Franz,
I do something nearly identical, except they have to come up with the $100. Additionally, they have to find matching funds from an outside investor. So a team of five would have to find $500 in outside investment money. The first part is hardly ever a problem for them, but screwing up the courage to ask for an outside investor to risk his/her money is hard. That makes it a great opportunity to address the emotional reluctance many people have of ACTUALLY taking a risk rather than just talking about it in class.
Terry
Terry Noel
Associate Professor of Management and Quantitative Methods
Illinois State University
Follow me on Twitter
twitter.com/terrynoel
-----Original Message-----
From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv on behalf of Lohrke, Franz T.
Sent: Mon 1/4/2010 2:31 PM
To:
ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: [ENTREP] Questions about funding student micro-businesses
Hello Everyone,
I hope that 2010 has begun well for each of you.
I have a question related to funding student micro-businesses. I have contacted some of you individually, and I have benefited greatly from your insights, but I thought I would also tap into the collective wisdom of the network.
Quick details:
· We will be starting a course in 3 weeks in which we will give each student $100 after screening their proposed business idea.
· We plan to let students pool their funds, if they wish, in teams of up to 5 students.
· This is a junior-level course that students take after writing a preliminary business plan in our freshman-level Entrepreneurship course but before writing a comprehensive business plan in the capstone course for the Entrepreneurship major.
· We will have students liquidate their businesses at the end of the semester, with any profits being donated to a student-selected charity or (possibly) funding student activities, such as trips to entrepreneurship conferences (e.g., SIFE).
Our goal, of course, is that students will hone their entrepreneurial skills (e.g., networking, bootstrapping, and partner selection) through this process of forming and running a micro-business.
My questions:
· Do any of you have comments or suggestions about the details above? For example, different schools provide different funding amounts, ranging from $5 to several thousand dollars. Do you think an amount between $100 and $500 (if they join together) is sufficient to meet our learning goals?
· Have any of you run into chronic non-repayment issues? We are hoping a combination of peer pressure, competitiveness, altruism for their selected charity, and (possibly) grading will keep this issue to a minimum.
· Have any of you encountered other problems, such as students creating potential embarrassment or even liabilities for your school? If so, what issues did you encounter? We are already formulating language in the "loan agreement" to avoid having students form businesses that sell products or services that are illegal, immoral, or fattening (although we may give some leeway on the last one J), but are there any contingencies that you would suggest we anticipate based on your experiences?
I will be happy to compile answers and disseminate them to the network if you respond directly to me. Please feel free, however, to respond to the network. I anticipate that others are formulating similar initiatives and, thus, would be interested in this discussion.
Thanks so much for any suggestions you provide.
Best regards,
Franz Lohrke
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Franz T. Lohrke
Brock Family Chair in Entrepreneurship
Chair, Department of Entrepreneurship, Management & Marketing
Brock School of Business
Samford University
800 Lakeshore Drive
Birmingham, AL 35229
Office: (205) 726-2373
Fax: (205) 726-2464
http://www4.samford.edu/~ftlohrke
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
************************************** This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list. You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here:
http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1 If you have questions or need help, please contact Dr. John Bunch
jbunch@benedictine.edu. Ventures HO!
**************************************
This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management.
Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list.
You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here:
http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1
If you have questions or need help, please contact Dr. John Bunch
jbunch@benedictine.edu.
Ventures HO!