For short men, finding clothes that fit is more difficult than it should be.
At 5’6 and 5’8 respectively, recent NC State graduate Steven Mazur and his friend Eric Huang know the struggle firsthand and it’s what inspired the two young entrepreneurs to launch a new fashion brand targeted to men like themselves.
Called Ash & Anvil, the business stems from the simple belief that every guy, no matter his size, deserves the same shopping experience.
Mazur’s roots as an entrepreneur come from the Triangle’s startup ecosystem. As a freshman engineering major at NC State University, he founded a leadership development organization called Triangle Youth Leadership Services in 2009, and spent his four undergraduate years building it up. He also participated in the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program, where his senior year was devoted to building a product and launching a new company.
Upon graduation, Mazur’s desire to become an entrepreneur led him on a nontraditional career path. He won a fellowship from the nonprofit organization Venture for America, which trains and places recent graduates with some of the best emerging startups in former Rust Belt cities around the U.S.
The organization’s mission is to give young graduates a crash course in startup, in hopes of inspiring and preparing them to start their own companies someday and create jobs in the cities they serve. 16 startups have been founded by VFA alums since the organization launched in 2012 (Ash & Anvil and Bikes ORO by NC college graduates). 54 of 428 fellows hail from North Carolina colleges; 25 of them are in the class of 2016.
It was at his Detroit VFA placement, SocialProof, that Mazur met Huang.
There’s much more. Read the full story at:
http://exitevent.com/article/venture-for-america-provides-alt-career-path-student-entrepreneurs-160406
(Note: ExitEvent is a news partner of WRAL TechWire.)
