From Engineer to Entrepreneur

Corey Fleischer ‘08 B.S. and M.S. Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Co-Founder

The Foundery and Mechanical Design Engineer

Come listen to alumnus Corey Fleischer talk about how his personal interests played a large role in his path to studying mechanical engineering and his dedication to SAE Baja at UMBC. This led to his undergrad research, a career at Lockheed Martin, and a launch into entrepreneurship as he went from building projects to building companies.

To date, Corey has been involved in three start-up

companies: The Foundery, which was a large success, a

product development company which was a mild success,

and a tech company that was a devastating failure. At The

Foundery Corey encouraged people to prototype quickly so

they could “fail fast, fail forward”. A product’s first design

rarely shows significant success regardless of its hardware or

software.

Entrepreneurs need to learn as much as they can from failed

iterations and plan for flexibility so when mistakes are made

they won’t be catastrophic. Corey will also candidly talk about

his failed start-up and how it taught him the most important

real life lessons and how to weigh risks.