How to Start a College Entrepreneurship Club
Ryan Allis and Aaron Houghton met at an entrepreneurship club while attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Within three days of meeting, the two had the idea for their company iContact that helps small businesses manage their e-mail marketing. iContact now has 63,000 customers and generated $26.5 million in revenue last year. With the creation of entrepreneurship clubs, colleges and universities across the country are becoming small business development incubators.According to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, over 2100 colleges and universities were offering entrepreneurship education programs by 2006. These programs and centers vary in their execution, but often help students cultivate a startup business idea, teach them basic strategies like estimating costs and writing a business plan, and help them network their ideas toward sources of funding.”There’s been an explosion of interest in entrepreneurship,” said Gerald Hills, the Turner Chair of Entrepreneurship at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. He attributes this interest to its cross-disciplinary nature, which is relevant to members of an increasingly global generation. “Today, a cutting edge entrepreneurship program has to go beyond the Business College,” he says. “Successful entrepreneurs are not only out of business school; they’re students of biology, education, and English. All students should have the opportunity to decide if entrepreneurship is something they might want to have in their future.”Today’s college students are part of a critical generation that will further our economic recovery. The foundational role of startups in our economy makes an entrepreneurship club an asset to any college campus, large or small, state or private, over- or under-endowed. Small businesses have generated 64 percent of new jobs according to a survey by the Kauffman Foundation. As Hills explains, “Entrepreneurship is inherently intuitive; as human beings, we’re always engaging in selling. It doesn’t require substantial resources as much as it requires is one or more passionate leaders.” This guide will teach you how to start your own entrepreneurship club, because remember: if you can’t find a job, you can always make one. Starting a College Entrepreneurship Club: Selecting a Program StructureFrom student-run to curriculum based, from business-minded to creatively focused, every college entrepreneurship venture takes a distinctive approach. Some colleges have fully formed centers, some have certificate programs, and some are simply actively meeting clubs. The one thing they have in common? They all reflect the tone of their colleges. Creativity %26 Leadership, the entrepreneurship project at Oberlin College, purposely defines itself on its website as a “multi-disciplinary initiative,” instead of an Entrepreneurship center or club. Oberlin is both a liberal arts college and a music conservatory, well known for combining creativity with structure.”We deliberately didn’t create an identifiable center because we thought it would best fit the culture as an endeavor infused into the campus,” says Andrea Kalyn, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the Conservatory. “We want it to be a tool through which you can apply your education, that serves as the core of your academic work.” C%26L primarily distributes a series of application-based monetary grants, called creativity funds, but also offers supporting curriculum courses and symposia. “We tapped into something utterly Oberlinian,” Kalyn says, explaining that this applies to any college. “Tapping into a culture of a place and playing to its strengths is essential. Why would you want to create a program that is counter to the ethos of your school?”Johns Hopkins University is the home to Hopkins Student Enterprises, a student-run organization that helps their fellow students’ business ventures off the ground. Hopkins undergraduates developed the group in 2008 as an expansion of their profitable first business, Hopkins Student Storage, which collects and stores student items over the summer. They have since launched three more student-run businesses – a graphic design company, a consulting agency, and a care package delivery service %26ndash; that serve the students and the Baltimore community.Luke Kelly-Clyne, the president of Hopkins Student Enterprises, suggests that no matter what method you choose, your program must be backed up by active initiatives. “You just want to be able to put your skills into practice,” he says. “The point of this service is not to learn how to network and find a job; that’s what the career center is for. It’s also not just to talk for hours about finance or business. The point of this service is experiential learning.”Kelly-Cline explains that choosing also involves research. “Reach out to the schools that have done this and ask them for their operating materials,” he says. Once you have all of this in place, you can write your mission statement.Dig Deeper: Entrepreneurship Education for AllStarting a College Entrepreneurship Club: Gauge Interest and Generate SupportAny successful on-campus initiative needs support from the inside out. Internally, find a network of faculty with entrepreneurial experience that can be your advisers. You don’t need to have a business department to find this faculty support, says Kelly-Cline. Look closely in your course catalog for courses in economics, finance, and accounting, and