9 Questions for Wharton’s Lori Rosenkopf about Her Book, Unstoppable Entrepreneurs
When trailblazers like Lori Rosenkopf, the vice dean of entrepreneurship and a professor of management at the Wharton School, have led robust 30-year careers and engaged with some 20,000 students, it’s hard to envision what might be next. That’s why hearing Dr. Rosenkopf (pictured above) describe the publication of her new book Unstoppable Entrepreneurs as “amazing, wonderful and something new for me,” seems all the sweeter.
Unstoppable Entrepreneurs, released in April 2025 by Wharton School Press, drills down into a collective entrepreneurship case study to reveal insights that are open to anyone with the drive to create value through innovation. The book details seven distinct entrepreneurial paths, from disruptors to intrapreneurs, supported by the stories of actual business pioneers, most of whom are Wharton graduates.
Wharton Global Youth connected with Professor Rosenkopf, whose day job is to represent how Wharton thinks about entrepreneurship, to step inside her Unstoppable Entrepreneurs journey, from process through publication, and take away some of her most valuable entrepreneurship insights.
Wharton Global Youth Program: Why did you decide to write this book now?
Lori Rosenkopf: Role models matter. In my role as vice dean of entrepreneurship and faculty director at Venture Lab [the entrepreneurship center at the Wharton School that serves all students and alumni across the University of Pennsylvania], I see tons of our students and many of our alumni who are interested in so many different industries and pathways. The pervasive start-up stereotype in the media of that college dropout, venture-backed unicorn is so rare and not the best inspiration for the vast majority of people who want to do entrepreneurial things. There is so much more to the story.
Wharton Global Youth: When did you first begin the book process and how quickly did it come together?
Dr. Rosenkopf: It was October of 2023, and I was moderating a panel for Wharton’s Executive MBA reunion weekend. I interviewed three amazing entrepreneurs. I do these sorts of panels very frequently because of my role. Afterward, the vice dean of WEMBA came up to me and said, ‘You should write a book.’ It wasn’t two hours later, when I was driving home in the car, that the apple fell on my head. I do have to write this book! I’ve been walking around for two years in my role as vice dean of entrepreneurship saying, we have to get the Wharton narrative out there. And lo and behold, this is the way to do it. I signed my contract with Wharton School Press in February 2024, the manuscript deadline was September 2024, and here we are. It came together really quickly because so much of it was in me.
“We all have the capacity to be entrepreneurial.” –Dr. Lori Rosenkopf, the Wharton School
Wharton Global Youth: Can you offer a quick overview of the seven entrepreneurship paths you outline in the book?
Dr. Rosenkopf: We begin with a disruptor, because that is the stereotype in the media. I feature a disruptor who shatters the stereotype because she’s not a guy in tech and her business is hair color. It’s Amy Errett of Madison Reed, which is essentially a unicorn at this point. Then we go on to the bootstrapper, the person who starts a business without using equity funding or debt and builds up from nothing. I focus on the social entrepreneur, because many entrepreneurs, especially young people, have social goals alongside their financial goals. I focus on a technology commercializer, which is someone who takes existing technology and figures out how to market it and capture some value from it. Then we write about the funder — this is a massively important one. So many Wharton and Penn grads have founded firms as either venture capitalists or other sorts of alternative investments and they’re not always held up as founders, but they’re going through all the same activities. Then I have the acquirer. Entrepreneurship through acquisition is really growing, and it’s a less risky and more profitable way to be the head of a business if you can find the right company. And then I focus on the intrapreneur, the person who’s doing entrepreneurial things from within an organization. So, they’re building out some new business for their company. And they’re doing it with their employer’s resources, so they have less risk. Of course, they’re also capturing less of the returns. The book provides a lot of variety beyond that traditional model of the venture-backed unicorn. There are more paths, but I only had room for seven in the book. The purpose of the book is not to tell people exactly how to do these things, but instead to inspire them. If you’re innovative, you can be entrepreneurial.
Wharton Global Youth: How do you define ‘Unstoppable Entrepreneur?’
Dr. Rosenkopf: The entrepreneurial mindset that I offer involves six R’s, and one of them is resilience. Unstoppable just sounds so much sexier than resilient entrepreneurs, right? Resilience is the ability to roll with the punches, to have the growth mindset or the grit to push through. You need to recognize that any entrepreneurial pathway is going to be filled with negative feedback. You have to learn to treat it as a gift and a learning experience. This allows you to keep adjusting and pivoting whatever it is that you’re offering and serve a large market. You must also adapt to the crises that are out of your control.
Wharton Global Youth: Can you give an example of an unstoppable entrepreneur you interviewed?
Dr. Rosenkopf: Katlyn Grasso, [founder of GenHERation] is my social entrepreneur in the book. She was running bus trips for girls to learn about career opportunities – and then COVID hit. Well, bye, bye, bus-tour business. This becomes the moment for her, when she converts to virtual content, that she realizes she is in education technology and can scale this infinitely greater than she could scale her bus business. Now, she sells curricula to schools and corporations, she’s merchandising, and she’s got a nice flywheel going. She responded to that COVID dire threat to her business with a pivot that allowed her to grow all the more. The entrepreneurs’ stories in my book are filled with these kinds of moments. (Click HERE for an interview with Katlyn Grasso as a Wharton undergrad from our Wharton Global Youth archives].
