Samuel Nagy: Revitalizing a career with Startup Semester experience
With years of business education and practical startup experience under his belt, project manager Samuel Nagy was uncertain about what the Startup Semester at UC Berkeley might offer him. Last fall, he was successfully pursuing a masters’ in Data and Analytics at the Prague University of Economics and Business and working for local data governance startup Dawiso.
“Before I went, I wasn’t sure how useful [the Startup Semester] would be,” Nagy reflected. “I’d already spent almost five years working at startups in the Czech Republic. I had experience with the Czech education system, and was kind of depressed about the level of education because sometimes the stuff you learn isn’t useful for practical experience later on.”
With these concerns in mind, Nagy was pleasantly surprised with the hands-on experience that the Startup Semester offered him this spring. The graduate-level program, which is designed to train early-stage founders, includes at least nine units of project-based learning with SCET entrepreneurs and instructors.
“The startup education [at UC Berkeley], nobody else teaches,” Nagy said. “The ecosystem around San Francisco, the knowledge of funding and investor relationships, doesn’t match anything else in the world.”
In particular, Nagy valued lessons from professionals such as Naeem Zafar and Shomit Ghose who had multiple successful startups of their own.
“Those teachers taught me a lot about how to think about startups — the key components in building a startup, getting funded, moving forward,” he said. “Naeem is a very special teacher. The most memorable moments were the ones where he was very direct with his feedback and expectations of us. At the time, it didn’t feel great, because he was telling us, ‘This is the worst presentation I have ever seen, redo it by tomorrow morning.’ But it was great to see people be this open and direct in academia. And in the end, it was the most valuable experience, because it really made us move forward and think differently about what we were working on.”
At the same time, Nagy found that his theoretical background in business and the data space from Czech education were essential to the way he approached his semester at Berkeley. He learned how to balance his realistic insights with the optimistic, experimental approach of the Bay Area entrepreneurship environment.
Now, he’s combining these perspectives as the Vice President of Strategic Growth at Dawiso, applying his experience to grow a small startup into something fundable.
“I’ve been back at the company for not even three weeks, and already I’m going back to the presentations and notes I wrote at Berkeley, thinking, ‘What can I take and use for the research we’re doing here?’” Nagy said.
Nagy’s career is leaping forward, and he believes that the Startup Semester played an essential role in that development.
“After I got accepted into Berkeley last fall, I was hesitant about whether [its impact on my career] would be worth the money. And if anyone in that position is going to read this profile, I think they should know it really is worth it. You get to experience [entrepreneurship] in Berkeley. You get to try real-life examples and real projects. In the long term, it’s going to pay off massively.”
About the Startup Semester
Through SCET’s Global Startup Semester Program, international students have the opportunity to study at UC Berkeley for a semester of entrepreneurship and innovation courses, including the opportunity to advance a startup idea. Our courses use the globally-recognized Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship, an approach that emphasizes hands-on venture-building, and learning the mindsets and behaviors that lead to entrepreneurial success.
In addition to gaining access to leading faculty in UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering, students learn from seasoned entrepreneurs who have built startups in Silicon Valley, the worldwide innovation hub.
With years of business education and practical startup experience under his belt, project manager Samuel Nagy was uncertain about what the Startup Semester at UC Berkeley might offer him. Last fall, he was successfully pursuing a masters’ in Data and Analytics at the Prague University of Economics and Business and working for local data governance startup Dawiso.
“Before I went, I wasn’t sure how useful [the Startup Semester] would be,” Nagy reflected. “I’d already spent almost five years working at startups in the Czech Republic. I had experience with the Czech education system, and was kind of depressed about the level of education because sometimes the stuff you learn isn’t useful for practical experience later on.”
With these concerns in mind, Nagy was pleasantly surprised with the hands-on experience that the Startup Semester offered him this spring. The graduate-level program, which is designed to train early-stage founders, includes at least nine units of project-based learning with SCET entrepreneurs and instructors.
“The startup education [at UC Berkeley], nobody else teaches,” Nagy said. “The ecosystem around San Francisco, the knowledge of funding and investor relationships, doesn’t match anything else in the world.”
In particular, Nagy valued lessons from professionals such as Naeem Zafar and Shomit Ghose who had multiple successful startups of their own.
“Those teachers taught me a lot about how to think about startups — the key components in building a startup, getting funded, moving forward,” he said. “Naeem is a very special teacher. The most memorable moments were the ones where he was very direct with his feedback and expectations of us. At the time, it didn’t feel great, because he was telling us, ‘This is the worst presentation I have ever seen, redo it by tomorrow morning.’ But it was great to see people be this open and direct in academia. And in the end, it was the most valuable experience, because it really made us move forward and think differently about what we were working on.”
At the same time, Nagy found that his theoretical background in business and the data space from Czech education were essential to the way he approached his semester at Berkeley. He learned how to balance his realistic insights with the optimistic, experimental approach of the Bay Area entrepreneurship environment.
Now, he’s combining these perspectives as the Vice President of Strategic Growth at Dawiso, applying his experience to grow a small startup into something fundable.
“I’ve been back at the company for not even three weeks, and already I’m going back to the presentations and notes I wrote at Berkeley, thinking, ‘What can I take and use for the research we’re doing here?’” Nagy said.
Nagy’s career is leaping forward, and he believes that the Startup Semester played an essential role in that development.
“After I got accepted into Berkeley last fall, I was hesitant about whether [its impact on my career] would be worth the money. And if anyone in that position is going to read this profile, I think they should know it really is worth it. You get to experience [entrepreneurship] in Berkeley. You get to try real-life examples and real projects. In the long term, it’s going to pay off massively.”
About the Startup Semester
Through SCET’s Global Startup Semester Program, international students have the opportunity to study at UC Berkeley for a semester of entrepreneurship and innovation courses, including the opportunity to advance a startup idea. Our courses use the globally-recognized Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship, an approach that emphasizes hands-on venture-building, and learning the mindsets and behaviors that lead to entrepreneurial success.
In addition to gaining access to leading faculty in UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering, students learn from seasoned entrepreneurs who have built startups in Silicon Valley, the worldwide innovation hub.