ACADEMIC YEAR 2025 - 2026
Annual Report
Doman Innovation Studio helps entrepreneurs navigate uncertainty, make better decisions, and build traction through cohort-based mentorship, accountability, and real-world feedback.
Special thanks:
Curt and Alisa Doman for their generous support.
And the eccles Global team, Marriott Library Protosopace, Faculty DESB for their support, logistics, and efforts.
Letters from the Directors
Explore the ideas, principles, and aspirations shaping Doman Innovation Studio, from the day-to-day experiences of our founders to the long-term vision guiding our future.
Cord Bowen
Director, Doman Innovation Studio
Samuel Martinez
Associate Director, Doman Innovation Studio
MISSION
Doman Innovation Studio develops founders by building the processes, clarity, and decision-making ability required to move ideas forward. We work alongside founders as they navigate uncertainty, take action, respond to real-world feedback, and build sustainable momentum. By focusing on behavior as much as output, we support founders in translating early ideas into meaningful progress and real-world impact.
VISION
We see a university ecosystem where every founder can navigate their path with clarity, confidence, and sustained momentum. We envision a future where innovation is not limited by uncertainty or stalled by indecision, but advanced by individuals who are equipped to move, adapt, and build in response to the world around them, creating lasting impact for industries, communities, and society.
“I had a vision of a place where young entrepreneurs who are trying to find their way could have the mentorship and support to really launch and to make their journey a little bit easier along the way.”
-Curt Doman
Doman’s approach
Our programs are designed to align with a founder's natural motion, meeting them at critical decision moments.
Sometimes, this looks like navigating potential possibilities- trying to determine which signals matter, what feedback to trust, and which direction to take next. In other cases, founders find themselves able to see where they want to go, but are unclear on how to generate the movement required to get there. Others arrive with a clear, idealized pathway in mind, but without the traction needed to support it.
In each case, the most productive support that we offer is helping founders understand how they move forward. This understanding creates success in this venture and the next, building the muscles to navigate complexity with greater confidence and resilience.
Our Studio members experience this support through:
Accountability
Feedback
Reflection
Alignment
Creating clear commitments that turn intention into action.
Iteration
Treating each step as a source of learning, not a final answer.
Prioritizing real-world signals over internal narratives.
Helping founders understand not just what is happening, but how they are responding to it.
Ensuring that the direction of the work reflects both external opportunity and the founder's own vision.
University ecosystem
The University of Utah has built a powerful and expansive innovation ecosystem, defined by collaboration, access, and real-world impact. Across campus and beyond, resources align to move ideas from discovery to application.
This system works. It produces research breakthroughs, new ventures, and partnerships that shape industries and communities. Over the past year, we have taken a deeper step into understanding how this ecosystem functions in practice.
Through a comprehensive mapping effort, we worked alongside stakeholders across the university to document the programs, pathways, and entry points available to founders. This process was about understanding how founders actually move through the system: where they begin, how they navigate, and where momentum is gained or lost.
Doman Innovation Studio’s work responds to this living picture of motion. Many founders don’t struggle because of a lack of resources- instead, the gaps appear in trying to understand how, when, and why to engage with support systems. With so many opportunities and pathways available, it can be difficult to determine what to do next, how to prioritize, or how to move forward when the path is unclear. Progress slows, not from a lack of potential, but from uncertainty in motion.
Working within the broader University of Utah ecosystem, we focus not on adding more inputs, but on helping founders move. Through structured support, behavioral frameworks, and real-time feedback, Doman helps founders navigate complexity, build sustainable processes, and translate momentum into lasting progress and real-world outcomes.
Mapped by: Zeineb Chabchoub, researcher
Doman programs
ACADEMIC PROGRAMSA hands-on cohort for students actively building companies, with structured milestones, mentorship, and a culminating open house.
Builders Track
EXPLORE PROGRAMS
STUDENTS
NON-ACADEMIC PROGRAMS
A semester-long course where students apply entrepreneurial theory to live ventures, guided by faculty and industry mentors.
EXPLORE PROGRAMS
STUDENTS
Praxis Course
Startup Studio
EXPLORE PROGRAMS
OPEN TO ALL
A hands-on cohort for students actively building companies, with structured milestones, mentorship, and a culminating open house.
Research Cohort
EXPLORE PROGRAMS
U OF U RESEARCHERS
A semester-long course where students apply entrepreneurial theory to live ventures, guided by faculty and industry mentors.
Founder stories
Founder highlight | March 2026
Hookchute
Builders Track highlight | July 2026
Research highlight | January 2026
Calycia Biosciences
Going Outdoors
Doman to Date
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Doman Innovation Studio has operated for four and half years, including four full academic years With each year of operation, our programs have matured and expanded, while also giving us extensive feedback to evolve and respond to student, community, and University needs.
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Our seven-week founder cohorts are the core of the Doman Innovation Studio. In each small group (3-4 founders), participants tackle their biggest current challenge. Every cohort reveals more about founder needs and growth areas, while also building lasting peer connections. Over time, we've improved at grouping projects by stage, strengthening networks and mentorship.
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Doman Innovation Studio has provided tailored mentorship to over 100 startups and projects. Founders come from diverse backgrounds-engineering, design, finance, and computer science-and bring ventures at varying stages of development. This range allows us to support teams from early market entry through to seed funding.
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Since 2022, we have provided $400k in scholarships to University of Utah students. These resources give students space to pursue their own entrepreneurial projects, participate in global programs and expand their own understanding, and engage in real-world work with existing startup companies. The feedback from our scholarship recipients tells us that the opportunities we have made possible are unique and life-changing, helping students bridge the gap between university education and their future careers.
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While Utah offers a strong startup ecosystem, Doman Innovation Studio values global perspectives.
In partnership with Eccles Global, we've supported the Global Entrepreneurship Minor through scholarships and faculty involvement, including Director Cord Bowen teaching abroad.
Our own international praxis course offerings have given three cohorts of students the opportunity to experience global entrepreneurship through hands-on learning.
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Our Studio recognizes the variety of pathways that a founder can take to launch their business, and encourages fundraising only when appropriate. At the same time, select Studio members in the right stage for funding-readiness have been highly successful in their pitches and connections with investors, supported by our coaching and network. In total, our Studio companies have raised $5.4M to date in early stage investment.
Our team
Cord Bowen
Director, Doman Innovation Studio
Sam Martinez
Associate director, Doman Innovation Studio
Cesar Sanchez
Partner, Doman Innovation Studio
Ella Bachorowski
Program manager, Doman Innovation Studio
Klara Laurence
Project manager, Doman Innovation Studio
Ainsley Lloyd
Partner, Doman Innovation Studio