How DU Students Are Growing an Innovation Community

 In this episode of the Entrepreneurship@DU Podcast, host Joshua Ross sits down with University of Denver students Gina Parker and Charlie Peterson to talk about building community through entrepreneurship on campus. 

Gina and Charlie share their experiences leading and growing Pop-Up Palooza, a signature event that brings students, alumni, and the Denver community together to showcase student ventures. They discuss how the event has evolved and how it fosters creativity, connection, and an inclusive entrepreneurial culture at DU. 

The conversation also explores their leadership in Launchpad (formerly the DO U Entrepreneurship Club), lessons learned from starting a  business, and how entrepreneurship has shaped their mindset and personal growth. Gina and Charlie reflect on the skills they’ve gained, the importance of getting involved, and their vision for building an even stronger innovation community and ecosystem on the University of Denver campus. 

Transcript:

Joshua Ross:

My name is Joshua Ross and welcome to the Entrepreneurship at DU podcast. I had the chance to sit down with Gina Parker and Charlie Peterson, two impressive and motivated students at the University of Denver. We talked about entrepreneurship, why it is important to get involved as a student and the signature entrepreneurship at DU Event Popup Palooza.

Gina Parker:

I think it’s really special that we are able to create an event and a space where all different types of students from all different walks of life and disciplines can come together and share what they’re passionate about.

Charlie Peterson:

I love that it’s not just for students, it’s for people from all around the Denver community and it makes entrepreneurship feel really tangible and fun and not just a buzzword made for business students. It makes it feel accessible.

Joshua Ross:

We also talked about the bigger picture, what they’ve learned during their time at DU and how the entrepreneurship program has shaped their mindset.

Charlie Peterson:

Don’t wait until you feel ready. Just start in the moment. You’ve got to do things you’re uncomfortable with and you got to trust yourself. And if they don’t work out, at least you tried

Gina Parker:

It, ignited this fire inside of me that lets me know that I don’t want to work for anybody else and I want to be in control of my life, my work, my pay, and my own creativity.

Joshua Ross:

Here’s my conversation with Gina and Charlie. Gina and Charlie. Welcome to the podcast, love having students on. So welcome. Thank you,

Gina Parker:

Thank you, thank you. Very excited to be here.

Joshua Ross:

So we’re nearing the end of entrepreneurship week 2025. We kicked it off Sunday with Popup Palooza. We had 80 student alumni and community vendors, which is incredible, which was a record. We had four student bands, which were awesome. We had food from a student run venture, and my guess is we had over 550 attendees. And the way I’m doing my simple math is we sold over 525. Oh, we didn’t sell. We gave away over 525 walking tacos. So if that math works, we’ll go with that. So Gina, I’m going to start with you. You’ve led this event for three years, which we’re eternally grateful. It makes it so special, and how’s it evolved over the years?

Gina Parker:

Yeah, I think since we started it my freshman year, it’s been really cool to see the amount of interest that students do have on campus and wanting to come together and form that community through sharing passions and creativity and stuff like that. I think it’s really special that we are able to create an event and a space for all different types of students from all different walks of life, and disciplines can come together and share what they’re passionate about, talk to one another and kind of get outside of their comfort zones.

Joshua Ross:

So why were you inspired or crazy or not thinking straight three years ago to take over the lead?

Gina Parker:

I think we were at the entrepreneurship dinner in either fall or spring. I think it had to be fall of my freshman year is when I really started to also get introduced to the program and we had talked, there were some other students there that had kind of bounced off the idea of having some type of event or space where all different types of students again can come and sell their goods and stuff. And I got really inspired by it and I really wanted to go ahead and try to do it myself. I’ve always been kind of a creative person and wanted to take over that role. And I’ve also loved farmer’s markets my whole life. I’ve worked at one since I was 16, so kind of taking that passion together and making it what pop-Up Loo is today.

Joshua Ross:

Awesome. So Charlie, this was your first pop-up behind the camera, right? You were very integral to the success of it. What’d you think of the event? How was your experience

Charlie Peterson:

To start out? My experience was amazing. It was a great little team to work with and it was great getting to know kind of the entrepreneurship faculty and the people behind the scenes a lot better. A little background from my pop-up experience my freshman year, I was just a normal student who attended. I walked past, I didn’t know it was happening and I saw the event going on and I hung out for about three hours and I loved it. And then my sophomore year I ended up being a vendor. I had a little clothing business at a stand and it was interesting to see it from a different point of view. I got to see a little more behind the scenes and how passionate students truly were to show their ventures. And when Gina kind of presented me with the opportunity of really helping to organize this event and being one of the main people behind it, I was excited to grab that opportunity. One of my favorite parts about the event after the couple of months we spent planning it was seeing everyone actually come together. It was the bands, the food, the clubs, the students and everyone from around the Denver community and realizing how much energy there still is around these student led events on campus.

