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  • 1.  Giving seed capital to class-based ventures

    Posted 08-14-2015 12:03
    Colleagues -

    My program is looking at developing a course where students will be given a set amount of money at the beginning of the semester as seed capital for a new venture, which students will run during the semester.  At the end of the semester, the students have to return the initial amount, but can keep any other profits.  My controller's office is lookng for ways other universities have accounted for this.  Any suggestions or information would be welcome.

    Eden

    --
    Eden S. Blair, PhD
    Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Dept of Entrepreneurship, Technology and Law
    Foster College of Business
    Curriculum chair, Turner School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
    Bradley University
    esblair@bradley.edu
    309-677-3715 (w) 309-363-0802 (c)
    ************************************** 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!


  • 2.  Giving seed capital to class-based ventures

    Posted 08-15-2015 01:29

    Dear Eden,
    This is a great idea and in my personal experience students also acknowledge it a lot. I have done it quite a few times in my entrepreneurship course at at the undergraduate level. However I never tried to involve the university in this activity yet, but rather provide a small amount of money ($100-$200) from my personal pocket where the students are required to execute a profit making activity within the given time frame and return my full amount back at the end. They can keep the profits. I grade them based on the 'profit' and 'creativity' of their business idea. I am planning to use this assignment in my MBA course as well.

    Regards,
    Shehryar

    On 15 Aug 2015 01:03, "Eden S. Blair" <esblair@fsmail.bradley.edu> wrote:
    Colleagues -

    My program is looking at developing a course where students will be given a set amount of money at the beginning of the semester as seed capital for a new venture, which students will run during the semester.  At the end of the semester, the students have to return the initial amount, but can keep any other profits.  My controller's office is lookng for ways other universities have accounted for this.  Any suggestions or information would be welcome.

    Eden

    --
    Eden S. Blair, PhD
    Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Dept of Entrepreneurship, Technology and Law
    Foster College of Business
    Curriculum chair, Turner School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
    Bradley University
    esblair@bradley.edu
    309-677-3715 (w) 309-363-0802 (c)
    ************************************** 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!


  • 3.  Giving seed capital to class-based ventures

    Posted 08-18-2015 15:01

    Hello Eden (and fellow 'netters),

     

    We loan each of our entrepreneurship students $100 in our ENTR 304 class.  We funded this initiative via a donor, and our controller cut checks each semester from the resulting fund.  The students repay the loans at the end of the semester, and we then deposit the money back in the fund (or void any checks the students didn't cash...they can work in groups and don't always use all the funds) to use for the next class.

     

    We've run this program successfully for several years now and have tried a few different methods.  For example, we used to have students repay the loan and turn in all profits they generated.  We initially planned to use the profits to pay back any unpaid loans (This has never happened...the threat of an Incomplete that turns into an F the following semester has prompted all our students to repay the loan, even if it's out of their own pockets).  We then split the total class profits 60/30/10 among the top three teams.  This made some people very happy...others not so much.

     

    Other schools have students give profits to a charity.  We have since switched to letting students keep the profits, in the hopes they'll use the funds to keep their business going after the class ends.  We have about a 30-50% success rate on this over the past few years, and invite the top performing teams to be residents in our Student Business Incubator.

     

    Folks at other schools provided some really good suggestions as we started our initiative five years ago.  I collected and posted them on my webpage under the link "Microbusiness Resources" (http://bit.ly/MicrobizResources), if you want to peruse these suggestions.

     

    Good luck!


    Franz

     

    Franz T. Lohrke

    Brock Family Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship
    Department Chair

    Entrepreneurship, Management & Marketing Department

     

    205-726-2373 | office

    205-726-2464 | fax

    ftlohrke@samford.edu

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    Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division

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    Call for Papers – Special Issue at Group & Organization Management on Liabilities of Newness and Smallness examining how/whether these liabilities have changed, given technological advances such as crowd funding, social media, self-publishing, 3D printing, and others.

     

     

     

     

    From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv [mailto:ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Eden S. Blair
    Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 11:03 AM
    To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Giving seed capital to class-based ventures

     

    Colleagues -

    My program is looking at developing a course where students will be given a set amount of money at the beginning of the semester as seed capital for a new venture, which students will run during the semester.  At the end of the semester, the students have to return the initial amount, but can keep any other profits.  My controller's office is lookng for ways other universities have accounted for this.  Any suggestions or information would be welcome.

    Eden

     

    --

    Eden S. Blair, PhD
    Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Dept of Entrepreneurship, Technology and Law
    Foster College of Business
    Curriculum chair, Turner School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
    Bradley University
    esblair@bradley.edu
    309-677-3715 (w) 309-363-0802 (c)

    ************************************** 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. Jeff Pollack (jeff_pollack@ncsu.edu). Ventures HO!