keep an ear out for professors that have come from other career paths. “Email all of the professors that teach in those areas, send them a prospectus of what you want to do, and then see if you can try to recruit advisors,” he says. Bringing the faculty and administration into the equation is important, because “the faculty can act as liaisons.” Additionally, these courses and professors can provide a foundation for eventually implementing entrepreneurship into your curriculum.”The thing about faculty is that they’re extremely busy,” says Kalyn. “But they’ll do anything that supports the work of their students. If students can really take control and facilitate a program like this, and hold it to a high academic standard, you get momentum. That leads to consistent support.”External support should consist of alumni and community members. Often, your college’s Alumni Office, along with resources like LinkedIn, can help you find alums that have been involved in Start-up businesses. These relationships can offer you free advice, resources, and even financial support. “I think the grassroots approach is the most effective,” says Kalyn, who believes that alumni support is especially integral once the club is established, with actualized student business plans. You don’t need to ask for much to sponsor an idea: “Even a gift of $500 can affect a student’s ability to try something,” she says.Hills suggests connecting to entrepreneurs living in the surrounding area, who can come to campus to motivate the students unaware of the value of entrepreneurship. “Particularly for non-business students, seeing an artist who sells their songs or paintings is often a revelation,” he says. “There are a huge number of students that still don’t think of entrepreneurship as a viable career alternative for them. But it fundamentally is; entrepreneurship plays a vital role in revitalizing the economy.”Hills is also the president of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization (CEO), a nonprofit society for college entrepreneurship programs with chapters in 187 universities. A resource for students focused on extracurricular entrepreneurship, CEO offers access to advice from successful student programs, leadership training, newsletters, and an annual conference each November. Hills suggests that meeting and developing support from other like-minded young entrepreneurs is integral to starting a successful group. “Get a few students and ideally a faculty member, to attend the annual conference,” he says. “It usually creates a very favorable impression.” Finally, begin advertising yourself to students who would want to join your team. Spread the word however you see fit. Start an easy, accessible website. Put up fliers. Promote the importance of entrepreneurship as an alternative career choice.Dig Deeper: Cool College Start-ups 2010Starting a College Entrepreneurship Club: Make it Official Once you have a strong mission statement and support network, it’s time to register as a student organization and apply for school funding. What’s the most effective way to pitch an entrepreneurship club? Remind them of three things: One, creative thought is profitable. Two, starting a successful small business is possible. And three, everyone else is doing it.Kalyn insists that the goal of C%26L is not to acquire immediate tangible results. “We want to get our students thinking in an entrepreneurial way so they can apply it in the future to everything they do,” she says. “You have to be prepared for the long term gain. Create the culture now and instill it on that basic level: you can’t just have an idea. Everyone has ideas. Try it.”Give them facts and figures about the role of entrepreneurship in today’s economy. Find data about the success rate of young entrepreneurs on websites like the US Small Business Association (SBA) and the Kauffman Foundation. For example, today, half of startup businesses persevere beyond the first five years. Describe your involvement with alumni, faculty, and organizations like CEO. Then ask your administration for money.If you decide to start a club like Hopkins Student Enterprises, Kelly-Cline suggests you come in with an actual business. “A group of students, even as little as 2, need to come up with some sort of a vision, a mission statement, but back it with one concrete business plan they can start up,” he says. Write a business plan for an idea, and “try to make it one that’s simple, understandable, most importantly, profitable. Start with that, if it goes through, stay with that for a year. Don’t worry about the next step.” Kalyn believes that institutional support is invaluable for a venture like this. “Students can be a bit reticent about it, but as long as the institution knows when to get out of the way, their support is essential to fundraising, to connecting students to alumni, and to making sure things are sustained.”Dig Deeper: The One Day Business Plan WorksheetStarting a College Entrepreneurship Club: Put Learning into ActionOnce you are an official club, try to get your business started %26ndash; at school. Design a course rating website, book buyback program, or late-night snack delivery service. Find a product or service a school doesn’t offer, and provide it. Hills explains that entrepreneurial success is like a three-legged stool: you need resources, opportunity, and people. “Most businesses don’t require a lot of startup capital, which is something we tend to forget,” he says. “It does take one or more good entrepreneurs who can recognize innovative prospects, and a market opportunity %26ndash; people that’ll hand you some cash. It’s simple and basic, but that’s what it comes down to.”Finally, if you have the time and motivation, don’t be afraid to offer your services outside the college doors. According to the SBA Office of Advocacy, 41% of nascent entrepreneurs are under the age of 34. There’s no reason one of them can’t be you.Dig Deeper: Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under the Age of 30
