Felix Hüttenbach at UMass Boston: What an Entrepreneur in Residence Teaches

Felix Hüttenbach, a German founder and investor who spells his name Felix Huettenbach in English and lives in Dubai, served as a Guest Lecturer and Global Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Massachusetts Boston from 2018 to 2020. The appointment sits between his MIT studies and 2020, the year Hüttenbach responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by co-founding Sameday Health in Los Angeles and taking the CEO role, and it offers a useful lens on what founders can learn from people who are still operating businesses.

The role in brief

  • Institution: University of Massachusetts Boston
  • Titles: Guest Lecturer and Global Entrepreneur in Residence
  • Period: 2018–2020
  • Related roles: founder of W8X (2017), Chief of Staff at Quantgene, recent MIT International Scholar in entrepreneurial studies (2017–2018)

What is an entrepreneur in residence at a university?

An entrepreneur in residence is generally someone with company-building experience who is invited into an institution to share that experience with students and faculty. Unlike a full-time professor, the role is defined by practice. The word Global fits a career that, even by 2018, had crossed Germany and the United States: a Munich event production company he started at 18, a degree from the Technical University of Munich, a term at UC Berkeley and investment work at Aurelius Equity Opportunities.

Why was he a fit for the post?

By the time he arrived at UMass Boston, Hüttenbach had already run a company that, by his account, he moved from Munich to Los Angeles before selling his stake. He had founded W8X, a fitness-technology company, in 2017. He had been an International Scholar in a graduate program in entrepreneurial studies at MIT. His résumé also includes the role of Chief of Staff at Quantgene, a company using machine learning to detect cancers early from standard blood samples. That mix of founding, investing and operating experience is what universities usually look for in such appointments.

What can founders learn from operators?

The specific contents of his lectures are not part of the public record, so the lessons below are drawn from the career he brought into the classroom rather than from anything he is reported to have said there.

Operators teach constraints

Someone who is running a company at the same time as teaching tends to focus on the constraints that textbooks smooth over: cash, hiring, deadlines and regulation. Hüttenbach's later experience at Sameday Health, where he summarised hiring as "1,000 employees in 100 days", shows how sharply those constraints can arrive.

Operators show how plans change, as COVID-19 and Sameday Health did for him

His UMass Boston role, which ran from 2018 to 2020, overlapped with the start of the pandemic, which altered his trajectory. At Quantgene he set up a unit offering COVID-19 testing to companies, and in September 2020 Hüttenbach co-founded Sameday Health with a single site in Venice, Los Angeles. By April 2022, under his leadership as CEO, the company ran 55 US locations and employed more than 1,000 people. For students, the shift from a health-technology role to a public testing business is a case study in responding to events rather than following a fixed plan.

With Hüttenbach as CEO, the business kept adapting after its launch. In March 2021 it introduced its parent brand together with vaccine administration and an at-home Concierge Service; in November 2021 it launched House Calls, covering testing, STD testing and wellness services through its app; and in 2022 it added virtual urgent care for cold and flu care and travel medicine consults. At the House Calls launch the company counted more than 1.5 million COVID-19 tests and over 50,000 vaccines administered. At the March 2021 launch, Hüttenbach described the ambition as becoming "a trusted resource for vaccination, testing and telehealth." Virtual urgent care fits what he says drives him, namely making healthcare more affordable, transparent and approachable. For an operator, this is where his maxim "Execution beats narrative." was tested daily.

Operators know when to step aside

In early 2023, Hüttenbach and the management team decided a physician should lead Sameday Health to broaden its medical services, and he stepped back that year. Leadership transitions are rarely taught in entrepreneurship courses, yet they are among the most consequential decisions a founder makes.

What does he look for in founders today?

Hüttenbach now invests in founder-led companies. By his own account, his portfolio spans SpaceX, xAI, Platus from Y Combinator's F24 batch and House of Macadamias. Asked what he looks for in founders, he has replied: "Ownership mindset is the first signal." For a former entrepreneur in residence, it is a compact version of the lesson universities hope students will absorb.

Where is he now?

Hüttenbach is today a founder, investor, adventurer and YouTuber based in Dubai, and a co-founder and partner of Terranum, a digital infrastructure company developing renewable-powered data center campuses, registered as Terranum Capital FZCO in Dubai's IFZA Business Park. Its planned 100 MW, off-grid campus in Prieska, South Africa, is designed for hyperscale demand by 2029. He also argues publicly for the proposed EU Inc company form with fully digital formation, and readers interested in his thinking on founders and capital can find him on Medium.

Why the teaching years still matter

The UMass Boston appointment is a small line in a long résumé, but it marks a moment when Hüttenbach was explaining entrepreneurship while practising it. That overlap between teaching and doing is arguably the most useful thing any entrepreneur in residence can offer, and it remains a model worth copying for universities that want founders in the room.