leads alumni-focused programming and supports key initiatives like the VentureBridge Accelerator, which helps CMU founders scale their startups. VentureBridge-supported startups have collectively raised over $210 million and are valued at over half a billion dollars. With a background in decision science and healthcare policy from CMU, Stephen brings a unique systems thinking approach to building innovation programs and a vibrant entrepreneurial community. 

Prior to CMU, his work spanned from a life science startup accelerator to nonprofit foundation and community initiatives focused on social determinants of health in Pittsburgh. He leads CMU's tech and entrepreneurship, fostering connections, mentorship, and growth for the local innovation ecosystem in Pittsburgh and for Tartans across the country. Please join me in welcoming Steven Guo. Steven, welcome to the show.

Steven Guo
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I've been trying to get on for the year and I know we've had some scheduling issues, so we're here. We're doing it. It's 2025.

Fred Schonenberg
I'm so excited. I was joking that it's a Thanksgiving gift for our listeners, but yeah, man, I would love it if you could tell our listeners a bit about your background, what inspired your passion for technology, entrepreneurships, and all the work that you're doing now.

Steven Guo
Yeah, so I like to say I kind of walked backwards into the entrepreneurship support space. So you highlighted a little bit about my background in decision science, behavioral economics, healthcare policy. I was really interested in social innovation and at the time, I didn't do anything in entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon. I didn't think of myself as a coder, an engineer, a designer, or a business person. And so it felt very distant to me. 

But then CMU Tech and Entrepreneurship, that group you mentioned that I currently help to run, is essentially a community building group across the country and the world at one point where we're trying to create the space for connection. So our Tartans, which is what CMU alumni are called, can gather, connect your resources, and really find each other to support one another's ambitions in tech and entrepreneurship.

So I joined that group to just learn and to be around my fellow Tartans. And that's how I started to get involved with LIFX, which was a health tech life science accelerator in Pittsburgh. Then slowly just started to show up in Pittsburgh in the startup ecosystem here, organized a couple of TechStars startup weekends to kind of really figure out how you are involved in entrepreneurship by being around it and figuring out how to help you get closer to where you need to go? 

And that was really the tying thread about I've always loved people, love supporting them. How do I connect the dots? And how do I do it by building infrastructure and resources in this nested web to enable you to get to where you want to go? And now I'm back at Carnegie Mellon doing it officially as part of the staff here, and it's just been a pleasure.

Fred Schonenberg
That's so cool. So can you tell us a little bit about the Swartz Center and your approach and what you're working on right now? Obviously, thinking about the platform for students and alumni to embark on their sort of tech and entrepreneurship ambitions.

Steven Guo
The Swartz Center was founded in 2016, 2017. So almost like 10 years ago, really through a generous gift from Jim Swartz, who is a fellow CMU alum, co-founder of Axel Ventures, been investing for like 50, 60 years now, really a key benefactor. And part of it was to consolidate all of the entrepreneurial activity on campus within the Swartz Center. There were other centers across the various schools that also did entrepreneurship incubation and activities, but how do we consolidate onto one roof? 

And I think what's so beautiful about what the Swartz Center offers is so many resources and activities. We have a beautiful space here in the Tepper Quad where we do over 100 events a year. And the interest in entrepreneurship continues to rise year after year. I think my colleague mentioned that over the past academic calendar year, we've had over 400 startups or ideas that were incubated. 

Now all of them became startups, but we have so many different funding mechanisms to help with just getting you started. We have a number of different educational opportunities. We have an entrepreneur in residence program, mentors who give back to the community, VentureBridge is specifically for our CME alumni founders who are an early stage, pre-seed stage accelerator, and are able to create the culture. I think that's the biggest one because Carnegie Mellon has had a long track record of excellence in research and technology and being a pioneer of AI and robotics and really having that technical prowess in many different disciplines. 

But how do we inject the culture of, hey, maybe don't think about the first thing you do is working at a large corporation. What if entrepreneurship could be attainable? What if you wanna try? What if you wanna just explore this highly fulfilling yet very challenging and rewarding career of entrepreneurship? So that's really what I feel is so unique is building a lifelong community for inspiration, for engagement, for challenge, and to do so with your fellow Tartans. I think that's what's so unique about the Swartz Center. 

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, I think it's so cool, I mean, when I think of CMU, the first thing I think about is robotics, AI, that tech, deep tech know-how and ingenuity, more invention, right, and innovation. And then what's very interesting is that often is a world that has a hard time moving to the entrepreneurial space and being founders and translating the deep tech into product and commercialization and all of that. So I think it's so cool to go to the source of where it's being created and build this next generation of future leaders that can go build those companies rather than going, sitting inside of a big company and maybe having their IP go to someone else.

