American Like Me: David Mendez

By Elizabeth Macanufo 

May 2010

The aftermath of the dot com bust and 9/11 left entrepreneur David Mendez searching for career direction. Mendez turned to his family's past to determine his future.

An engineer out of undergrad, Mendez worked for DuPont after college. The then-Consortium corporate partner encouraged him pursue his MBA. Mendez received his degree from University of North Carolina and joined General Electric after graduation. Three years later with experience in business development, Mendez opted for a drastic career change. Entrenched in Silicon Valley, he and two colleagues formed a software company.

In early 2000, Mendez and his co-founders sold the company. With hindsight, he acknowledges the role chance played in this decision. "We sold it right before the bust," he remembers. "The timing was great. The experience taught me that luck and timing is 50 percent of an entrepreneur's experience."

Prepared to relocate to New York City to work for the firm which acquired his software company, Mendez again changed directions. Colleagues from UNC swayed him to manage a venture capital firm. Two years later, a national tragedy disrupted Mendez's career path. "After 9/11 the venture capital and consulting world was flipped on its head," he recalls. "The company was dismantled."

Maintaining an optimistic attitude, Mendez used his newly found free time to focus on personal aspirations. He moved to Spain for three months to work on his Spanish in an effort to better speak his ancestor's language. Considering transitioning into a creative field, he wondered how to turn his passion for films and photography into his profession. With this new goal in mind, Mendez returned to the U.S. and began freelance consulting. Still determining his next entrepreneurial venture, Mendez deliberately sought clients in the media industry.

Confident about his future in media, a serendipitous encounter established his fate. Visiting with his family, he located a written family history outlining his great grandfather, Sebastian Mendez's life story. "I was so intrigued by his story," says Mendez. "It was an epiphany." He discovered that Sebastian immigrated in the 1920s from a small Mexican village near Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosi, to West Virginia.

Mendez envisioned a fictional account of his family's story coming to life in a movie. The business acumen he learned at UNC and throughout his career became a critical part of bringing the project to fruition. "Business school catapulted me with the confidence to start my own business." In addition to believing in himself, he recognized the need to present himself as a credible business person, not just a man with a passion project. "All the business skills I learned in corporate America and starting and selling my own company were very helpful trying to be a film producer," Mendez explains. "The role is the ultimate in entrepreneurship. Every film is like a new company."