Grad Students Supporting Entrepreneurs: A Look Inside the Babson Acceleration Club
For much of his life, Qaiser Malik MBA’25 has been surrounded by the entrepreneurial spirit. He was just 5 years old when he first walked into his grandfather’s convenience store in their village in India.
The shop may have been small and humble, but as Malik helped there as a boy, he learned the basics of business and the satisfaction that comes with selling. He saw firsthand how his grandfather worked, from early in the morning to late at night, to make a better life for himself and his family. “We come from nothing,” Malik says. “He was a hard-working man.”
Malik would follow in his grandfather’s entrepreneurial footsteps. He has started several ventures, including one, Answerr, that utilizes the power of multiple generative AI programs and which was the subject of a recent Boston Business Journal article.
Malik is also the president of the Babson Acceleration Club, a graduate student organization that aims to support the College’s entrepreneurs and startups. It runs a seven-week accelerator, hosts fireside chats with venture capitalists and founders, and presents a popular annual pitch competition, the eighth edition of which will take place this March.
The group’s work also extends beyond Babson. Last fall, it held Boston Shark Night, an inaugural event in the city’s Financial District attended by more than 200 people and featuring startup pitches from across the Boston area.
All of these events, which add to the already rich and robust community of entrepreneurship at Babson, keep Malik and the rest of the 18-member club busy. “We have so much to do,” he says. “It is hectic.”
Step by Step
The Acceleration Club’s programs draw interest from a wide swath of the Babson student body, and that interest is growing. In 2023, the club received 60 applications for its accelerator, with 15 ventures making the cut. The number of applications jumped to more than 150 for the accelerator’s latest cohort, which also opened up some space for ventures from other Boston-area schools.
When deciding what startups to include in the accelerator, the club must do more than simply like a particular idea. The club takes a realistic look at whether a venture can succeed, whether it’s offering something customers will want.
“It is not about us loving it. The market has to love it,” Malik says. “Is there a need for it? Otherwise, what’s the point?”
Ventures in the accelerator meet for weekly workshops with mentors who are venture capitalists, angel investors, entrepreneurs, and corporate leaders. Those workshops cover all the ins and outs of building a business, including fundraising, target marketing, pitching, and pricing. “We work on a granular level with the startups,” says Annanya Guptaa, MSF’24, who served as co-president of the club with Malik until she graduated in December. “We are guiding them step by step.”
A number of successful startups have participated in the accelerator, including 2024 B.E.T.A. (Babson Entrepreneurial Thought & Action®) Challenge winners ReviMo, a mobility device founded by Aleksandr Malashchenko MBA’24, and BOND, a platform started by Chloe Samaha ’25 that helps virtual employees connect.
The accelerator culminates in a pitch competition, which Guptaa finds inspiring. “They have such ideas,” she says. “Every time you attend a pitch competition, you think you have never seen anything like this.”
An Entrepreneurial Life
For Malik, the Babson Acceleration Club is one part of his entrepreneurial life. At 17, he started his first business, a social networking site called Picxter, after watching the movie The Social Network. In a year, he had amassed a million users, though faced with a lack of capital, he ultimately had to shut it down.
Other tech ventures followed. “I like building things,” Malik says. “I like to create value for my clients and for anyone working with me.” His current startup is Answerr, which he launched in October. The site answers questions via generative AI and allows users to compare answers from multiple AI platforms.
“It is not about us loving it. The market has to love it. Is there a need for it? Otherwise, what’s the point?”
Qaiser Malik MBA’25, president of the Babson Acceleration Club
Malik is harnessing a technology that’s moving fast. “Imagine the role it will play in a couple of years,” he says.
Many years have passed since Malik first walked into the shop of his grandfather, who thought that, one day, Malik would grow up to be a businessman, a prediction that turned out to be true. His grandfather may have long since passed away, but the president of the Babson Acceleration Club thinks of him and his shop often. “He motivates me every day,” Malik says.
Posted in Community, Entrepreneurial Leadership
