Our Team
Maggie Barton
Co-Founder
As the Co-Founder of Spur Startup, Maggie leads strategy, operations, curriculum & business development. She brings diverse business aptitude from her degree in entrepreneurship & her previous work at a variety of companies from a hedge fund to a career website to a global fashion brand. When Maggie isn’t in front of her laptop, she can be found painting, planning her next travel adventure, or bookmarking her favorite pages in Vanity Fair.
Jonathan Schick
Co-Founder
As the Co-Founder of Spur Startup, Jon directs all things tech, design, and branding. Since launching, Jon has published two online entrepreneurship courses and created The Founder's Journal, a tool for founders to track their progress and navigate the future. He is also a freelance designer, working on projects with a variety of mediums, from branding co-working spaces to UI/UX design for various stage businesses. With a genuine passion for teaching, Jon is a regular guest speaker for college classes on the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, design thinking, and crowdfunding. In his spare time, you can find Jon teaching himself to play a new instrument, planning his next outdoor adventure, or listening to Frank Sinatra.
Tram-Anh Le
Studentpreneur in Residence
Tram-Anh handles anything & everything that comes her way, from creating killer content to launching final projects. She ensures that Spur is putting students first. She is finishing her degree in Marketing while having a sweet side hustle of her own. When she isn't working, she likes to edit videos, chat over a cappuccino with good friends, or catch a movie with a tub of hot popcorn.
Our Advisors
Leslie Zaikis
Sales & Marketing | Skillcrush
Leslie advises our marketing, sales, and overall startup strategy to keep our team on track (and sane!). Leslie has led zero to 7-figure startup sales growth and has facilitated strategic planning for Fortune 500 companies and top 25 universities. When she’s not writing marketing copy or building analytics dashboards, Leslie can be found reading dystopian YA fiction, testing guacamole recipes, or at SoulCycle.
Lila Thomas
Marketing Manager | Chegg, Inc.
Lila helps develop and execute SPURstartup’s go-to-market strategy. She has built high-profile programs to target and recruit millennial talent for companies including Chegg, where she currently works to create marketing campaigns that engage their student audience. When Lila isn’t dreaming up her next big marketing stunt, she’s teeing up for a round of golf or hiking with her dog, Dixie.
Michael Sherrod
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship | Texas Christian University
Experienced Founder with a demonstrated history of working in the online media industry. Skilled in Digital Strategy, Nonprofit Organizations, Journalism, Fundraising, and Start-ups. Strong professional with a MBA focused in Marketing, Management, Innovation, Entrepreneurial Creation from TCU Neeley School of Business.
David Lynch
Founder | DML Group, LLC
David is the Founder and Managing Partner at DML Group, LLC, providing strategic, financial and operational advisory to companies across a range of industries. He draws on his experience in investment banking, private equity and company turnarounds to help firms achieve their long-term vision and the sustainable expansion of their companies. David has over a decade of experience living, working and studying overseas which brings a unique point of view to local, domestic and international strategy. He has an MBA from London Business School and a BBA from The University of Texas at Austin. David tries to spend as much time as he can with his wife and two children, and any spare time getting back in the air with his pilot’s license.
Thomas Barton
Partner | White Rock Capital
Tom Barton is the founder, President and General Partner of White Rock Capital, a hedge fund and venture capital investment firm located in Dallas, TX. Tom has numerous experiences serving on boards for both public and private companies including AquaBounty, Levo, and several non-profit organizations including the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. He co-founded the public company Microtune and was one of the founding venture capital investors in Intrexon and USSB (which became DirecTV).
Jeremy Vickers
Dean of Professional Studies | Dallas Baptist University
Prior to DBU, Jeremy was the Executive Director of Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at Dallas. He has also served on the Dallas Regional Chamber from 2011 to 2015 as the Vice President of Innovation where he led strategy and program implementation to support building the North Texas innovation ecosystem. His efforts were to support university research growth, technology commercialization, startup resource support, and startup capital access. Specifically, he was involved in the launch of the Dallas Entrepreneur Center as a Co-Founder, the Texas Research Alliance, and InnovateDFW, which is now a part of LaunchDFW.com.