Steven Guo
Right, actually, so yesterday, Lewis Vaughan, who is the CEO and co-founder of Duolingo. He was a professor at CMU. He kind of spun out Duolingo from CMU, and he came back yesterday because it's the 125th anniversary, so it was homecoming this weekend, and he did a fireside chat with President Farnam Jahanian and kind of told his story. 

And so that is one of many stories that we are trying to continue to tell and encourage. We have the Innovation Commercialization Fellows Program, which is specifically a capital infusion, but also a cohort-based program for PhDs and postdocs intending on spinning out a research lab or IP from the university to commercialize it.

So I think in the past 10 years and 15, 20, we've been changing the culture by creating more of that entrepreneurial spirit, that know-how and the community to let people know that, hey, you can attempt to commercialize and spin out new ventures and move things away from just the ivory tower of academia, right?

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, I'm curious on that note, one of the things that I think is really special about what you're describing is entrepreneurs are at different stages of their growth and even their maturity, even if they're at the same stage in terms of what they know. How do you all make sense of that? It sounds like there's multiple programs depending on where you are and what you're trying to accomplish. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Steven Guo
Yeah, it's a great question where I think that's what's unique about being in a university, building this Entrepreneurship Center is we cater to everyone in the senior community. Whether you're a freshman undergrad to a graduate student to a PhD or postdoc, a faculty member, and even an alum, whether you're a recent grad from yesterday to someone 10, 15, 20, 30 years out. We have all these programs available to you that you can access just by being part of the senior family.

When it comes to different stages of entrepreneurship, we have typically seen most of the founders coming through our doors at that earliest stage where they're just learning about customer discovery, where they're trying to validate the problem, where they're trying to get that initial capital infusion, where they're going through our McGinnis Venture Competition or the Social Enterprise Prize and just figuring out, hey, does this thing have legs? And we have so many different student organizations that run multiple programs throughout the year for you to build together, for you to test and pressure test your ideas and your pitches. 

I think something that we are trying to get better about is really figuring out, hey, for a company that maybe you're a bit further along, maybe you have been an alum for a while, you've built your own company, you're kind of just grinding it out, you're working really hard, you're getting it done, what can we offer them? I think we're trying to build more platforms and infrastructure so that we can highlight them and involve them. 

So for example, we've been building out this platform, which is essentially a directory for CMU startups. How do we highlight, elevate, showcase all of these amazing companies that have a CMU pedigree? And so we're constantly thinking about how do we not only improve the offerings we have for our earliest stages who are incubating their idea to get to a pre-seed stage, but what about all of our amazing companies who kind of are out there? How do we highlight these amazing founders and create the pathway so that they can mentor and they can engage? So we're constantly thinking about how to offer different ways of engagement.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, we started 11 years ago at this point and helping startups and then helping large companies thinking about working with startups and government entities and all these things. And one of the things we realized over time is whatever the program focuses on, it changes what the curriculum is and it changes what the founder needs, what stage they are at, how to build that just right.

And then there's this platform effect of community, right? Like you wanna have something where it's easy to find the startups or the vendors or whatever you need that resource. But also like there's something to founders, helping founders, investors being interested in founders, introducing to a different investor, right? It's like a community piece that is really something special that I love that you all seem to be fostering in so many different ways.

Steven Guo
Yeah, I mean, I'm very biased because I am an alum from Carnegie Mellon, but I think we have some of the best people in the world. I think we have amazing talent, amazing potential, amazing entrepreneurs. And part of why I believe that is having gone to CMU as a student, the rigor of completing a degree at CMU helps instill the trust in me that they'll get it done no matter what. And I actually went like this year during the VentureBridge program, I got the opportunity to meet people in the community, mentors, investors, and other founders.

I only had a handful of conversations, but I've asked them this question of, what do you think of when you think of a CMU founder or CMU's brand of entrepreneurship? And without fail, there'll be a few different words thrown around. But every time I ask that question, I always hear a humble and hard work ethic. And I think that is indicative of being in Pittsburgh, of being part of the Carnegie Mellon rigor, where you’re just gonna go through the wringer, the grinder, and you have all the technical chops and you can build what you need to build and solve hard problems.

But I think that's where I feel is, hey, how do we supplement that by making sure that we tell these stories? That you know that this person is from CMU and we built that flywheel, we built that community. And I think we have to mobilize the community to reinforce all of these great talents and know-how. 

Fred Schonenberg
I couldn't agree more. Can you tell me a little bit, you mentioned the VentureBridge program, and I know I introduced it a little bit, but I would love to understand maybe just a brief background on it and what you think is unique about that program.

Steven Guo
So the VentureBridge program is a program specifically geared towards CMU alumni, early stage founders. And it's a pre-seed accelerator where we directly invest $25,000 as a safe into these companies. It's a cohort-based program that currently is around four to five months where we have a number of different components, which includes we pair them with mentors from the community. 

