With support, resources, and our own Colin and Erika Angle Center for Entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial spirit flourishes at Endicott. While several alumni own many of our favorite local small businesses, Endicott continues to nurture that drive and produce more young entrepreneurs every year, extending the reach of experiential learning beyond internships into ownership.
During National Entrepreneurship Month, we’re spotlighting five Gulls who are launching (and expanding) companies now.
These founders recently shared the stage during an Entrepreneurs with Grit panel, sponsored by the Angle Center, where they shared how their businesses began, where they’ve pivoted, and why grit is the difference between thinking and doing.
Grit, as the Angle Center’s Executive Director, Gina Deschamps, put it, is “more than persistence. It’s the courage to take risk,” and the resilience to get back up again. And each of these students is doing exactly that—day by day, client by client, cookie by cookie, or school presentation by school presentation.
Eli Wilson ’24 — Ticket Tree
After getting scammed on Celtics tickets, marketing major Eli Wilson ’24 realized how common the pain point was for both fans and teams.
So, he built Ticket Tree, a blockchain-powered ticketing platform designed initially to verify every ticket and combat resale fraud. Today, Ticket Tree has expanded into the European market—where the bureaucracy (and LiveNation’s foothold) offer fewer barriers to entry—and the company is now moving into a customized, full-funnel ticketing experience that goes beyond just the barcode.
But the leap into postgrad entrepreneurship wasn’t without fear or friction.
Wilson says raising capital has been one of the biggest mindset challenges—especially when trying to disrupt a massive, legacy industry. “And doing that as a first-time founder with no experience directly in the ticket space or sports entertainment space,” he said.
He’s learned to be selective about whose feedback actually deserves weight—and more importantly, whose doesn’t.
What would surprise his younger self most? That Ticket Tree has evolved from a fan-first concept into an enterprise tool: “My younger self is probably a little sad,” he joked—proof that real entrepreneurship is all about flexible thinking, and not rigid attachment to the first idea.
Kara Stingo M’25 — The Smart Cookie by Stingo’s Sweets
When Stingo posted in a parent Facebook group and woke up to 50 cookie orders, a whimsical idea became something real overnight.
The Smart Cookie by Stingo’s Sweets is now a gourmet cookie care package service that lets parents send hand-baked comfort to students on campus.
Her journey has also taken her across the Atlantic—to Student Inc. at Ireland’s Munster Technological University—which she calls her scariest leap. But that fear was the point.
“It absolutely changed the way that I think about business,” she said. “Saying yes to every single opportunity that comes your way, and finding a way to make it happen is also a huge, huge, huge part of just growing and continuing.”
Taylor ’28 and Jackson ’27 Skane — Skane Train Voices
When Jackson—who was diagnosed with autism as a kid—realized disability language and stigma were still deeply present in school culture, he and his sister Taylor decided to do something about it.
Skane Train Voices is their disability awareness company, which presents in schools, communities, and companies to empower students and adults to be more inclusive. They began with talks to young kids and now train high schoolers, teachers, and corporate workforces, too.
Their proudest moments are human connections, not revenue milestones.
During one presentation, Jackson remembers a student bravely raising his hand: “I have autism.” That moment told him that the siblings’ work mattered.
Taylor agreed. Some friends said, “No one really cares about disability awareness.” But she and her brother believed differently—and now, kids are telling them, “I feel like I could be the president.”
Daniel Whelan ’26— Better Lifestyle 365
Whelan didn’t begin as the confident fitness coach he is today. His transformation—both physical and internal, along with his eye-opening honesty about his own self-confidence—became the blueprint for Better Lifestyle 365, where he now coaches men through habit change, mindset, and getting “in the best shape of their lives.” His Instagram now boasts more than 200,000 followers, many of whom are clients.
Even while experiencing early success, Whelan had to transition his mindset from student to entrepreneur, and still remembers the first moment he thought: This is real. “One of my friends… looked at me, and he’s like, bro, you look like a CEO,” he recalled. “And something about that just flipped the switch.”
That switch was more than aesthetics—it was identity.
Today, Whelan runs his business on consistency and self-accountability, and he’s learned that being a coach isn’t just about looking the part—it requires deep reflection, too. That sets him apart in the frenzied online fitness space.
“For me to actually help people, I have to reflect on my own journey,” he said.