Boy meets girl; girl is impressed with boy’s work ethic; boy delights in girl’s people skills; boy and girl start dating and launch a company together.
That might sound like the outline of a romance novel set at Bryant, but it's really the simplified version of how Victoria Sousa ’27, ’28MBA and Liam Dubeau ’26, ’27MBA built their luxury branding and digital marketing firm Duso Digital on a foundation of mutual attraction and admiration — plus a love affair with entrepreneurship and design.
Sousa and Dubeau met on campus in 2025. Both were Digital Marketing majors in Bryant’s 3+1 Accelerated Fourth-Year MBA program but, because they never took a class together, it required an introduction from a mutual friend to launch their partnership.
“Dating came first, then the business,” recalls Sousa, adding that besides a drive for success, good manners and attentiveness were assets that Dubeau brought to the table.
For his part, Dubeau saw Sousa as a perfect counterpart.
“She’s super outgoing and extroverted, while I’m more introverted,” he says.
Those complementary parts are a big part of Duso Digital’s success story. In just over a year, the company has topped five figures in revenue and continues to add new clients.
“Our whole goal is to help brands reposition themselves to charge higher prices, attract more customers, and keep them longer,” says Dubeau. A mix of website design, branding, and digital ads help clients elevate their products and services into a premium space.
“Our whole goal is to help brands reposition themselves to charge higher prices, attract more customers, and keep them longer."
“We’re branding clients to look the part, making websites that attract the people who will buy from them, and creating the ads that draw customers in,” explains Dubeau.
Duso Digital — the name is an amalgam of the two principles’ surnames — is still in its adolescence, but Dubeau and Sousa both caught the entrepreneurial bug well before they came to Bryant.
“If you ask my family, they’ll say my whole life I was starting little businesses,” says Sousa, such as selling bracelets to classmates in middle school. “In high school I had my own business reselling clothing, and that was what helped me put down my deposit for Bryant.”
Dubeau got his start in business selling custom-painted sneakers as a high school student.
“There's always been an entrepreneur in both of us,” Sousa says. “It’s a natural combination. I've done a lot of branding work and logos for student businesses and for my own ventures. Liam has so much in terms of analytical and technical skills, so the marriage between the two of us was very natural.”
“There's always been an entrepreneur in both of us."
Some of Duso Digital’s earliest clients were other Bryant entrepreneurs, such as the Sole Provider clothing company. Dubeau and Sousa also produced branded materials for a yacht owned by Ellen Wilson ’79, chair of Bryant University’ Board of Trustees. Other clients have ranged from a Portuguese coffee shop in East Providence to a puppy breeder in Florida.
Dubeau and Sousa agree that Bryant is a match made in heaven for entrepreneurs looking to start businesses. Dubeau says he learned the value of creating customer personas in Marketing Professor Sharman Attaran, Ph.D.’s, digital marketing class, for example, while Sousa credited Marketing Professor Michael Gravier, Ph.D., for teaching her the fundamentals of marketing management.
Bryant’s Sprague Center for Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking and its director, Kristie DeJesus, also played an important role in getting Duso Digital off the ground.
"I would encourage anyone to start a business at Bryant if only to have Kristie and the center there to provide support and consistency,” says Sousa.
"I would encourage anyone to start a business at Bryant if only to have Kristie and the [Sprague Center for Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking] there to provide support and consistency."
Mutual support is also central to the successful dynamic between Dubeau and Sousa.
“Us dating and being business partners is just one whole thing,” says Dubeau. “It doesn't feel like there's really a separation because even once we close the laptops and go out to eat, we'll still probably talk about business.”