Emma Kirst and Daniil Blyum didn’t meet on a dating app or in a lecture hall. Their story began with curiosity, community, and a mindset that would shape both their careers and their lives. What started as a search for opportunity became a journey toward finding their person, marked by treks, road trips, and taking chances together.
Years later, they’re married. Along the way, they learned the magic that happens when you say yes. Yes to new experiences, to laughter in the face of failure, and sometimes, yes to each other.
At the Center for Entrepreneurship’s (CFE) Entrepreneurial Leadership Program (ELP), Emma and Daniil found more than a professional launchpad. They found a way of thinking (and a community) that continues to shape how they lead, work, and grow together.
Drawn to Opportunity
Emma arrived at Michigan already energized by entrepreneurship. Growing up in Belgium, she spent her middle and high school years immersed in summer entrepreneurship programs, including MIT Launch, where she worked intensively on startup ideas alongside highly motivated peers.
“What really hooked me early on was being surrounded by exceptional people who were passionate and driven,” Emma said. “After that experience, I knew I wanted to keep putting myself in rooms like that.”
She was drawn to the kind of energy where ideas became friendships, and sometimes, lifelong connections.
When she discovered ELP through ENTR 407: EHour, it immediately resonated. She applied to the program’s second cohort, drawn by its hands-on approach and tight-knit community.
Daniil’s path looked different, but his motivation was just as strong. Raised in Cyprus and coming from a family with several small businesses, he arrived at Michigan eager to understand entrepreneurship in a broader, high-growth context.
“Entrepreneurship meant something very different here,” Daniil said. “ELP gave me a way to understand how technology, scale, and leadership all fit together.”
He joined during his sophomore year, excited by the opportunity to learn directly from founders and start building his network.
Making a Big University Feel Small
At a university as large as Michigan, both Emma and Daniil credit ELP with making the campus feel personal and deeply connected.
“One of the biggest benefits of ELP is that it makes a massive university feel small,” Emma said. “It teaches you how to leverage resources and relationships in a really intentional way.”
Through roundtables, treks, and small-group sessions with speakers, students got an up-close look at entrepreneurship in practice. For both Emma and Daniil, this was their first real introduction to the power of the Michigan alumni network.
“It was empowering to realize that people genuinely want to help students,” Daniil said. “You just need to learn how to reach out.”
“Being empowered to fail and laugh about it with other people and have that support has been really great,” Daniil reflected, describing the real “home away from home” feeling of ELP.
The CFE office itself became a place that felt welcoming and familiar. Emma shouts out CFE staff member Eric Bacinski for his help in her internship search, and the two say instructor Christine Gordon was called “mom” by their entire cohort.
“Christine and the rest of the CFE staff really helped make it feel like a home away from home,” Daniil added. “That sense of belonging mattered.”
Even now, Emma’s closest friends, including the person who officiated her wedding, were from ELP. “Every milestone in my life seems to tie back to someone I met in the CFE community,” Emma said.
Where Their Paths Crossed
Emma and Daniil didn’t meet directly through ELP, but their shared involvement in Michigan’s entrepreneurship ecosystem brought them together. They met at a student entrepreneurship fraternity recruitment event for Sigma Eta Pi, where Emma would later serve as president and Daniil as CFO.
It was their habit of “cross-pollinating,” bringing together people and programs, that led them to each other, sometimes through late-night planning sessions and impromptu events.
The influence of ELP showed up quickly in how they worked together at Sigma Eta Pi.
“A lot of the programming we built was inspired by ELP, especially the treks,” Daniil said. “That mindset of immersive learning really stuck with us.”
Learning by Doing
That bias toward action became a defining theme, both professionally and personally.
During Daniil’s sophomore-year internship search, supported by ELP’s network, the pair took a road trip to Los Angeles. Along the way, they decided to create their own impromptu “trek” in Denver, cold-emailing Michigan founders to ask for coffee meetings.
It worked not because it was planned, but because they were willing to create an opportunity rather than wait for one to appear.
“Thoughtful cold outreach is really underrated,” Emma said. “If you reach out in a sincere way, people are surprisingly willing to engage.”
That road trip became one of the foundational experiences of their partnership, a leap of faith fueled by mutual encouragement.
From ELP to Impactful Careers
Today, Emma and Daniil’s careers span venture investing, robotics, fintech, and product leadership. Their paths look different on the surface, but they’re rooted in the same entrepreneurial mindset.
Emma joined her current firm through a connection she made in ELP and has spent the past six years at Human Capital. She’s currently a Principal on the investment team and her work includes leading a fellowship that provides equity-free checks to student founders.
“I still get to work with people at the earliest stages,” she said. “That raw excitement is exactly what I loved about ELP.”
Daniil’s career has taken him through strategy and business operations roles across robotics and fintech, and most recently into product management.
“One thing ELP was instrumental in was giving me confidence that nothing is out of my wheelhouse,” he said. “You break problems down, learn quickly, and create value, even if it’s new territory.”
Their careers reflect the lessons they learned together: embracing uncertainty, trusting their instincts, and bringing that spirit into both work and love.
Lessons That Last
When asked about mentors, both emphasize that ELP’s impact came from the collective, including staff, speakers, classmates, and the culture itself.
“A lot of it wasn’t about one person,” Daniil said. “It was about being able to compare perspectives and see how different leaders think.”
“You remember more how it made you feel than exactly what was said,” he added.
“There’s a warmth and generosity in the ELP community you don’t forget,” Emma said.
Advice for the Next Generation
For students considering ELP, or entrepreneurship more broadly, Emma and Daniil share simple but powerful advice.
“College is one of the few times in life where you don’t have much baggage,” Daniil said. “Explore as much as you can before locking yourself into one path.”
Emma encourages students to optimize for people and learning over titles.
“When you see a rocket ship, get in,” she said. “Don’t worry about the role. Being around exceptional people matters more than anything … Even if the company doesn’t take off, the experience and the people will shape your story.”
Built at Michigan
For Emma Kirst and Daniil Blyum, ELP helped launch careers, build confidence, and create a community that continues to shape their lives. Along the way, it also brought them together, proof that entrepreneurship at Michigan isn’t just about building ventures.
It’s about finding your people, building futures together, and sometimes, meeting the partner you’ll walk through life with.