The Stern Ventures Fellowship (SVF) program has given me the confidence, support, and community needed to transform my product into a business. Before the Stern Ventures Fellowship, I had a product that lacked a market fit and an idea to change the athletic industry. Now, I am solidifying my passions into a reality.

Celer (pronounced “Sell-Air”) means quick and swift in Latin and is the first athletic company to utilize active resistance to realign and retrain joint movement during sport. Better movement patterns lead to a lower risk of overuse injury and improved performance, and our first product, the Celer Running Straps, helps to retrain the body to run with better form. I started the innovation journey to create Celer Running Straps in 2016 after experiencing running injuries from years of overuse and feeling burnt out by solutions and methodologies that only resulted in temporary relief. Everything on the market only provided a band-aid solution for an existing overuse injury. There wasn’t anything that actually helped me improve the root cause of my issues, which stemmed from my poor running biomechanics.

The NYU Stern, Berkley Center’s SVF accelerator program is designed to help launch a business into its next growth stage within ten weeks during the summer. My experience as an entrepreneur in the program has been extremely rewarding yet highly challenging. Every day I am forced to step out of my comfort zone. Though our Instagram (@MoveCeler) may tell a different story, my safe haven is working behind the scenes. I like thinking of new ideas, researching, and understanding insights. As the founder of an athletic start-up, I realized that growing a business is all about making personal connections. SVF has given me the confidence to put me out in the New York City running community, pop up at races, and cold call runners and doctors alike. This confidence has helped me learn so much about the running community and Celer’s market fit within it, in addition to learning about myself.

The biggest takeaway in my entrepreneurial journey: No matter how great a product is, it will NOT sell itself! Apart from the development of a sound product that fits a true market need, launching a business requires a lot of marketing- both in person and on social media. When I was advised at the beginning of this program to delegate nearly all of my operational responsibilities to my co-founder so that I, as the creator of the Celer Running Strap, could focus on marketing events and social media, I nearly had a panic attack. As a product developer with an engineering and analytical background, I had zero previous experience in marketing and design. This push transitioned me from being an expert who knew her exact next move to a rookie who had no idea what to do. I began to feel a bit of imposter syndrome, which I believe most entrepreneurs can relate to. Regardless, I threw myself into these new challenges in an effort to push through new boundaries and grow my brand. Now I find myself spending early mornings and late nights learning new skills like graphic design, video editing, and website design, as well as the ins and outs of social media platforms.

Fast forward two months, both Celer and my personal life have  evolved incredibly. Not only has my presence and my brand grown, but I’ve also grown to enjoy the marketing and creative side of the business. I even switched my MBA focus from operations/strategy to marketing as a result of this experience. Throughout the course of this accelerator program, I came to the revelation that I am actually pursuing (and achieving) dreams I’ve had since I was 8 years old. When I ran my first 5k race then, I dreamed of changing the athletic industry with a product(s) that helped people achieve better mobility. SVF is the family and community support system that I never knew I needed, and this program has enabled me the confidence, backing, and support to turn a product I developed for my own personal problems into a business that is able to help people live a healthier lifestyle every day. I am thrilled to continue my entrepreneurial journey with Celer, and I encourage each of you to check us out to elevate your run and receive all the good that comes with better movement!