College Entrepreneurship Clubs
What Does the Club Do?
It is a student led organization in schools meant to entice, introduce and enable students embrace Entrepreneurship as an alternative career choice.
- Teaches skill sets that entrepreneurs need to be successful
- Provides access to resources, otherwise hard to find
- Teaches how to develop and refine business ideas (recognizing the difference between ideas and opportunities)
- Assists students in building, launching, and sustaining a successful company
We work with region’s business people and entrepreneurs, as well as academic program leaders. As a club member, you will be offered many benefits such as:
- Learning from expert speakers
- Meeting potential mentors
- Get business planning and commercialization training
- Learn how to fund a startup business
- Network with region’s executives
- Participate in competitions
- Get help with business plans
- Share ideas
- Make friends and build partnerships with fellow future leaders
- Take part in community service
We believe that the best leaders dream big, prepare, take risks, create value, and give back. The Entrepreneurship Club provides unique learning experiences that develop these characteristics, preparing students to become leaders who leave the world better than they found it.
Students are encouraged to “Dare Mighty Things,” as well as developing values such as ethical leadership and entrepreneurial spirit. We see successful outcomes of this approach in the lives of our students and alumni every day.
We invite every student and faculties to become a part of our aspirational journey.
Mission
Our mission is to develop leaders of distinction in commerce and public affairs. This is built on our four strategic pillars:
- Analytical Rigor,
- Entrepreneurial Spirit,
- Ethical Leadership
- Global Vision.
Culture of Excellence
Our “culture of excellence” brings focus to the values we seek to “hardwire” that focuses on;
- Student entrepreneurial success as our top priority;
- A relentless drive to improve and to innovate;
- An aspiration to seek excellence in everything we do; the confidence to “dare mighty things”;
- The humility to recognize that we don’t have all the answers;
- The desire to attract talent within an institution;
- A commitment to results.
Involvement of the faculty and the school administration
Any successful on-campus initiative needs support from the inside out.
- Internally, the club must find a network of faculty with entrepreneurial experience that can be its advisers. You don’t need to have a business department to find this faculty support! Only Entrepreneurial faculty!
The thing about faculty is that they’re extremely busy 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 a college’s Alumni Office, along with resources like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, can help find alumnis that have been involved in start-up businesses. These relationships can offer free advice, resources, and even financial support.
LINKAGES
We always suggest 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.
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.
The club must always be Reminded that:
- One, creative thought is profitable.
- Two, starting a successful small business is possible.
- And three, everyone else is doing it.
The goal of Entrepreneurship Club is not to acquire immediate tangible results. We want to get students thinking in an entrepreneurial way so they can apply it in the future to everything they do. 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.
STARTING A CLUB
To start an Entrepreneurship club we 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.
- 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.
Alternatively, a college Entrepreneurship Club is structured as an incubator with 7 departments that work together for the development of the projects around the SDGs:
These departments are;
- Administration: Membership which acts as the HR department of the club
- Finance which looks into project financing and club budgeting and accounting
- Operations and Competitions which handles competition requirements that the club is involved in
- Liaison – Corporate and Strategic Partnerships
- Marketing – The club and its projects / products
- Operations: keeping track of project development
NB: Entrepreneurship ideas and opportunities are available from the SDGs
Enterprising World 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.
Why Join Entrepreneurship Club?
These are all great reasons to join the club:
- Learn about what it means to be an entrepreneur
- Have a potential business idea
- Want to build a business in a team setting
- Learn more about idea generation and development
- Consult other students on their business start-up
- Plan and execute club events and entrepreneurship week
- Network with successful entrepreneurs and professionals
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.
It does take one or more good entrepreneurs who can recognize innovative prospects, and a market opportunity – 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. World Wide, 41% of nascent entrepreneurs are under the age of 34. There’s no reason one of them can’t be you.