Wharton Global Youth: Did anything surprise you during your research?
Dr. Rosenkopf: One thing that was really surprising to me was how evenly this set of entrepreneurs split between two types. One group had this burning passion to solve a problem from a young age and the others were accidental entrepreneurs who never had it in their plan. They ran into a problem along the way and wound up building a business to solve it.
Wharton Global Youth: Do you have a favorite story from the book?
Dr. Rosenkopf: It’s very hard to choose. I love the story of my bootstrapper, Jesse Pujji, who got suspended as a kid for bringing his Halloween candy to school and reselling it. Jesse actually did LBW [Leadership in the Business World] in high school and met two guys there and they became friends. They all came to Wharton as undergrads and graduated in 2006. They swore they were going to start a business, but first worked for companies for a few years. Then they came back after they’d saved a little money and threw themselves into building a company, any kind of company. They just wanted to do something entrepreneurial together. They wound up in digital marketing, and they were one of the first ones into Facebook’s API. So, they started figuring out how to target us with all those ads on the Facebook pages. The tech firms were hiring them. Jesse built out a big business [Ampush], and ultimately, he sold it for eight figures.
Wharton Global Youth: What have you learned about the power of storytelling?
Dr. Rosenkopf: I used to think of stories merely as anecdotes that might give a little supporting quote in a more academic piece. I’ve come to understand how many more people are compelled by a story than an aggregated statistic. With stories, we don’t only have the steps that they took, but we have all of the psychology and resilience. Stories are also connected to the importance of role models. Great research shows that when you expose females to female entrepreneurial role models, they feel more efficacious. They have more ideas. They get moving on them more quickly. I wanted this set of role models to inspire a wide and varied population, just like the students and the alumni we serve.
Wharton Global Youth: What do you hope your readers take away from Unstoppable Entrepreneurs?
Dr. Rosenkopf: I want people to walk away from this book understanding that anyone can be an entrepreneur. We all have the capacity to be entrepreneurial. My definition of entrepreneurship is simply value creation through innovation. We’re already being innovative – maybe not in our workplace or designing new businesses yet — but we’re all trying to improve in our personal lives and thinking about the ways to create value in our communities. The recognition of that is incredibly important, because it inspires us to say, how can I do more? My goal is for people to realize, I’m already being entrepreneurial, and I want to be more entrepreneurial. Now I see it’s not a one-size-fits-all path. There are so many different ways that I can do this.
Conversation Starters
What does entrepreneurship mean to you other than just starting a business?
Dr. Rosenkopf says, “You need to recognize that any entrepreneurial pathway is going to be filled with negative feedback. You have to learn to treat it as a gift and a learning experience.” When have you confronted this kind of feedback for an idea you proposed? How did you deal with it? Share your story in the comment section of this interview.
Do you agree that “many more people are compelled by a story than an aggregated statistic?” Explain your reasoning and share an example in the comment section of this article.
Dr. Rosenkopf’s point about negative feedback being part of the process really stuck with me. Too often, people take criticism as a stop sign instead of a signal to adapt. I’ve learned that ideas rarely land perfectly on the first try, and the ones worth building usually involve tough pivots. Also, I agree that storytelling hits harder than statistics. Stats can be ignored, but stories make you feel something. They show the resilience behind the success.
In my opinion, entrepreneurship isn’t just a simple term referring to starting a business. It is a way of life, a unique, creative mindset. More specifically, entrepreneurs tend to always seek and exploit several opportunities that are given to them. In addition, ignoring the difficulty or complexity of a task, they endeavor to find a reasonable solution for the ideal way to proceed. Entrepreneurship is also connected to risk or uncertain decisions and it encourages young businessmen not to refrain from them. In fact, it is crystal clear that entrepreneurs ought to take risks in order to succeed. Now, moving on to a point that I am going to talk about later, entrepreneurship is all about making mistakes. It may sound odd, or even pessimistic, but it is the truth! The entrepreneurs learn that no matter how hard the obstacles are, they can always overcome them. Entrepreneurship is like “trying something new”. As Albert Einstein quoted: “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”. This quote emphasizes the importance of taking risks and learning through failure, values that are paramount in entrepreneurship and personal growth. You should always embrace your mistakes and improve from them, “treat them like gifts”. When I was young, I was believed to be slow in soccer. Negative feedback was flooding my mind. However, I didn’t allow it to break me. Instead, I came back stronger. I dedicated hours and hours to enhance my pace and ended up being one of the quickest in my team. Afterwards, I captained it all the way to a major tournament 1st place title. Now, continuing with a question: “Are people compelled more by a story or by an aggregated statistic?” I think that people, including me, are influenced more by a story. I will analyze a situation in my country, Greece. In Greece, approximately 10 children and teenagers drown each year, with many incidents occurring in shallow waters close to shore. Most eyes would just read lazily this statistic, without paying attention to it. I will now talk about a heart-breaking, recent story in Greece that moved me and really taught me the danger level of seas and rivers. Two boys, very close to my age, drowned in a river called Arachthos, one week ago, two very close friends, who had just finished their school exams. One, not knowing how to swim, started to drown. His friend bravely tried to help him, not knowing that that would be his last act in life. They were both found dead later that day. This saddening story touched every single Greek citizen that now acknowledge the importance of knowing how to swim. Although it is tragic, it is an example used to demonstrate that people focus on stories based on emotions, rather than statistics.