Joshua Ross:

So that’s a nice segue into my next question, Charlie, why do you think Popup Palooza matters to the DU community, the students, the alumni, the faculty, the external community?

Charlie Peterson:

Yeah, I think it gives real visibility to entrepreneurs. I think a lot of people have opportunities in their classes to develop ideas and come up with these projects, whether you’re an entrepreneurship minor or just doing a simple class project, and this is the opportunity to actually show what you’re working on. It’s a lot of times ends the second you turn a project in and for these students it’s what they’re really passionate about and they’re able to get on campus and be visible to the entire community and show that they’re entrepreneurs beyond just sitting behind a computer and coming up with their ideas. And I love that, not just for students, it’s for people from all around the Denver community and it makes entrepreneurship feel really tangible and fun and not just a buzzword made for business students. It makes it feel accessible.

Gina Parker:

I think especially after COVID that kind of rocked all of our worlds and I couldn’t imagine how it happened on the college campus specifically, but I think that there was a lot less opportunities for students to get involved with one another and in general, to give back to your community, to be in your community and get to know one another and just you turn into kind of a stranger to all your friends, your neighbors, people on your college campus that you’re supposed to see every single day. And we found it for the first couple of years. It was hard to get people to want to be with each other again and to kind of take that leap of meeting someone new, being a part of a new community. And I think popup really helped bridge that gap, or at least started to, again, we’ve seen so many students from so many different walks of life come and join us for three hours on a random Sunday just because they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. And I think that was really cool.

Joshua Ross:

That’s a really good point. There’s this whole concept of a third place. Our first is our home and then our second is our school or our work, and then there’s this third place which is really community and that seems that it’s kind of disappeared in COVID and we can create these third places, but we also have to drive people to go there to want to go there to mingle with other people. And I think popup does a lot of that. Charlie, you’ve started and run multiple businesses during your time at DU and I’ve had a chance to talk to you about them and you’ve worked on ’em in my classes. What have you learned from those experiences and why is entrepreneurship and innovation important to you beyond the fact of just starting a business? What drives you?

Charlie Peterson:

I think starting with the lessons I’ve learned from those experiences is that things almost never go to plan and that adaptability is pretty much everything with entrepreneurship and how you become successful. I think it’s good to set some groundwork and some goals you would like to reach along the way, but if you’re locking yourself into these very detailed step-by-step of where you want to reach and get to every day, I think you’re going to fail because problems are coming at you every day from a different direction and you have to be ready for them. Along with this, one of the most important things I learned was that the people you are working with is almost as important, if not more important than the idea you are working on. If you have the most innovative idea ever but a bad team behind you and they’re not supportive or innovative in that idea, you’re not going to do well.

But if you have something you’re all passionate about, even if it’s not the most creative idea ever, if they’re behind you and supporting you and there’s good communication throughout the process, you’re really going to be able to develop that idea well. And I think why entrepreneurship is important is it’s really being able to take on the challenge of turning your ideas into action. I think a lot of students have a lot of great ideas and they’re scared to act on those. It is a scary thing to do. It takes a lot of your time and resources and energy, but being able to actually put all that to the side and really act on those and dive headfirst into it and not be afraid of failing is an important skill to know and a really unique experience as well.

Joshua Ross:

Well said. Gina, you’ve had such a diverse work experience during college. I’ve gotten to see a lot of it writer, food influencer, social media manager, baker. What drew you to entrepreneurship and why has it been such a big part of your college experience and how have all these different things that you’ve done kind of influenced it?

Gina Parker:

Yeah, I guess when I first started my entrepreneurship journey, I like to joke and say that when you were a kid, if you made a lemonade stand, then you’re considered an entrepreneur. And that was very true for me. I loved Lemonade stands as a kid, but then that kind of progressed into my passion for baking. When I was in high school, I started a small baking business. I would take weekly orders and catering events, and that’s when I kind of started to learn more about what it is to be an entrepreneur and how to run your own business and kind of what it takes. And I was fortunate enough to meet you, professor Ross coming into the school pretty early on and kind of dip my toes into entrepreneurship and what that meant at a more academic level and a more real world level. Just outside of my high school and catering events.

