Entrepreneur Craig S. Markovitz recently visited Innovation Park to share his journey from founding and growing technology companies to sharing his expertise at Carnegie Mellon University. As part of the ongoing Rainmaker Series, Markovitz presented a talk entitled “From License to Exit,” which focused on the strategies and skills that helped him become successful as an entrepreneur.

Markovitz is an Entrepreneur‑in‑Residence in the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship and an Assistant Teaching Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He is co‑founder of several companies, including Blue Belt Technologies, Inc and Spotlight Medical, Inc. Spotlight was a spinoff company based on technology developed jointly by Carnegie Mellon University and The University of Pittsburgh.

Markovitz was also the recipient of the 2016 Carnegie Science Center Entrepreneur and the 2016 Pittsburgh Venture Capital Association Outstanding Entrepreneur Awards.

After managing the sale of the businesses he helped to found, Markovitz decided to take his career in a new direction.

“When Blue Belt [was acquired by] Smith and Nephew, that was the end of my journey with the company,” Markovitz started. “I was deciding what to do next and all of a sudden, the idea of working in academia with young entrepreneurs really appealed to me.”

Markovitz’s company had been a CMU spinoff and so the ability to join the faculty was the first option on the table.

“I spent time teaching entrepreneurship to graduates and undergraduates; I spent time volunteering and telling my story,” he said, smiling. “It was such a nice career transition. I've spent 30 years working hard and now I want to give back to the community.”

Markovitz has two roles at CMU: assistant teaching professor (teaching classes) and entrepreneurship‑in‑residence (mentoring, advising and assisting in networking to aspiring entrepreneurs).

In this way, the entrepreneur found himself no longer finding and reinventing companies, but finding and reinventing his career path. The knocks on his door were different.

They were coming from students.

“I have spent my professional career building businesses and now to go into teaching, I get the unique opportunity to take all the mistakes I have made, the people I’ve met—what I learned—and use it as a way to help new entrepreneurs be successful.”

Markovitz has now talked to hundreds of students and helped them build strategies, raise money and sell companies—everything he had once done himself.

During the presentation, Markovitz shared one of the most profound lessons he learned as an entrepreneur: “It is never about you. It’s always about the people you work with, the companies you serve and the sooner you see that, the better an entrepreneur you will be,” he said. “A sign of a true entrepreneur is his/her ability to work with others and give them the tools to be successful. Their success then becomes your success.”