Your passion for the entrepreneurial mindset is clear! While you highlight “taking risks to succeed,” it’s interesting you didn’t mention Dr. Rosenkopf’s intrapreneur path. That really broadens the definition, showing entrepreneurship isn’t always about external ventures.
I enjoyed this interview with Professor Rosenkopf!
As a student in Year 10, I am developing an education app named NeuroEd while completing the CFA Investment Foundations. I completely agree with her assertion that entrepreneurship is not only for successful founders.
My favorite part was when she spoke about the “seven paths”—particularly the bootstrapper and social entrepreneur paths. I am bootstrapping NeuroEd on my own, learning about AI myself, funding it through small community grants, and adding fatigue detection to make students feel better—so I really resonate with the bootstrapper path.
Her “Six Rs” strategy—particularly Resilience, Recombination, and Relationships—concerns my work. I modify the type of NeuroEd’s quizzes according to what initial users report. I also blend AI, neuroscience, and finance (CFA) into a new product. I also receive assistance from my HUVTSP mentors and local instructors.
This article demonstrated to me that anyone can make their own path in business—there is not just one correct way to accomplish it. Due to this article, I am more confident in my direction and eager to continue making a positive impact with intention and courage.
I used to believe entrepreneurship was only for experienced adults with corporate backgrounds. But Dr. Rosenkopf’s insights — especially about embracing negative feedback as a learning opportunity — helped me realize that entrepreneurship is a mindset, not a title. It’s about being open to growth, staying curious, and using feedback to evolve.
I experienced this when I proposed a gig-matching platform to help Malaysian students find flexible, short-term jobs. Some people said it would never work or called it “too idealistic.” Their words stung. But instead of giving up, I treated their feedback as data — like Dr. Rosenkopf suggests. I revised the concept, added features, and redefined the problem I was solving. That discomfort pushed me to think more like a real entrepreneur: adaptable, focused, and resilient.
I strongly agree that stories are more powerful than statistics. A percentage can inform, but a personal story — of a student skipping lunch to save money or working nights to pay for exams — creates empathy. And empathy drives action. Entrepreneurs who lead with stories aren’t just selling ideas; they’re building movements.
Today’s entrepreneurs aren’t waiting for permission. We’re young, ambitious, and motivated by impact — not just profit. That’s the kind of future I want to be part of.
What resonated with me the most is that this article altered my whole understanding of what an entrepreneur is. I always felt quite far from entrepreneurship in this typical sense because I never thought of myself in traditional startup stories – I don’t have a million-dollar idea; I have never entered a pitch competition; I am not some tech insane genius. But Dr. Rosenkopf’s takeaway almost redeveloped my perception as an entrepreneur; it reminded me that entrepreneurship is not just for the elite, and the extremes, a startup would qualify as entrepreneurship, but entrepreneurship can also start as small as solving a problem in your school, your home, or your community. This is so powerful for people like me – and millions of people around the world – who maybe don’t have access to capital or a network, but do have ideas, commitment, and a hunger to add value. I can even start to see in myself that my own behaviours are all entrepreneurial mindset behaviours. For example, organising local events, reselling clothes, finding smarter ways to approach my studies, etc. I
Lori Rosenkopf’s comment that “failure is often a feedback mechanism, not a final verdict” resonated with me strongly, especially as someone who’s integrated creative and analytical problem-solving in my internships.
Her emphasis on resilience is reflected in a recent experience at Clevered, when our initial data model for forecasting user churn was wide of the mark. Rather than seeing it as failure, we accepted it as a feedback loop—reworking SQL queries, refining input variables in Python, and ultimately boosting prediction accuracy by 15%. That was more a feeling of building forward than rebounding.
I also connected with her view on network learning—how different experiences act as instructors. I witnessed marketing briefs informing design rationale and analytics refining our story strategy while I was interning at Powtoon. These interdisciplinary conversations taught me about how different lenses converge to solve complex issues—something Lori clearly practices.
Referring to her research, I offer: how could new entrepreneurs construct experiment portfolios—tiny-scale, parallel tests of hypotheses prior to deployment at scale? In my nonprofit internship, we A/B tested two types of crowdfunding pitches, one of which outperformed the other by 40% in initial engagement. Presenting entrepreneurship this way seems extremely systematic, not capricious.
Lori’s idea of “people with different entrepreneurial paths” also stood out. It makes me reflect: maybe the difference between a bootstrapper and disruptor is less about funding and more about mindset—whether your focus is on scalability or sustainability. Both deserve admiration.
Thank you, Lori, for framing entrepreneurship as a reflective and iterative journey. I’m curious—how can young leaders deliberately design portfolios of experiments to build both confidence and evidence before scaling ideas?