Fulbright's Leaders in Entrepreneurship at Virginia Tech
Most startups fail because they build something nobody wants. Not bad code, not weak design - wrong problem. That's the lesson I kept hearing this summer at Virginia Tech with Fulbright Germany's Leaders in Entrepreneurship Program. A small cohort of German engineering students, a structured curriculum on venture creation, and the people who turned it into something worth writing about.
The program gave us several weeks that turned into some of the best of my life. Foundations of Entrepreneurship with Professor Christopher Courtney[1], guest lectures from founders and investors, and hands-on team project work. The structure made sense - move from problem identification to user interviews to MVP scoping over three weeks. Each step built on the last.
Learning to validate before you build.
Our team focused on people preparing for standardized exams like the GMAT, MCAT, and MSAT. Narrow niche - until the interviews revealed depth. The pressure, the prep tools that don't work, the anxiety around test day. We talked to students across different exam types and heard the same pain points. By the end of the program, we had a clear MVP scope.
From Problem Space to Product Scope
The curriculum pushed us to resist solution mode. The first phase was entirely problem space: interviews, synthesis, clustering patterns. We talked to 11 exam takers before writing a single product requirement. The discipline paid off - when we finally shaped the MVP, we knew exactly what to build and why.
The lectures reinforced this. Guest speakers - seed founders, Series A operators, successful exits - all circled back to the same point: validate the problem first. Everything else is downstream.
What stuck with me: you can't validate a problem by asking people if they'd use your solution. You validate by understanding their current behavior, the workarounds they've built, and the pain they're willing to pay to remove. Our exam prep project only clicked when we stopped asking "would you use this?" and started asking "walk me through your last study session."
The Value of the Cohort
The program brought together a small group of German engineering students - civil, mechanical, medical, software, and others - through Fulbright's application process. No MBAs, no prior startup experience. Steeper learning curve, but genuine. We discovered entrepreneurship frameworks together.
The classroom taught frameworks. The group taught us how to use them. We'd hang out in the evenings, and somehow the conversation would drift from whatever we were doing to the day's lessons. Someone would bring up a confusing point from lecture. Another would challenge an assumption from our user interviews. Before long, someone was sketching on napkins or pulling up notes on their laptop. Not because we had to - we just wanted to figure it out together. Engineers with no startup experience, learning by talking through it with people who got it.
The cultural exchange happened once we stepped away from the work. Cooking classes that became lessons in American home cooking. Trail runs through the Blue Ridge Mountains where conversation drifted to stories about growing up in different parts of Germany and the US. Pickleball games that ran late into the night, surprisingly competitive and absurdly fun.
Beyond the Classroom
Virginia Tech gave us access to more than lecture halls. We visited Volvo, Mack, and Torc - all showing different facets of innovation at scale. The Torc visit stood out: autonomous trucking technology in development, 5-year timelines, massive capital requirements. A different game than consumer software, but the same fundamentals.
The real education happened outside the formal program. Hokies football games and tailgating culture. Baseball matches where the rules confused us but the atmosphere pulled us in. Hikes in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Living on an American campus, navigating dining halls, understanding the rhythm of college life - that immersion shaped the summer as much as any framework.
Our mentors turned logistics into hospitality. They made us belong from day one. Alessandra Rosetti[2] and the coordinators from Pamplin College of Business held everything together - they made it work.
What I'm Taking Forward
Talk to users before you build anything. 11 interviews before scoping a feature. Hard, but necessary.
Learning with peers at the same level accelerates growth. Working through frameworks together, questioning assumptions together - that compressed months of solo learning.
Cultural immersion teaches what lectures can't. Understanding a startup ecosystem starts with understanding how people live and connect.
Structure creates space for serendipity. Enough scaffolding to move forward, enough flexibility for tangents that turned into insights.
The summer taught me how to start properly - validate first, build second. The Fulbright program delivered on the framework. The people made it worth remembering.
Let's go, Hokies! 🦃