Co-op Employer Partner Program Contributes to Entrepreneur’s Success
Chet Kanojia, MS’93, mechanical engineering, is a communications industry entrepreneur who launched and led several ventures. He considers the co-op employer partner program central to their success.
When Chet Kanojia, MS’93, mechanical engineering, was a young teen in India, the first VCRs hit the market and he saw magic in those devices. He wanted to set up a half dozen in the basement of a nearby apartment building, connect residents via a series of cables, and rent movies. Essentially, it was video-on-demand—way ahead of its time.
It turned out the VCRs were cost prohibitive and Kanojia needed to his abandon the plan. But his fascination with innovation never went away.
“The idea of having a service in people’s homes and being trusted is pretty powerful,” says Kanojia, who is a communications industry entrepreneur and a long-term member of Northeastern University’s Board of Trustees.
Kanojia held high-profile roles in the cable and communications industries as founder and CEO of Aereo, which provided access to live and recorded broadcasts via the internet, and Starry Inc., an internet service provider using wireless technology. Currently, he is chair of Lightbird, a new venture that provides services incorporating AI into company-to-customer communications.
He says a key factor in his success is the co-op strategy he created at Aereo more than a dozen years ago.
When Kanojia and his partners launched Aereo in 2010, they initially staffed it with senior engineers. But they soon discovered that the startup would also benefit from young engineers who would be open to learning from the ground up. “We didn’t have an established training program, but we asked, ‘What if we hired co-ops from Northeastern?’” Kanojia says.
He considers it a key decision. “They were curious and engaged,” says Kanojia of the co-ops. “They were smart and wanted to be practicing engineers.”
With the addition of co-ops to the team, Kanojia created a staffing model comprised of a small group of expert engineers atop a much larger group of co-ops and new graduates. The model enabled the company to train new engineers in the Aereo approach and culture.
The structure also provided a greater range of skills that made for more well-rounded teams. “An important thing is that our co-ops were not about filling out forms or doing research on the side,” Kanojia adds. “These were mainline, straight-up, real jobs.”
When Kanojia launched Starry in 2014, he applied that same staffing model honed at Aereo. As the company gathered momentum, it was hiring upwards of five or six co-ops per session and Kanojia estimates close to 80% were hired for full-time jobs. When Kanojia transitioned from CEO to chair, it employed about 1,000 people and “the vast majority were from Northeastern,” he adds.
“We built a talent pipeline with co-ops, and it worked amazingly well for us,” says Kanojia.
Kanojia’s involvement with Northeastern extends beyond the co-op partnership program. He funds fellowships for College of Engineering graduate students’ research and stays connected with students and faculty to learn about innovative ideas. On a recent visit to the Boston campus, he met with Mukki Gill, E’25, mechanical engineering and history, to encourage her efforts on developing a portable medical device to predict epileptic seizures. Gill received two Women Who Empower Innovator Awards from Northeastern earlier this year.
“She knows what she wants to do and she’s putting all the pieces together,” Kanojia says.
Students like Gill remind Kanojia of his Northeastern experience as a graduate student, when he learned that taking risks could pay off.
“I remember talking to my advisor in the early days of my master’s program and I was intrigued by something, and he said, ‘You know, you can go figure it out,’ ‘’ Kanojia says. “Then he called a professor and asked if I could do the work in his lab.”
“This was foundational for me in learning to take risks and becoming an entrepreneur,” Kanojia adds. “I took it to heart and when I began to experience some financial success I decided to contribute back and affect someone else’s life in that manner.”