Business – Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation – Johns Hopkins University – Education – Andrea Kalyn
How to Start a College Entrepreneurship Club
That’s so this year. What’s that? Silly Bandz? Twilight? As Mark Cuban writes on his blog, “Location check in is so 2010.” Cuban explains that he just invested in a company that, through video footage, determines how many people are in a given area at a time, ostensibly for security and traffic-pattern analysis. For now anonymity is given to crowd members, but Cuban wonders if adding facial recognition software would allow locations to forego checkin applications because “we would already know you are there.” Sound a little like Minority Report? TechCrunch thinks so. “It sounds like a future we’re inevitably headed toward.”Behind the scenes at Gilt Groupe. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Alexis Maybank shares the story of how she and co-founder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson built Gilt Groupe, the online flash sales site for men’s and women’s luxury fashions. The company, founded in 2007, reported $170 million in revenue last year and now boasts three million members who shop for designer brands at up to 70 percent off retail prices. Maybank talks about the challenges of getting the word out there, signing up initial designers, and raising VC as a woman. She explains to the Journal that “it’s an old boy’s network, and that’s intimidating for a lot of women. So when explaining fashion to a bunch of men in khaki pants and blue button-down shirts, their response was always ‘Oh, let me see if my wife thinks if this is a good idea.’ But it worked.”Our annual 30 Under 30 list. They’re running innovative companies, they’re building communities, they’re setting trends, they’re giving back–and they’re all under 30. Here’s this year’s winners, from Sprouter, to Agile Sports, to The Man Registry. Did we miss anyone? Let us know in the comments.Foursquare is prowling for a partnership. Yet another 30 Under 30 winner is making headlines this morning as it attempts to snag a whale of a partnership. Foursquare, the game/ social network that recently raised $20 million in Series B funding, claims it is in talks with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft about deals involving their location-based data (via GigaOM). While the novelty of being the mayor of your local mall might gradually wear off it can still be a useful tool to make money for your business. Also, this type of partnership is what catapulted Twitter to profitability.Facebook’s co-founder on the Facebook movie. When you’re trying to revolutionize social networking while you’re still at Harvard, you’re probably not thinking about how Aaron Sorkin might portray your life in a feature film six years hence. In SocialBeat, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, gives his take on the silver screen adaptation. In short: it overplays the sex and booze. “It is interesting to see my past rewritten in a way that emphasizes things that didn’t matter . . Other than that, it’s just cool to see a dramatization of history. A lot of exciting things happened in 2004, but mostly we just worked a lot and stressed out about things; the version in the trailer seems a lot more exciting, so I’m just going to chose to remember that we drank ourselves silly and had a lot of sex with coeds,” writes Moskovitz, who is currently working on a productivity startup Asana, backed by Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. As for Zuckerberg, he adds, “At the end of the day, they cannot help but portray him as the driven, forward-thinking genius that he is.”What financial reform means for angel investing. In a guest post at VentureBeat, Scott Walker, CEO of a law firm that specializes in entrepreneur representation, breaks down the impact of the financial regulation bill on angel investing. The verdict: it’s a mix of good and bad. Renting a room to save a home. Today’s BusinessWeek explains how San Francisco-based startup AirBnB is helping homeowners escape foreclosure. The site allows people from 142 countries to rent out empty rooms and pull in a little extra income. One New Yorker tells BusinessWeek, “This has been our stimulus package…we were going to lose our house.” Founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia say they got the idea for the company when they were cash-strapped, themselves. After renting out space in their own home, they decided to turn the idea into a business, enlisting the help of their friend Nathan Blecharczyk. All three founders made it onto our 30 under 30 list this year, having seen a tremendous amount of growth since the site launched just two years ago.More from Inc. Magazine:Get this delivered to your inbox. Or get it on the KindleFollow us on Twitter or Tumblr.Friend us on Facebook.Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500|5000.
Facebook – Google – Mark Cuban – Benchmark Capital – Dustin Moskovitz
Mark Cuban: Check-Ins Are “So 2010″
