For Ben Lukszys x’26, a new business should be “a vessel to do good in the world, not just extract value.” A senior triple-majoring in Data Science, Entrepreneurship, and Philosophy, Lukszys has held a deep interest in the world of startups since he was a teenager. As a student at UW–Madison, he has spent the past few years building his own ventures while laying the groundwork for a thriving student community around entrepreneurship. Lukszys has emerged as a connector on campus, running competitions, accelerators, and job fairs to help fellow students connect with startups and support their creative business ideas.
Now, he’s channeling those experiences into a new and promising venture: matching startups with talented UW–Madison students and recent graduates. In just a few months, he has already facilitated multiple hires and set an ambitious goal: 100 placements by next August. Lukszys sees data science not just as an academic pursuit, but as an engine driving his entrepreneurial work, using coding and data to solve real startup challenges and connect students with opportunities.
Lukszys said diving into entrepreneurial work has been the best way to “find my people” at a large public university. In his final year as an undergraduate, he’s helping other students find their people, too, from future employers through his company Breakout, to potential co-founders through on-campus events.
An entrepreneurial journey
Lukszys has been chasing entrepreneurship since high school in New Glarus. At UW–Madison, he realized that pursuit also came with the intrinsic benefit of community-building. He joined the startup-focused student organization Transcend, co-led its innovation competition as a sophomore, then helped launch ramp100 with Professor Jon Eckhardt and entrepreneur Jack Koziol–a startup accelerator program designed to give student founders tactical, hands-on lessons and mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs.
Eventually, Lukszys transitioned this accelerator into a community with over 150 total members. Those activities “defined my sophomore year,” Lukszys said. “They allowed me to become somewhat of a gateway for students into entrepreneurship on campus—someone who knew almost everyone in the community and could connect people with the right opportunities.” Since then, Lukszys has continued to organize entrepreneurship-related events, including co-creating a startup job fair for UW–Madison students that drew over 150 attendees, including local and regional startups looking for talent.
Getting students hired
Today, Lukszys is taking his niche on campus a step further. His newest venture focuses on solving a problem he heard consistently from founders: they struggled to find the time and capacity to recruit and retain student talent. Between packed schedules and limited recruiting resources, early-stage startup leaders often struggled to hire effectively, especially when competing against larger organizations with full recruiting teams. Lukszys saw a need, and he decided to meet it.
Since July, he has helped eight UW–Madison students and recent graduates get hired by startups in Madison and beyond.
And he has a strategy to get that number to 100, recently launching a company called Breakout with co-founder Xabier Bisabarros-Hudoc x’27, who is also majoring in Data Science. With Breakout, students and recent graduates first answer a few questions including three video recordings about their background and interest in startups. If respondents opt-in to feedback when submitting, Lukszys will send back a video message of his own with personalized advice on how they can best position their skills and strengths to boost their odds of landing a job in startups. If there is a particularly good match between a startup and a student/recent graduate in his network, Lukszys will either directly introduce the candidate to the startup or ask them to refer a friend who may be a good fit themselves.
Lukszys is also active on social media, sharing success stories such as a recent LinkedIn video interviewing a student he was able to place in freelance startup roles. (“I’m [now] working on software from development to implementation,” the student tells him, rather than “coding in a vacuum,” or creating software that may not ever be used in the real world.)
This whole bold project, Lukszys said, is designed to be beneficial for all parties involved. “If I can solve problems for other founders, then I get more connections to leverage and help other students, plus startups get valuable employees—it works for everyone,” he explained.
Insights for fellow students
Lukszys pairs his entrepreneurial work with a triple major in Data Science, Entrepreneurship, and Philosophy. Within the Data Science major, Lukszys has appreciated the practical coding skills he has gained and has especially enjoyed the Statistics courses within the major, noting that the discipline “felt like epistemology quantified,” a way of using data to determine what we really know and how we know it. CDIS prioritizes and fosters this kind of interdisciplinary cross-pollination that Lukszys has embraced, giving students space to blend statistics and data science with fields like business and philosophy in ways that mirror the challenges entrepreneurs face outside the classroom.
Lukszys recommended aspiring entrepreneurs, and all students interested in computing and data at UW–Madison, take several specific courses within CDIS, including CS 220: Data Programming I as a key foundation. He also credits STAT 240 and 340 (Data Science Modeling courses) for giving him broad exposure to diverse applications of data science methods.
For peers eager to pursue (or just curious about) entrepreneurship, Lukszys offered some simple, actionable advice: “Cast a very large net, then let the people you love being around pull you in the right directions,” he said. “You can start by simply building cool things with your friends. It doesn’t have to be a company—just projects that solve your own problems.” Looking ahead, Lukszys has set a long-term goal for himself over the next decade-plus: “to provide the most leverage I can to the highest-impact organizations, which I think are startups.”
Check out Breakout, Ben Lukszys’ network for early-career startup talent.