I was really drawn to it just because, again, of how Charlie also mentioned the lessons that we get to learn and kind of the in depth schooling that we get to go into, especially in our classes. The first one that I took was the intro class and I really, really enjoyed that and I got to find a new passion of working in nonprofit and doing social entrepreneurship as well. I didn’t really know that social entrepreneurship existed before coming to the school, so that was a really interesting and exciting thing for me to be able to work on and get to know. And honestly, yeah, it’s been one of the biggest parts of my college experience. I’ve been a minor all four years. I’ve been able to run the entrepreneurship club now launchpad for a while until Charlie took over and I just got to meet so many amazing people throughout that time and be inspired by other ventures, other entrepreneurs and other ideas.

Joshua Ross:

So Charlie, you are the president of Launchpad. Why did you take on that role and tell us a little bit about your vision for Launchpad.

Charlie Peterson:

Yeah, definitely. It’s funny, I was not super involved in the club the first two years. I think I came to one or two meetings and that’s mostly like you were saying, I was kind of scared of getting in trying these new things. I was very comfortable after COVID with what I knew and I was really focused on my personal businesses. And one day I came into your office, Ross and I asked how I can get more involved and you introduced me to Gina and I’ve kind of been headfirst into it ever since then. She explained the past of the club and how she’s stepping out soon and the direction that she wants to see things go. I think I just kind of took that head on.

Gina Parker:

Charlie also thought that I was a professor when he first emailed me and that I was not a student, so he kept addressing me by Ms. Parker.

Charlie Peterson:

One of my biggest visions for launchpad, it used to be called, we had a full rebrand from Do You Entrepreneurship to Launchpad, which I think we’re all very excited about.

Gina Parker:

Finally,

Charlie Peterson:

We didn’t love the name, we didn’t love kind of the label on the actual club, so we took it to launchpad and we tried to avoid these buzzwords that scare non-business students away. I think even entrepreneurship, anything along that lines will make people think that this is kind of another clicky business club and that’s not our goal. It’s kind of tying back to Papa Palooza where it’s these people from all these different backgrounds, all these different majors and interests who can come into this one place and share their ideas and work together. And that’s really what we’re trying to do with launchpad is still be an entrepreneurship based club and innovation, but help these students come together in a format where they can learn and build off each other and really find their voice and try new things in a low risk way. The main goal is to push creative thinking and problem solving beyond the classroom and build a very well connected and kind of interwoven community.

Joshua Ross:

Gina, why do you think it’s important for students to get involved in events and organizations on campus? I mean, you’ve done it your entire career here. Why is it important?

Gina Parker:

I mean, I’ve met some of my best friends through group organizations, through clubs and going to events, and it’s just such a unique way to be able to get involved on your campus and again, form that community that I think is kind of lacking in a lot of social spaces and with a lot of generations like ours and younger than ourselves just because of COVID and technology and everything that we’ve been through. And I think it’s important to know that there is stuff bigger than yourself when you come to college. You kind of get sucked into this bubble of you’re so excited to be by yourself with your friends in a new place, and you kind of forget that there is a bigger world outside of your tiny little college campus. And being able to break out of that and experience as much as you can I think is really important to not only personal growth, but learning who you are and learning what you want do.

Joshua Ross:

I love that answer. Charlie, what do you think? That’s a tough one to follow up.

Charlie Peterson:

I think it kind of, as Gina said, it really helps you meet people who share your interests and values. You really do meet your close friends freshman year, you find them in the dorms or your freshman year seminar and it tends to click and stay like that. And I think getting involved in these organizations and events allows you to connect with these people that you would never meet otherwise Along with this, I think it really helps you apply what you’ve learned in classes in a real way. As I said, you do these school projects and they’re interesting and you get very involved, but right when you turn it in, it kind of cuts off and you really don’t develop these skills. And my time in the club, even these past two quarters and running my own businesses the past few years, I have really been able to apply the skills I’ve learned in class and from my mentors in a very passionate way. And I think I’ve gotten a lot more out of that than anything I have in the classroom. So I think being able to step out of your comfort zone and enter these kind of third spaces is very important for all students.

