Alone in her New York office, Alex Barry, a Questrom School of Business graduate, is quietly changing the startup ecosystem.
Tasked with managing business growth for prooV, an Israel-based tech startup which recently acquired $14 million in funding, she is the first employee to inhabit their new American office.
“As of right now, I’m the only one in the U.S.,” Barry said. “Everyone else is still in Israel. It’s me kind of running things here, as much as I can do.”
ProoV, launched in 2015, connects large businesses with startups that the platform has vetted for efficacy. Startups wishing to join prooV’s network must provide proofs of concept that demonstrate the viability of their technology.
“We’re connecting software startups to global enterprises. Enterprises are constantly looking for new innovation, new technologies,” Barry said. “[prooV] is helping the enterprise make an educated decision on which startup solution is actually best for them to move forward with.”
Upon her graduation, Barry left Boston for Israel, hoping to gain experience that could lead to a career in corporate finance.
“I had a finance degree. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do, so I actually went on a program to Israel,” Barry said. “I ended up working in a venture capital in Israel, which I thought was going to lead me to my next job in a bank.”
Over the course of her program; however, she said she grew interested in Israel’s startup ecosystem and wanted to learn more about its inner-workings.
“When my program ended in January, I ended up meeting with the guy who was running prooV, and he offered for me to work with them in Israel for a few months,” Barry said. “But it ended up turning into a full-time job and having me open and run the U.S. office.”
During her time at BU, Barry said she never envisioned herself in a startup environment and didn’t take classes focused on entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, she said she feels her education at Questrom, formerly known as the School of Management, prepared her for the startup world.
“SMG is all about teamwork and communication and feedback,” Barry said, “Being on Core, you have to work with people from all different backgrounds. So, coming to Israel and working with Israelis, it’s really great that I had that experience at SMG.”
Now, as prooV grows alongside its funding, that preparation is more important than ever, she added.
“Since we got the $14 million, we’ve definitely had a lot more of incoming leads rather than outbound leads, so I’ve been a lot busier with lots of demos per week,” Barry said, “We’re attending a lot of events this fall.”
Despite the pressure, Barry said she loves the hands-on, fast-paced nature of startup life.
“It’s super dynamic; things are constantly changing,” Barry said, “You get to really get to be a part of — I don’t know if I would say the dirty work — but being able to be a part of everything, seeing it from the beginning and hopefully to the end.”
Moreover, Barry said she feels her experience at prooV has facilitated her professional growth.
“I’ve had a lot of cool opportunities with traveling and meeting so many different kinds of people and really increasing my networking skills and feeling comfortable going into a room where I didn’t know anyone before, but now it’s easy to go up and talk to anyone,” Barry said.
She said her time in New York has been especially valuable.
“The responsibility of working completely alone in the space … [I’m] learning to make my own decisions in the sense of not always needing the guidance of someone on how to do something,” Barry said.
To students hoping to follow a similar path, Barry extols the virtues of resilience.
“As tough as it can be, it really pays off being in a startup, seeing where it can go,” Barry said, “There’s so many successes and failures that I think that, as a person, it will help anyone in whatever they do after.”
