George Ramsay ’13, co-owner and co-founder of Bold Music got his start at Davidson College. Ramsay took full advantage of what Davidson had to offer. As a music major, varsity soccer player, and member of one of the most popular bands on campus– Green Eggs and Jam, Ramsay experienced every side of the college.

After graduating Davidson, Ramsay set up his company in Charlotte. Ramsay’s company, Bold Music, offers at home lessons for aspiring musicians. Ramsay uses his business to spread his passion for music. Now, he helps children and adults to realize their dreams of becoming musicians. But, music has not become all business for Ramsay. His band Green Eggs and Jam is still going strong. The band now plays for weddings, including a wedding of a Davidson Alumni in Germany!

Ramsay took a diverse set of experiences (and one awesome band) from his time at Davidson College. He believes that these experiences were integral to his success as an entrepreneur.

Ramsay explains that life as an entrepreneur is often unpredictable: “When you start a business you have no idea what you’re getting into, and you often have to adjust on the fly. You may not necessarily be doing things you ever thought you would be doing.”

The value of a liberal arts education, especially in the entrepreneurial field, is that students have a more diverse background of knowledge. Ramsay suggests that Davidson College helps students become uniquely equipped to taking on tasks outside of their majors or realms of expertise. After his time at Davidson, Ramsay was able to draw on his experiences from classes he never thought he would take, his career as a varsity athlete, and his education in music.

While the value of the liberal arts track cannot be understated, Ramsay wishes that Davidson had a more accessible network of alumni to help students get started. After leaving Davidson, Ramsay found a mentor to be extremely helpful in the start of his business. However, he explains that Davidson’s current alumni network makes it extremely difficult to find help, either for advice, summer internships, or other work. Ramsay could not stress enough the value of “having a mentorship program where entrepreneurs can connect with older Davidson alumni in business to lean on and run ideas past.”

The importance of preparing students for life as an entrepreneur is becoming increasingly important. During his time at Davidson and his time in the professional world, Ramsay has noticed that many millennials are becoming more interested in personal and professional freedom as opposed to a traditional career path. For those individuals Ramsay suggests entrepreneurship as a career path. He explains, “a huge benefit of being an entrepreneur is the freedom it allows.”

Of course, life as an entrepreneur is not all positive. Ramsay warns, “Starting a company can be lot of responsibility and the start can be really stressful. Put things into perspective, because tons of companies don’t work and a lot of successful entrepreneurs aren’t successful on their first try.”

While failure can seem daunting both Ramsay and The Hurt Hub@Davidson want to remind aspiring entrepreneurs once again that failure is not final. Ramsay’s final piece of advice is to, “Take a leap of faith: be willing to go for it and be willing to fail. A failure in the short term can be a really helpful lesson in the long term.”

How The Hurt Hub gets involved:

The Hurt Hub is completely on board with Ramsay about the value of failure. In fact, we even have a Failure Fund that allows students to learn through failures!

As for Ramsay’s point on Davidson’s need for a more robust mentor program — we could not agree more! Student and alumni interest in mentorship was a core focus during the development of The Hurt Hub. At present, The Hurt Hub connects students with entrepreneurs and other local professionals everyday, and is building additional resource options for alumni. Looking for mentorship, or how to connect with Davidson Alumni working in the entrepreneurial field? Connect with Julie Goff (jugoff@davidson.edu), General Manager of The Hurt Hub, to learn how!

By Lucy Fasano ’21, Resident Storyteller at The Hurt Hub.