Lecturer | ENTR 500 Intro to Innovation: Tools for Career Success | ENTR 525 Compensation, Funding, and Ownership
Inventor. Founder. Angel investor. Educator. Aaron Crumm’s career is proof that you don’t have to know exactly where you’re going to build something meaningful. You just have to be willing to start.
Before Aaron Crumm was helping Michigan students turn ideas into impact, he was figuring out how to do it himself.
After earning his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from U-M in 2000, Aaron could have followed a more traditional path. Instead, he took what he had been researching and asked a bigger question: Could this actually solve a real-world problem?
That question helped launch Ann Arbor-based Adaptive Materials Inc., the company Aaron founded with his thesis professor. Together, they developed portable fuel cell technology designed to replace batteries and small generators for the U.S. military and industrial applications.
It started with an invention. Then came the much harder part: figuring out how to turn that invention into something people actually needed.
That meant experimenting and taking risks. Getting things wrong. Learning. And trying again.
Or, as Aaron likes to put it: fail faster.
YOUR FIRST IDEA DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT
For students, ‘failure’ can feel like something to avoid. Get the grade. Land the internship. Choose the right major. Make the right career move.
Entrepreneurship asks you to look at it differently.
Failure gives you information. An idea that doesn’t work can point you toward one that does. A wrong assumption can lead to a better question. And sometimes the path you never planned to take becomes the most interesting one.
Aaron lived that journey.
He helped grow Adaptive Materials until the company was acquired by a publicly traded company in 2011. After running the division for another two years, he became an angel investor and then found his way back to U-M.
Around 2013, Aaron became involved with NSF I-Corps and the Center for Entrepreneurship, working alongside CFE founder Thomas Zurbuchen and Aileen Huang-Saad.
That connection eventually led to the classroom.
More than 13 years later, Aaron is still helping Michigan students ask the same kinds of questions that shaped his own career.
FROM INVENTION TO INNOVATION
Today, Aaron is a Lecturer II at the CFE, teaching graduate courses ENTR 500: Introduction to Innovation: Tools for Career Success and ENTR 510: Compensation, Funding, and Ownership.
But what students are really learning goes beyond course titles.
They’re learning how to take something they know and imagine what it could become. How to test an idea before becoming too attached to it. How to navigate uncertainty. And how to keep moving when the first answer is ‘no.’
Most importantly, Aaron brings the perspective of someone who has actually been there.
He’s been the researcher with an idea. The founder is trying to build a company. The entrepreneur solving problems no one had solved before. The investor evaluating someone else’s big idea.
And now, he gets to be the person encouraging students to take their own shot.
THE NEXT BIG IDEA COULD BE YOURS
In October 2026, Aaron received a University of Michigan Collegiate Lecturer Award, recognizing his sustained excellence in teaching, mentorship, service, and contributions to the university.
It’s meaningful recognition for someone who has spent more than a decade helping Michigan students see possibilities in themselves and their ideas.
Because you don’t need to have your entire career mapped out.
You don’t need a perfect idea.
And you definitely don’t need to get everything right the first time.
You need curiosity. You need the courage to try something. And you need to be willing to learn when it doesn’t work.
Solve the hard problem. Build the thing. Test the idea. Fail faster. Try again.
You never know where that first step might take you.