We have founders round tables where they can kind of get together and peer-to-peer forums of challenges, like what I'm working on, how do you help? We have kind of how I built these conversations with other Venture Bridge alumni founders.  Then we also kind of put them in front of investors to do more like one-on-many conversations where it's like learning more about the investing landscape.

The other thing that I think is very important is we do a number of demo days, kind of showcase events in our main hubs in Pittsburgh, in New York, and in the Bay Area, which are also where we have the most density of alumni kind of flocking over there. And so that is really a big way for us to promote what they're doing, to get them in front of investors. These are usually just only for investors and to create that FOMO around, hey, like you need to come and see what these founders are up to.

A strategy that we've used this year was having our demo days timed alongside the A16Z Tech Weeks. So we were in New York Tech Week in June. We’re also in the Bay Area during October in San Francisco Tech Week. And then of course, we had our own CMU Startup Week in Pittsburgh, which was its own thing to kind of showcase that when there are high periods of intensity of startups and community and entrepreneurship activity, we're there. We are representing the CMU notion of we are also entrepreneurs and we have great people and you got to see them.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, very cool. So Steven, I have a question for you. I've been doing events at everything from South by Southwest to CES to the different Tech Weeks, and I'm kind of split on whether hosting an event during a high intensity moment like that where everybody's thinking about innovation is better than doing just a random event where I own all the attention. I have to create it, but I own it once I do it. Curious your thoughts as you explored Tech Week for these programs this year.

Steven Guo
So our thinking is, hey, we gotta show up. We gotta go to where the eyeballs are and we gotta let them know like, oh, Carnegie Mellon is here. Like, I wonder what they're doing. I wonder who these founders are? And that is part of the broader strategy of what we're trying to do when it comes to our events where in the past it's been very disjoint. It's kind of based on when our schedule allows and when the program looks like.

But this year we're trying to be very intentional with the A16Z Tech Weeks to be, hey, like, let's do not only a demo day event for VentureBridge during this period of time, which is only for investors. But let's also build additional events for the CMU founders community. So we had Mixers, we had a Fireside with other investment groups that are affiliated with or interested in CMU founders. 

We're trying to build out a suite of events geared towards CMU founders during these weeks. So it's not just a demo day, which is usually only closed off for the VentureBridge companies to pitch to investors. We want people to show up and know that we care about them. We're building out activities for them to get involved with. I will say when it comes to creating a big splash on a very nondescript week, CMU Startup Week, which was very much inspired by the Tech Week model. We just did that for the first time. It was the inaugural CMU Startup Week in Pittsburgh on the main campus here, and it was in September.

We planned that in six to seven weeks, and we had 25 events in over four days. We brought over 150 external investors from out of town to come to Pittsburgh, many for the first time, come to campus. And we had around 2000 distinct individual registered attendees from the Pittsburgh, broader community, from CMU campus, but also all these external people coming into town. 

And really, it was a unique blend of faculty researchers talking about what they are building, what are their ventures, looking at different mixer events, investment firms holding their own different types of office hours to meet students, student clubs, founders. We have the pitch demo day events that we usually have. But really, it's creating a sense of deep community and energy around, when you think of CMU, you better think of, I got to check this out, an entrepreneurship activity, deep tech, competent, I need to invest in you, I need to see what you're doing. 

Fred Schonenberg
I have to say now my feelings are hurt because you very graciously, before we started, we're like, you've got to come down for CMU Startup Week.It's not till next September, man. It's so far out. I get to Pittsburgh this weekend. I thought it’s going to be coming up, but it sounds like an amazing experience. I'm just kidding, by the way. But that's really cool. And that's quite an undertaking to get that many events and activities happening that quickly.

Steven Guo
Yeah. It was a truly cross-campus collaborative where we really wanted to invite everyone in the CMU community to take part, to own an event, host an event, and really contribute to the diversity of all that we try to showcase when it comes to specifically entrepreneurship, but really figuring out, hey, there's so much entrepreneurship potential everywhere.

And I think one of the marquee events we had was our spark event, which was the CMU Startups Jobs Fair, where we brought some CMU alumni companies back into town with 20. We basically created a job fair, but we kicked it off with a keynote from Troy Demmer from Gecko Robotics, a local CMU company, and had 10 amazing founders pitch on stage about, this is what I'm doing. I'm hiring for this kind of position.

We had 1,000 students register for that event. And two of the founders who pitched, they literally said, if you're in the audience, that was me a few years ago, and I'm here now, so this is real. You know, keep the cycle going, where if you get hired and you're here, hey, I want you to come back and hire the next generation of CMU students too.

