How Early Votes of Confidence Impacted Two Lauder Entrepreneurs

The Jacobson Global Venture Awards, an annual pitch competition open to students at the Lauder Institute, celebrated their tenth anniversary this year — and for the occasion, the competition welcomed back two former winners as judges. The awards, which provide winning entrepreneurs with a $15,000 cash prize and other support, were established through the generosity of Lauder alumna Marina Kunis Jacobson, G’93, WG’93, who also serves on the Lauder Institute Board of Governors, and Andrew Jacobson, WG’93.

Both Ron Kerbs, G’20, WG’20, and Nestor Solari, G’19, WG’19, are two-time Jacobson Award winners who returned to judge this year’s competition. Since graduating from Lauder, Kerbs and Solari have each continued working on their respective winning ventures: Kidas, which helps protect kids and adults online, and Sigo Seguros, which provides affordable auto insurance to Spanish-speaking drivers in the U.S.

“When I first participated in the competition, I had no idea what I was doing,” says Kerbs. “I had a demo, and I knew that I needed to present the go-to-market strategy, but I didn’t have a business background. Getting the award — especially because I didn’t know what I was doing! — gave me the vote of confidence I needed to feel I was on the right track.”

For Solari, who credits “a blind sense of confidence” with helping him win his first Jacobson Award, the competition had a unique impact on his future as an entrepreneur. “Ultimately, my cofounder ended up being one of my Lauder classmates, who joined after I won my first competition,” says Solari. “Ours has been a huge and very important relationship in my life over the last eight years, and I’m sure the fact that I’d won the award was helpful in his decision-making process.”

Since Kerbs’s first win in 2019, Kidas has received support from the U.S. and Israeli governments, partnered with companies like Comcast and Intel, and protected over one million users from online bullying, harassment, and scams. Meanwhile, Sigo Seguros has firmly established itself in Texas and reached over 100,000 drivers, with plans to relaunch in California, where the company initially began operations.

“It feels good to come back and hopefully be a little piece of a founder’s journey,” says Solari. “We always talk about the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it’s easy to forget the votes of confidence or encouraging comments that pull one straw off the camel’s back along the way. I always try to be that for founders.”

“I wanted to pay it forward,” adds Kerbs. “But I did have a bit of impostor syndrome. Like, who am I to judge these startups? But I also feel like, because I’m still relatively early in my journey, I was able to recognize the things that founders at this stage care about.”

Kerbs and Solari both identify the Jacobsons as sources of support in their own journeys. “Marina and Andrew continue to invest in my venture, and they’ve been great at making introductions and being resources,” says Solari. “They’ve seen us go from zero to where we’re at today, and I think they’ve been critical to our successes.”

“In Silicon Valley,” adds Kerbs, “people talk a lot about the PayPal mafia — people who worked at PayPal early on and later became successful entrepreneurs. I think and hope it’s going to be the same with the Jacobson Awards.”