As a newly graduated high school student coming to StFX to study science, Sarah Murphy ’10 made an entrepreneurial move.
Ms. Murphy, today a partner with the pre-seed and seed-stage venture capital firm Pelorus VC which invests in Newfoundland and Labrador-based innovation companies, called the university to see if she could switch her program to business.
She did. And that entrepreneurial spirit of charting her own course has run through pretty much everything since.
Four years after her StFX graduation, Ms. Murphy, a 2009 Dr. Trudy Eagan Women in Business award recipient, founded her own startup.
“I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” she says. “I always felt it was my path.”
She was drawn to the field as it offered an opportunity to create, to quickly make an impact, and to be impacted by a wide range of learning.
Her first company, Sentinel Alert, came about after winning Startup Weekend, an entrepreneurship event at Memorial University in 2014, with an idea to develop wearable technology devoted to worker safety.
She ran that startup for about two and a half years. “It did not end the way I wanted,” she laughs. But it was “failing forward."
“I learned so much over those years in building a business.”
She went on to join the Halifax-based company, Harbr.com, and around the same time, co-founded Rival and Queen, a lifestyle podcast that often features interviews with entrepreneurs and others creating their own lives.
Additionally, Ms. Murphy has been an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Propel ICT, an Atlantic Canada accelerator, and has mentored startups throughout the region.
When she was approached by Pelorus—coincidentally, an investor in her first company—to join, she did. In her role with Pelorus she says it’s invigorating to work with diverse companies and founders with big visions.
GENDER DIVERSITY PLAYBOOK
One of her proudest achievements is also one that gives back.
After years of doing work around gender diversity in entrepreneurship, she took that information from academic research, industry reports and consultations with human resource experts and CEOs, and co-authored the Gender Diversity Playbook, a collection of best practices and 12 actionable steps that startup companies can use to build more diverse and stronger performing organizations. Her fund is one that has adopted the playbook.
“I spent years researching this because I care about it,” she says. “I want to make it accessible.”
That’s another cool thing about entrepreneurship, she says, that ability to direct resources in a way you care about and that can have huge, lasting social impact.
GROWING ECOSYSTEM
In November 2024, Ms. Murphy was back at StFX to moderate the Impact X Founders’ Panel.
One thing that stood out to her was seeing how entrepreneurship is growing at StFX, not only as a lively, more flexible and accessible part of the Schwartz School of Business, but more broadly across the university. Students in many different disciplines are eager to chart their own ideas forward.
It’s cool too to see the definite focus on social entrepreneurship, which she attributes in part to the unique DNA of StFX—as a small school, it provides students with connection and opportunity to have big impact.
“They can get involved and have a meaningful role and really see results. That’s a rewarding experience,” she says. It is also one that sets them up for success after graduation. Leaving StFX, students carry with them that knowledge that they are able to create impact and take on leadership roles, she says.
As for advice for would-be entrepreneurs? “Always go for it,” she says. Find a network of people who are entrepreneurs and who can help you navigate. It can be hard sometimes to see progress in the beginning, where you experience both a lot of up and downs. It can be encouraging to speak with others who have been through the process.