Joshua Ross:

So for both of you and Gina, we’ll start with you. If you were to write down a couple of the skills that you feel that you’ve learned, let’s say outside of the classroom as being an entrepreneur, being a creator, being a leader in these different roles, what are some of those skills?

Gina Parker:

I would definitely say leadership and the ability to kind of lead many different people of many different types, especially in entrepreneurship club. When I was running it for a while, we had a lot of students from different disciplines that wanted different things that didn’t necessarily agree with each other, and there was a lot of having to manage that with students, but also realizing that it is a club and we can all still have fun. And also organization and time management was a big one that I learned, especially with planning popup.

Charlie Peterson:

I would say my biggest skill that I learned is resourcefulness. Excuse me. I think being in a university setting, you have all these people around you who want to help you and who are there to help you, and it’s very easy to forget about that and being involved in these businesses and having you, professor Ross in the back being able to help me or my friends or any of my professors and learning to really fall back on them and not only use what I think is correct. And another one is just taking initiative. Like I’ve said, it’s very easy to sit in the background and think about all the cool things that you could be doing, but actually getting out of there and acting on these feelings is very important. And I think one of the most critical skills I’ve learned during my past three years here,

Joshua Ross:

I would also add for both of you, just because I know both of you and I’ve observed both of you, is problem solving skills. Definitely really good communication skills for

Gina Parker:

Sure.

Joshua Ross:

Resilience, I mean things don’t always go your way, definitely. And critical thinking and really, really creative solutions. And so all those skills coupled with what you all just said, those are important human and life skills that you’re going to apply whether or not you go start your own company or you just go work for someone. Those are the types of things that companies and employers want to see. Definitely.

Charlie Peterson:

One last thing I forgot to mention. One of the biggest things was confidence. Just general confidence about what I’m doing and who I’m talking to.

Gina Parker:

Yeah, I would definitely second that. I definitely found myself being more sure of my decisions and myself after going through all these four years.

Joshua Ross:

So Gina, you were celebrated Monday night at the entrepreneurship minor dinner because you are graduating soon heading to Chicago. So what advice would you give students starting out at du?

Gina Parker:

Yeah, I have two of my favorite quotes I like to say in moments like these, and one of them is it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, but don’t take that and run all the way and know the situation when you’re going to use that piece of advice. And if anything, or at the end of the day, you always have yourself to rely on these two kind of framed my college experience whenever I was having those doubts of anxiety or yeah, I was doubting myself. I knew that I could rely on myself because I’ve done things in the past and they’ve been good and I’ve worked with people well and I’ve created really, really amazing things for the campus. And yeah, I’ve lived by to ask for forgiveness, then permission multiple, multiple times in order to get stuff done, mostly because a lot of people don’t have time to answer all your emails and most of the time it’s always fine when you’re working on something like that.

Joshua Ross:

Charlie, you have one year left going to be a senior next year. What does next year look like for you?

Charlie Peterson:

To start out, I am planning on taking a gap quarter this next fall, which makes things a little tricky with the club. I’m working at a small tech startup downtown all summer and through the fall quarter. It’s called Josh ai. It is a smart home technology. I’m very excited about it. I’m going to be working in business development, so for a lot of that time, that’s where a lot of my energy and focus is going to go, kind of growing in this different format that I haven’t before. But at the same time, I am still going to be living in Denver and I’m going to be very involved in Launchpad and helping to grow that. I think I stepped in a little bit at a difficult time into launchpad at this point where I was halfway through my junior year and I had a lot of goals and ambitions, but not a ton of time to actually get them done, especially because it was nearing the end of the year.

So my real goals for next year is to build a foundation for the club to be able to grow and develop past when I graduate, I would love to see a ton get done while I’m actually here next year, but I don’t think it’s completely realistic. We’re already doing amazing things like Pop-Up Palooza. We had a great event just last week called the Launchpad Barbecue, which involved six other clubs and I think those are amazing. That’s exactly what we’re reaching for right now, and that’s the way I’m trying to build this foundation. We have about six or seven very active and very passionate club members, which I love. I would love a small number of very passionate members over a large number of people who aren’t too interested. So my real goal for next year is to build that foundation and have more hopefully younger students come in and get passionate so they can share their ideas and I can help them start growing the club into a direction that they think is really beneficial in the future.

Joshua Ross:

How has entrepreneurship prepared you for today, your next step and five, 10 years down the road?

