Entrepreneurship

With a lifelong love of baking and dual majors in marketing and business analytics from the Costello College of Business, Musa is tackling small business ownership and her education with a cup of creativity, a dash of determination, and a whole helping of heart.

Given today’s short attention spans, how much could it really hurt a business to get caught attempting to manipulate their reputation on a platform like Yelp? George Mason University accounting professor Yi Cao has done the math, and it isn’t pretty for businesses willing to cross ethical lines.

When crowdfunding platform Kickstarter started allowing creators to put environmental pledges front and center, George Mason University accounting professor Yi Cao saw a unique opportunity. His co-authored research shows how “going green” turned out to be an impactful business choice with financial, operational and, yes, environmental implications for entrepreneurs and customers.

“I think it's the real American dream to have something of your own, build something of your own,” says Bailey Mahoney, MBA ‘26. He grew up witnessing firsthand not only what could be built but also the freedom it created, as his father, who owned an electrical contracting business, always made time to be present for the important moments in his life. Without even realizing it, Mahoney found his first business mentor in his father.

Michael J. A. Davis, BA Integrative Studies ’09, roasts coffee using the time-honored pan-roasting tradition of beans tumbling in a pan as the smoke rises like incense. What once fueled his long workdays eventually became his antidote to corporate burnout. In fall of 2024, he brought that transformation back to George Mason University in a bag labeled “Brave & Bold.”

TJ Master and Elizabeth Pyle, mentors with the Virginia Small Business Development Center’s (SBDC) Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program (ICAP), are advising entrepreneurs in the Innovation District.

Skip West, founder of MAXSA Innovations and adjunct faculty at the Costello College of Business at George Mason University, offers the course Turning Ideas into Successful Companies once a year to MBA students. The concept for the course came from West’s own entrepreneurial experiences of turning his ideas into companies.

New EduRank report on university performance in research highlights eighteen George Mason University programs as the best in Virginia, with Mason's entrepreneurship ecosystem as No.1 among all public institutions.

The business school’s SOAR Initiative is a critical building block in George Mason University’s efforts to advance social mobility, or an individual’s ability to improve their socioeconomic status.

Student entrepreneurs Arastalis B. Choudhury and Fariha Askar and their company NECX are part of the MIX's incubator program.