Matt Leevy Web
Bio:
Matt is currently an Associate Professor of the Practice within the IDEA Center and serves as the Director of the Innovation Lab at the University of Notre Dame. This 5000 square-foot space integrates talented industrial and graphic designers with world-class prototyping equipment to create products, build businesses, and launch dreams.
Over his 15-year career at ND, Matt's lab has generated dozens of peer-reviewed manuscripts and been awarded six utility patents that have served as cornerstones for the creation of two successful small-business startups that are alive and well today: In Vivo Concepts LLC (1st Source Award, 2014, exiting December 2023), and Irish Woodworks LLC (exited December 2021).
Matt is a graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (B.S. Bioengineering) and Washington University in Saint Louis (Ph.D. Biophysics), and he is also a retired Army Reserve Captain with 22 years of total service. Taken together, Matt operates a vibrant, collaborative, and entrepreneurial lab space, with broad experience in object design and fabrication, biomedical imaging technologies, and business creation.
ESTEEM: What was the most surprising or unconventional lesson you’ve learned in your professional journey?
Matt:
A) A positive attitude is more critical to an individual's success than most people realize.
B) Start-ups have difficult times that shake you to your core, and have you question why you are even doing it. If you know those moments are coming, you will move into problem-solving mode much more quickly.
ESTEEM: Can you share a pivotal moment in your career when you took a risk or embraced uncertainty, and what you learned from it?
Matt: Hear this, any time you launch a company without doing proper diligence, you are taking too much risk. And yet, I have been all too happy to stick my hand in that flame. It is better to suffer the minor disappointment of an idea that should not proceed, than to suffer the time and money lost of a business that is two years in.
ESTEEM: If you were a student starting the ESTEEM program this year, what would you make sure to focus on learning or doing during the year?
Matt: The capstone teaches a mix of corporate innovation alongside the soft skills needed to thrive in a professional environment. The curriculum teaches how to evaluate ideas with a Problem/Solution/Market Size/Competitive Landscape/Launch strategy formula. I would recommend either starting a company, joining another group planning to launch, or at least pitching an idea for McCloskey to understand the nuts and bolts of launching, as well as the dynamics of a team in start-up mode.
ESTEEM: What emerging trends or challenges in your field do you think ESTEEM students should be paying attention to?
Matt: The default answer here is AI. But another interesting trend is the resurgence of fields that AI simply cannot touch in the near term: nursing, building trades (HVAC, electrical, carpentry, etc), auto repair, etc. There are solid entrepreneurial opportunities at the interface of each of those disciplines.
ESTEEM: What do you personally learn from working with ESTEEM students year after year?
Matt: The capstones are consistently exposing me to new technologies and concepts that are cool to learn about. Further, this year my students have shown me a couple new tools (Apollo!) that I am implementing in my own company, In Vivo Concepts. ESTEEM has been a profoundly positive influence in my life in this way for sure.
ESTEEM: If you had one piece of advice for students striving to make an impact, what would it be?
Matt: Too many people think that impact only counts if it happens at the societal level. However, think about a person that volunteers two hours per week to mentor students at a school or a homeless shelter. If they counsel two people per week, for a whole year, that is 100 lives changed. Think about a business that helps one needy customer per week with a free service or product (HVAC, dry cleaning, a meal) that impacts 50 lives per year. For those that do these activities over the course of a lifetime, they can fundamentally improve thousands of lives, and that is an impact anybody can be proud of.
About the ESTEEM Graduate Program:
Over the course of this 11-month Master of Science degree (in Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship) program at the University of Notre Dame, students from technical backgrounds are equipped with the skills and experience to launch new businesses, become innovators within large corporations, and be leaders of dynamic, innovative teams. Students are immersed in an entrepreneurial sandbox, where they get their hands dirty with entrepreneurship and innovation through a cutting-edge curriculum, a capstone commercialization project for an emerging technology, and outstanding out-of-the-classroom experiences.
To learn more about the ESTEEM Graduate Program or to apply please go to our website.