For Randy Boyd, UT Ventures is an opportunity to give back to the entrepreneurs who remind him of his own journey.
As an entrepreneur who grew up in Knoxville and started his business in Tennessee, Boyd experienced firsthand how much a young company can benefit from people willing to provide capital, mentorship and encouragement.
“Entrepreneurs are what moves the world,” said Boyd, president of the University of Tennessee (UT) System and a founding member of UT Ventures. “We need to have more entrepreneurs in the state of Tennessee and at the University of Tennessee.”
Boyd knows that capital can make a meaningful difference, particularly in the early stages of building a company. He and his wife, Jenny, have seen that support firsthand throughout their own journey.
“Everything that we’ve earned, everything we have is as a result of people pouring into us,” he said. “I had so many mentors, small investors, so many different people that helped us be successful.”
For Boyd, joining UT Ventures is a way to pay that support forward.
“So, it’s my turn to pay it back,” he said. “This is my opportunity to help other people also have the same kind of success that Jenny and I had.”
He also recognizes that entrepreneurship is rarely a straight path. “It’s going to be hard. You’re going to fail a lot,” Boyd said. “But you need to push forward.”
That persistence is something he hopes UT Ventures will help foster while remaining open-minded about where the next opportunity may come from.
“Sometimes the best investments aren’t the obvious ones,” Boyd said. “That’s why with UT Ventures, we need to look at all types of companies because you never know which one’s going to be successful.”