Running For: Council
Campaign Statement
Since graduating, I have enjoyed attending the events organized by the CUAA. The First Tuesdays and other happy hour events have given me a chance to catch up with friends I haven’t seen in a while and to network with alumni. In particular, at the 2019 Holiday Party, I had a conversation with an alumni that I had met at previous events. He is very experienced in the tech startup space and has created and sold a company of his own. So, I pitched the current startup idea that I was working on to him. He immediately pointed out that my idea was trying to solve a technical problem and not a business problem, so it would be tough to convince businesses that it was something that they needed. At first, I was disappointed because I had spent the past year working on the project. But, in hindsight, I think that this advice saved me a lot of time. After thinking about it further, I realized that it really was a much better approach to start off with the business problem and then work out any technical issues that are preventing the business problem from being solved. Just attending this one CUAA event made a big impact on the way that I’m approaching my startup career, and so I’d like to make sure that this opportunity continues to exist, not just for myself, but for other alumni as well. Therefore, my mission is to help CUAA with organizing alumni professional networking events and strengthening the professional network in general.
Biography
My name is Brendan Fernes. I graduated in 2018, majoring in Electrical Engineering. I’m from New Jersey and am currently living in Hoboken, NJ. At the moment, I am working for a financial software company as a product analyst, but am really passionate about starting a company of my own. Since high school, I have worked on various ventures, including a photo sharing app with a fellow Cooper student. While none of them have “taken off” as of now, I have learned a lot from each experience and am eager to apply that knowledge to the current project I am working on. In addition to learning from my own experience, I have also benefited from the experience of others, including Cooper alum. This leads to my mission statement, which involves strengthening Cooper’s professional alumni network.
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