Baylor Arts & Sciences magazine, Spring 2016: Alumni Entrepreneur Lisa Calhoun

It’s no secret that the Baylor University College of Arts & Sciences has a diverse student body. With 25 academic departments represented –– spread across the sciences, humanities and social sciences –– its graduates go on to excel in a wide careers.

It’s also no secret that an impressive number of Arts & Sciences alumni are choosing to start their own businesses after graduation, sometimes in fields quite different than those they studied in school. To get an idea of just how varied these business ventures can be, we talked to nine A&S entrepreneurs to learn about how they used the skills they learned at Baylor to achieve success in the marketplace.

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Lisa Calhoun (BA ’94)
Write2Market, Valor Ventures

Lisa Calhoun

You might consider Lisa Calhoun an entrepreneurial wizard. She has founded not one successful business, but two –– and writes a column for Inc. magazine as well.

In 2006 Calhoun formed her first company, Write2Market, which is ranked among the top 10 PR agencies for startups in the country. In 2015 she launched her second company, Valor Ventures, an Atlanta-based venture partnership that invests in high potential tech startups from diverse founding teams.

“I love helping companies grow. I grew up doing that even in my parents’ print shop. It’s an intrinsic passion,” Calhoun said.

Calhoun is no stranger to hard work. Working during her teen years in her parents’ print shop in Crawford County, Ga., she handled sales, typesetting on computers, darkroom work, padding and cutting, managing inventory and bookkeeping –– as well as light deliveries once she could drive.

As a National Merit Scholar in high school, Calhoun was brought to the attention of Baylor University and Bill Dube, who was working in the University’s financial aid department at that time.

“I applied to one school —Baylor. I felt like Baylor chose me,” Calhoun. “When I realized I had a full-tuition scholarship, my plans were to revel in learning and just absolutely smother myself the joy of learning.”

She did just that and graduated summa cum laude in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts in both professional writing and in Russian language. After graduation, Calhoun worked for a PR agency in San Antonio, as a marketing director at the American Payroll Association, and spent a decade in progressively more challenging marketing roles.

Ten years after her Baylor graduation, Calhoun earned an MBA from the University of Texas at San Antonio and moved home to Georgia to start Write2Market. In her early 30s, she lived in her brother’s basement to minimize costs while getting Write2Market on its feet.

Calhoun gives credit to a number of her Baylor professors who guided her journey –– including Betty Christian, Ann Miller, Bob Darden and Michael Long.

“The professors are what makes Baylor — they are the blood, bone, soul of the school,” Calhoun said. “The relationships I built, mostly with professors, gave me the confidence to go into the world with the beginnings of my own voice. Baylor gave me my first big deal — the opportunity to learn from the best. Baylor’s encouragement to learn, grow and do changed my life.”

Calhoun is now focused on Valor Ventures and sees a bright future in the venture partnership.

“Gender-diverse founding teams are correlated with 63 percent greater financial performance,” she said. “That’s just one of reasons I’m excited about this fund.”

Despite her success, Calhoun has yet to feel she like has “made it” in business.

“I believe in practice, I believe in the game,” she said. “Ultimately, I’ll know I’ve made it when, because I played, not only the score changed, but the game changed also.”

––Julie Carlson

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