Gina Parker:

Yeah, I think kind of how we mentioned before about what skills we developed, I think my problem solving abilities and critical thinking and leadership skills have again really developed through my time here and will be able to set me apart from hopefully the rest of the candidates looking for jobs and going out in the real world. But also it ignited this fire inside of me that lets me know that I don’t want to work for anybody else and I want to be in control of my life, my work, my pay, and my own creativity. And coming into school I kind of had that, but it really got solidified through these four years of I have my dreams and I will be following them no matter how hard it gets because again, I did also learn resilience through my time here. But yeah, I’m very excited to see where these next years take me.

Charlie Peterson:

I’ve really learned to not take the easy and comfortable path. I think that is going to hold true for the rest of my life, at least I hope so. I’ve learned, as we said, to be resourceful and to really take ownership of my own path. There’s the common goal of going out right out of college and finding the perfect job that you can work for the rest of your life where you’re happy enough and you get by. And that’s just not how I see myself or how I want my future to go. And I’m confident and comfortable enough to say that I will go out and maybe take a more difficult path, but I’m going to try my best to find things I’m happy with and be able to take these risks. Going back to some of the skills I’ve learned, just being able to take risks and learn from them and instead of just staying in that kind of comfortable mindset, I think it’s really shaped how I approach my relationships, whether that’s personal or work and just even my personal growth mindset during my time here, those skills have really shaped me and I believe that I’m going to carry them through the next year or five years after I graduate and hopefully for the rest of my life.

Joshua Ross:

Well good. I mean you’re either going to work for somebody or work for yourself, right, exactly. And that idea of what our grandparents and our great grandparents did of working 50 years for a same company and getting that amazing goal watch that breaks in a couple years is no longer the reality at all. The other night I quoted a stat that Gen Z leave will move jobs every 2.8 years, so do the math over a 40 year career. That’s a significant number of employers, so why not you be the employer either on your own or create something with other people. So there’s a lot of that opportunity. So if you could go back and give your first year self one piece of advice about college, Charlie, I’m going to start with you. What would it be?

Charlie Peterson:

I think this one’s simple enough for me. It’s just get involved. As we’ve said multiple times in the past 30 minutes, students right now really struggle to get involved and they’re comfortable doing what they know. And I was the same exact way. I didn’t get involved with the club until this year, and while I was involved in other ways, I was not nearly as involved as I should have been on campus. So backing that, I would say don’t wait until you feel ready. Just start in the moment. You got to do things you’re uncomfortable with and you got to trust yourself. And if they don’t work out, at least you tried.

Gina Parker:

And I would say that as well. Kind of backing what Charlie said, don’t take yourself too seriously and don’t take your freshman year events too seriously. There’s a lot of, when you come to college, everybody’s on a high, everyone’s excited to be trying something new and living with new people, and you’ll run into challenges, you’ll run into hardship, you’ll run into relationship issues with friends, family, loved ones. But it’s just important to know that you are learning and growing and this time is especially poignant in order to do so. And just kind of learn to love yourself, grow with yourself, and not take yourself too seriously.

Joshua Ross:

That’s awesome advice. And just in closing, I’ll tell both of you. You both make me feel a little old because I remember you as freshmen and now one’s a senior and one’s graduating. But one final question for both of you is one word or sentence to describe your entrepreneurship experience at du.

Charlie Peterson:

I’m going to go back a little to what I said before and say collaborative. I think a lot of times entrepreneurship feels a little isolating, especially when you’re starting a venture by yourself. But here on the campus, as I said, you have all of these people and resources backing you and it turns it from this experience where you’re extremely reliant on yourself to where you’re able to step back and really get the help from very educated and experienced people.

Gina Parker:

And I would say I’m bouncing between two right now, either inspiring or community I’ve met, especially with professors and mentors. I’ve met some of the most inspiring people at this school that have really helped me hone my own ideas, cultivate a community on campus, and I was really supported all through these four years, which is more than I could have asked for any other discipline or minor that I have.

Joshua Ross:

Well, Gina and Charlie, thank you for your time today. I am so excited to see what’s next for both of you. So go do great things, but thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks

Gina Parker:

For having us. Yeah, thank you.

Joshua Ross:

The entrepreneurship at DU podcast was recorded in Marjorie Reed Hall on the University of Denver campus. You can find us on Instagram at du Entrepreneur on Twitter, X at DU entrepreneur, and on Facebook at entrepreneurship at du. This episode was edited, produced and engineered by Iruka Nwosu. Entrepreneurship at DU is part of the Daniels college business.