Fred Schonenberg
It's so cool to hear how it has evolved, right? Because I remember it was like, the job fair was where all these big companies that I had never heard of showed up, and I kind of begrudgingly went because it meant I was going to have to get a job pretty soon. And I guess I should start thinking about these things, vs here are really cool entrepreneurship startups that are making it, that are hiring, that I can relate to and can inspire me. That's such a cool evolution of the job fair. 

Obviously not to besmirch the traditional job fair, but more so, what an amazing experience for both the founders coming to find really high quality talent and also the audience. That's really, really cool. Let me ask you this. What is, you mentioned VentureBridge, some of the amount of money raised, the valuations of these companies, and you also mentioned founders being humble, hardworking out of CMU. What types of startups are mostly emerging or is it across the spectrum on the VentureBridge program?

Steven Guo
Yeah, it really is across the spectrum, and I want to give a big shout out and kudos to my director, Nirmal Tupanerjee. She is based in Silicon Valley. She has been running the VentureBridge program for the past five years. I will admit, I came back this year as a staff person, so I inherently inherited the amazing community that we've built to this point. Really, it's all over the place. We have software founders, hardware founders. We have founders working in automation, productivity, AI agents. AI is a pretty big one. I'm sure you hear AI all the time.

Fred Schonenberg
All the time.

Steven Guo
No less at CMU as well. But I think what's so beautiful about the program that I've seen in comparison to other university-based accelerator programs is that we're exclusively open to CMU alumni founders. And I think why I think that is so unique and uniquely to our advantage is there's a shared affiliation when you come from a shared bond, a shared place, a shared sense of belonging. 

And from my experience, from all the stuff I've done, people who come from CMU are more than happy to support the next generation of CMU people. So part of what I see as my role is figuring out how do we build that infrastructure to enable that connection, to enable that engagement? Because we have people out there yearning and excited to figure it out, I want to help support. I want to give back. I want to really set up the next generation. I want to invest in the next set of CMU companies coming up because that used to be me and I want to help get them to where they need to go. And so for us, let's build the infrastructure. Let's do CMU Startup Week. Let's go out to the Bay Area. Let's go to New York and share that we have something special going on. 

Fred Schonenberg
One of the questions I like to ask guests towards the end is sort of get out the crystal ball a little bit based on what you're getting to see, which sounds like a wide range of types of startups. Are there things you see emerging that you're really excited about that maybe the audience would be surprised how fast it's coming or excited that it's around the corner?

Steven Guo
I mean, I think everyone's trying to figure out where AI is going to go. We have generative AI and the speed of innovation and what's up next? What are these partnerships going to look like? What is the landscape going to become? And I don't know if I can give a very satisfying answer because I think just me being here, I am around that energy and around that level of research. 

And I feel as though I don't know, but I know that what we need to do is to really be rooted in community. That no matter the winds of innovation go here and there, maybe it's crypto here. Maybe it's generative AI here next. I think that what's going to get us through is how do we mobilize our communities for each other? 

And so, for example, we have a couple of alumni who have so much conviction in seeing new founders. They're working to create a fund called the Plaid Matrix Fund. I can't endorse them because they're independent from the university, but they believe so heavily in the potential of seeing new founders that they're looking to raise a fund that's only thesis is high potential senior founders. And I think time and time again, we have so many people from the community who give gifts specifically figuring out, hey, how do we get these founders to the next level?

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah. Yeah, I think community is a really big piece of it. I think what you guys are doing is fantastic. Where can people go that want to learn more about CMU, about the VentureBridge program, about Startup Week, which I got to put on my calendar for next year. Where should people go to learn more about what you guys are offering?

Steven Guo
I'll definitely say details when Startup Week is coming back. I would recommend everyone to follow us on LinkedIn, go to our website, the Swartz Center at CMU. That's the best way you can find us. We also have a Swartz Center Weekly Bulletin that goes out every Friday morning, which is news and updates across the community about what's going on, upcoming events, and some programmatic stuff. We have, I think, close to 10,000 people on that newsletter, which is both for the CMU community, but also external people who are interested in keeping abreast with what's going on. That's the best way to stay up to date. 

VentureBridge, you can also look up VentureBridge at CMU to find our page. The application cycle was probably going to begin January through March. So if you're a CMU alumni, founder who is in the pre-seed stage and you're hearing this podcast, please make sure to check us out and continue to just come back to the Swartz Center. If you're in Pittsburgh, you're always welcome. I think that's the beautiful thing is once you've gone through the ringer at CMU, you're always welcome back and we welcome to see you and engage you.

Fred Schonenberg
Well, Steven, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing and all the work that you all are doing. It's really fantastic. Thanks again.

Steven Guo
Thank you, Fred. I appreciate it.