How to create a successful student-run entrepreneurship ecosystem
Lessons from Northeastern University & Beyond
+06/12/2018: shared the presentation/lessons at 2018 Deshpande Symposium as a part of “From the Ground Up: The Importance of Student-Run Organizations in University Entrepreneurial Ecosystems” panel. The following article is the summary of the presentation:
Hello, my name is Danny Kim from Contrary Capital where it’s our mission to back and empower the brightest entrepreneurs. To do this, we have 100+ venture partners on-the-ground at dozens of universities. From Stanford to Harvard, Ohio State to the University of Texas. We got all corners of the United States covered. If there’s a vibrant (or even budding) entrepreneurial ecosystem at your campus, there’s a high chance that our venture partners are keeping their ears to the ground.
On a personal note, I’m a rising junior at Northeastern University, where the pursuit of innovation and entrepreneurship is ingrained in our DNA. In 2015, Northeastern was awarded Deshpande Award for Excellence in Student Engagement in Entrepreneurship. I’m also a personal testimony to the success of our ecosystem. I’m a second-generation pharmacist in training currently working at PillPack, a billion-dollar online pharmacy startup according to the Forbes that’s an embodiment of IDEO’s human-centered design. And outside of school, I find and empower all-star entrepreneurs and invest in them via Contrary Capital.
In other words, my friends often forget that I’m a pharmacy student. And my mom’s always afraid that I’m not studying enough for pharmacy school.
All jokes aside. I firmly believe that this was all possible due to the thriving student-led ecosystem at Northeastern. So, back to today’s topic. I’d like to share with you 4 lessons I learned from successful student-led University entrepreneurial ecosystems. This is definitely not a perfect all-inclusive recipe but in talking with my partners from other schools, I compiled this list and it’s to be a great place to start. So let’s get started.
1. Start building excitement and momentum around entrepreneurship on campus.
“Entrepreneurship at Northeastern is like a varsity sport.”
Foster an environment where it’s “cool” to talk about Entrepreneurship with friends. Bring awesome speakers who founded stellar startups. Share their journey. Give students free 🍕 and swags! But most importantly, get students excited; make them envision themselves in the founder’s shoes – that they can, one day, become like the founders on stage.
How did Northeastern do it?
In 2007, a group of students created the Entrepreneurs Club (“E-Club”) under one vision: “help the diverse cohort of Northeastern University students discover their entrepreneurial drive by providing opportunities to build meaningful relationships and experiences outside of the classroom.” They brought in awesome startup founders (ex. Hubspot, Zipcar, Monstser.com, PillPack), connected students to local startups, fed free 🍕 (always a plus), and was ranked #6 in the world for the best student entrepreneurs club.
Why student-run?
That student-run element is what draws so many to the club, said faculty advisor Gordon Adomdza, an assistant professor of entrepreneurship and innovation. Students are naturally more excited in a program they have built from the ground up, just like the businesses they aspire to lead.
2. Help realize ideas into ventures
You built a strong e-ship culture on campus; what do you do now? There are all these ideas that are ready to be nurtured into potential ventures.
Answer: you ready them with business plans, help draft go-to-market strategy, and find them external fundings to launch their ventures.
How did Northeastern do it?
Eight years ago, IDEA (our student-led venture accelerate) was born. IDEA fostered the development of entrepreneurs/ventures in the Northeastern community (undergrads, grads, faculties, and more) through the educational experience of developing a business from concept to launch (IDEA).
Today, IDEA has 300+ ventures at various development stages, raised $132M in external funding, and launched 52 ventures.
Why student-run?
Runs on a different ROI. The impact is measured by how much experience students get out of this (not $ returned). The stake is low.
3. Everyone can pitch in
It doesn’t matter if you are a future pharmacist, lawyer, engineer, graphic designer, or business person, we all have a home base to return to.
At first, the word “Entrepreneurship” can be intimidating. And, at times, one might think that you need to be a business/ CS major to be an entrepreneur. But, as we all know, that’s not true at all.
A quick example: PillPack, the company that I’m working at right now, was founded by a pharmacist, TJ Parker, who spent his early days delivering medications to people by hand, so a lot of what we do (simplifying pharmacy experience for those who are taking 5+ medications) was based around the challenges he saw. Entrepreneurship is not a major-specific skill – it’s a universal mindset in approaching problems that allows one to see opportunities where others see burdens.
But, I understand. Coming from a non-traditional background (e.g. pharmacy, design, law), one might have a hard time walking into an e-ship event, make conversations, and find his/her place. That’s where the home bases come in.
Housed in respective colleges at Northeastern, home bases serve three functions:
- (1) to funnel people into the broader ecosystem,
- (2) to provide hands-on experiences that are relevant to one’s discipline, and
- (3) to collaborate with other organizations on campus to help entrepreneurs and their ventures.
At Northeastern, we have home bases in engineering, design, health sciences, law, and many more.
- As an engineering student who’s interested in entrepreneurship, you can join Generate, our student-led product development studio. These guys work with clients from across Northeastern each semester to develop their ideas into real working prototypes.
- As a design major, you can join Scout, our design studio. With other designers, you will help ventures grow by providing Design Consulting, Web Design, Identity & Branding, Development, UI/UX, and Packaging
- As a law student (we are fortunate to have a law school in our university), you can join IP-COLAB. Where we provide a range of crucial IP-related legal information and services to inventors and ventures in Northeastern’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
4. Bringing it all together
At this stage, you have an amazing set of student-led organizations across various disciplines that are all working hard to help their members cultivate entrepreneurial drive and help venture clients grow. Things are going great — except one thing, everybody’s doing their own thing. Isolated impacts are taking place where collective impact should be. You know the story — event times are overlapping, missions collide, and worst yet, students get confused where to go.
We need some traffic control.
In 2015, Mosaic was founded with a mission to do exactly that. I mean, at the end of the day, we are all in this to support student entrepreneurs (and aspiring ones) — and further, to foster thriving entrepreneurship culture at schools. So, we formed an alliance of student-led organizations that support venture incubation at Northeastern University.
Through this alliance, we are able to encourage collaboration b/w organizations through the allocation of resources specifically marked for collaboration and venture incubation. Now, we are able to control, or rather, direct the traffic — need some help with HW prototyping? Go to Generate our engineering studio. Need help with intellectual property? Go to our IP-COLAB. Need some UI/UX design help? Go to Scout. All in all, this umbrella organization truly brings together our pipeline — Inspire. Connect. Create — and more importantly, make it easier for a student entrepreneur to navigate it.
Interested in Contrary Capital? Reach out to info@contrarycap.com or the nearest venture partner to you!
Questions? Feel free to shoot me an email at danny AT contrarycap.com
