Business

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Mike Benbow, Business Editor benbow@heraldnet.com   Published: Monday, June 16, 2008 What college kids in Everett learned from their start-ups By Pat Sisneros and Lynne Munoz You've heard it a million times, but it's still true -- experience really is the best teacher. Three teams of Everett Community College business students learned that lesson this spring by starting their own businesses through two classes, Entrepreneurship 205 and 206. We were initially reluctant to share their stories here (after all, it's our business program) but realized many of the lessons they learned from starting, running and collapsing a business might be helpful for other would-be entrepreneurs. This is the second year Everett Community College's School of Business Design has offered an entrepreneurship class where students start their own businesses with real business plans, real money and the real struggles of first-time small-businesses owners. We received a $5,000 grant from the Coleman Foundation to create this experience and modeled our classes after those offered at the Babson College near Boston. EvCC is the only community college on the West Coast -- and possibly in the country -- where students learn entrepreneurship by running their own businesses. The class was taught by EvCC business instructors Catherine McHugh and Tom Hoban. "We are extremely proud of our students," McHugh said. "They learned very quickly, because they had to and they were motivated to succeed." This year, one group of students started a T-shirt business, another produced unique tiles and tables, and a third marketed local musicians to music venues in Snohomish County. The teams pitched their ideas to an investment panel that included local business experts and bankers. The investors awarded the T-shirt team $1,500 in start-up money, the tile art company $1,500 and the musician marketers $500. All the teams paid back their loans and made a total profit of $2,064 in just 22 weeks. Their profits will be added back into the business fund to help more students start companies next year. Getting there took a lot of hard work, and a lot of lessons learned. Here are a few we heard at the June 11 class report. Lesson 1: Do your research This is one of the most important steps before opening a business -- a lesson the musician marketing group learned the hard way. The students selected their business hearing about one student's success with a similar venture in another part of the state. In the team's business plan, they noted that there were no competitors in Snohomish County. "We discovered the reason there were no competitors is because there's no money in it," student Heather Smith said. "There's no market. Venues didn't want to pay, or didn't want to pay very much." The team scrambled at the end of the quarter to cover their loan and make a small profit. They all agreed that additional research during the planning phase could have made the business more successful -- or quashed the idea at the beginning. Lesson 2: Communication matters Communication is crucial to business success, students learned. "What was most evident to me, and a consistent theme I heard from nearly every one of the students, was how important the need for good communication was during this entire process from start to finish," said Jeff Mitchell, a Bank of Everett senior vice president who assisted the business teams. "All three teams said that they struggled with communication issues at one point or another, but in the end they were apparently able to work it out and pull it together." He said those struggles aren't unusual. "It's really no surprise, since real-life companies spend lots of time and money on improving communication in the work force -- it is a linchpin of getting everyone on board to reach a common goal in the most effective way possible," Mitchell said. Some of the more quiet students found it necessary to speak up, such as when the tile table team wasn't meeting its production needs. "We realized we weren't finishing anything," said Debbie Whitman, the team's acting CEO. "I realized I needed to be more vocal." Lesson 3 -- Learn from success and failure We plan to continue this class next year because so many students told us they benefited from the lessons they learned as short-term entrepreneurs. One of the students on the T-shirt team said she learned that it's necessary to take risks and to trust your plan for your business. The supplier producing the T-shirts persuaded the team not to order any extra small or extra extra large shirts. "We probably could have had 40 or 50 more sales if we'd had those sizes," said student Tonya Bayley said. "We learned we needed to trust ourselves and our assessment of the market." Students said they learned from their successes and failures. "Really having this whole hands-on experience is what made this worthwhile," student Tyeson Pennella said. "The most important thing I learned was that it comes down to drive. There are a lot of outside factors, but it really comes down to you and how much you're willing to put into a business of your own." We couldn't agree more. Pat Sisneros is the dean of Everett Community College's Business and Applied Technology Division. Lynne Munoz is the director of EvCC's School of Business Design. Please send your comments to entrepreneurship@everettcc.edu.

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