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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nIn the decade since graduating with a degree in peace and conflict studies, Bugas has helped bring five different products to market, founded two companies, and earned an MBA in entrepreneurship, venture capital, and management science from the University of Virginia. In 2015 he played a key role in launching travel platform Triptease\u2019s \u201cPrice Check\u201d feature and helped open up markets for the company in the U.S. and Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Miami-based Flowlie, Bugas is helping founders \u201csave hundreds of hours\u201d by aggregating data on the venture capital market. \u201cThe fundraising process is notoriously opaque, and Flowlie\u2019s goal is to increase transparency \u2014 and the likelihood of closing an investment round,\u201d he says. A recent satisfied customer: Philip Odelfelt \u201915, founder of Datavations, an AI-enabled data analytics platform for building materials manufacturers, relied on Flowlie\u2019s technology to close their latest round of funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the varied skill sets needed for each of his endeavors, Bugas says the key to success in the cutthroat world of tech entrepreneurship comes down to one trait: resilience. He shares his favorite mantras for cultivating mental toughness:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- Maintain relentless optimism. <\/strong>\u201cYou get told \u2018no\u2019 by so many people so frequently in this space, and there are usually hundreds of reasons why you shouldn\u2019t be going down a certain path. Great entrepreneurs are able to see something before everyone else can see it; they can see the future of the space they\u2019re in, so when they have ideas, of course everyone is going to think they\u2019re crazy. They trust in the potential. That\u2019s the whole game.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Roadblocks are opportunities. <\/strong>\u201cIt\u2019s hard to maintain your vision over time as you run into problems, but you have to see those roadblocks as opportunities. If you\u2019re hitting obstacles, it means everyone else who\u2019s come before has hit those same roadblocks and quit, and that\u2019s why no one has achieved what you\u2019re trying to do. Keep going.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Be (Painfully) Stubborn. <\/strong>\u201cIn order to innovate, you have to look at the world a little differently than most people do, which doesn\u2019t always come naturally. It requires a lot of persistence, stubbornness, and a willingness to keep banging your head against the wall \u2014 even when it hurts.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
\n\nFlowlie was named a top tech start-up by the South Florida Business Journal <\/em>in June 2024.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mark Bugas \u201914 co-founded Flowlie Technologies with the goal to \u201cmake fundraising suck less\u201d for start-ups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[568,354,1394,807,1574,2917],"coauthors":[1720],"class_list":["post-17399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-advice","tag-alumni","tag-entrepreneur","tag-fundraising","tag-peace-and-conflict-studies","tag-tech-entrepreneurship"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4wD","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17399"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28062,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17399\/revisions\/28062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17399"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=17399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Roadblocks are opportunities. <\/strong>\u201cIt\u2019s hard to maintain your vision over time as you run into problems, but you have to see those roadblocks as opportunities. If you\u2019re hitting obstacles, it means everyone else who\u2019s come before has hit those same roadblocks and quit, and that\u2019s why no one has achieved what you\u2019re trying to do. Keep going.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n