Social entre­pre­neur Alex Salz­man ’07 spoke Wednes­day night as part of the Imag­ine series hosted by Career Ser­vices. Rather than speak specif­i­cally about his busi­ness ven­tures, Salz­man spoke about per­sonal habits he has adapted and engaged in dia­logue with the inti­mate audience.

Salz­man opened by ask­ing stu­dents what their majors and what their pas­sions were. Indi­vid­ual answers often con­tained no over­lap, and stu­dents’ pas­sions ranged from social jus­tice to surf­ing. Eco­nom­ics majors in the audi­ence explained they were there to explore options beyond invest­ment bank­ing, and Salz­man, an eco­nom­ics major him­self, empathized.

A Toronto native, he came to Prince­ton look­ing for some­thing beyond achiev­ing a per­fect 4.0. His high school years had been aca­d­e­mic, he said, and “to do it all over again doesn’t seem log­i­cal.” Stu­dents in the audi­ence agreed. “Oh God, is [col­lege] going to be like high school all over again?” said one, admit­ting that this was a fate she wanted to avoid.

At Prince­ton, Salz­man lived the entre­pre­neur­ial life. Not one to pur­sue extracur­ric­u­lars like Tri­an­gle or DiSiac, Salz­man was able to take a leave of absence as an under­class­man to assist in the launch of Ter­ra­Cy­cle, Inc. Beyond these activ­i­ties, Salz­man said he was also grate­ful for the con­nec­tions he made through Prince­ton, say­ing he had found “trusted men­tors” through the Prince­ton Entre­pre­neurs Net­work, which he is cur­rently work­ing to reboot.

Sev­eral of the per­sonal habits Salz­man shared are applic­a­ble to the daily grind at Prince­ton. He is an advo­cate of med­i­ta­tion and sug­gests that stu­dents build 90-day plans to accom­plish goals. A year, he said, is too long, but 30 days is too short. He advised that stu­dents view their lives holis­ti­cally, bal­anc­ing day-to-day rou­tine with the big picture.

To close, Salz­man re-stressed the impor­tance of tak­ing ini­tia­tive in one’s daily life and not wait­ing until grad­u­a­tion to begin big projects. To learn more about Salzman’s cur­rent busi­ness, includ­ing what he calls “an eHar­mony for busi­ness,” visit www.viscapfunds.com. In the mean­time, think about what dream projects you have for your­self, because Prince­ton is more than just the diploma. “Oh God, is [col­lege] going to be like high school all over again?” Only if you don’t do any­thing about it.

One final note, if you are inter­ested in learn­ing more about social entre­pre­neur­ship, don’t miss the Non­profit Fair and Social Entre­pre­neur Panel tomorrow!