While interest in starting a business is a growing area of interest for many, all students increasingly need to learn to create value in environments of uncertainty and limited resources regardless of their career path; they need to learn skills typically associated with an entrepreneur.  An entrepreneur can be characterized by; being the founder of a classic for profit start-up; an entrepreneurial employee within an existing organization (intra-preneurship); or, the founder of a social innovation or social enterprise. Educators need to increasingly create learning experiences to help students learn to work within these uncertain and resource constrained environments, which provide unique circumstances that require innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to problem solving and opportunity identification not always seen in larger, more established organizations where much of our current content and curriculum is focused.
 
Vision for 2020: expose all students to entrepreneurial practices that can be applied in any career, across a diverse range of organizations from start-ups, the government to NGO’s and beyond. 

Talk to me about your plans to implement entrepreneurial thinking into your curriculum, or ask me how we are doing it.

Original post: March 2013
​Entrepreneurism is quickly becoming a legitimized and sought after career option among youth as well as an often cited solution to economic challenges world-wide. As such, it is anticipated that interest in entrepreneurship will continue to rise in the coming years increasing demand for programming and creating opportunities for job growth via new ventures. While much attention (policy and programming) has been focused on the pursuit of commercializing research, little has been done on a national or provincial level to nurture and develop the entrepreneurial and innovative talent required to start new ventures and build successful businesses. This paper highlights relevant issues, current activity, and best practices and draws attention to the economic imperative of promoting and supporting the next generations of job creators: entrepreneurs.

According to Statistics Canada, approximately 68% of net new jobs are created by small and medium sized enterprises. A Kauffman Study found most net job creation is generated by firms that are one to five years old. New firms add an average of 3 million jobs in their first year (in the USA), while older companies lose 1 million jobs annually. The reality is that large firms typically shed jobs and new firms - start-ups run by entrepreneurs - drive job growth. Entrepreneurship is an important and increasingly more popular driver of economic activity. Many emerging nations, governments, organizations and institutions see the promotion of entrepreneurism as a viable career option and the teaching of supportive business skills as a competitive advantage and a strategic opportunity not to be missed. Supporting this opportunity is the growing interest by young adults in entrepreneurship as a career choice. See full paper at:
http://agawacorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Agawa-White-Paper-March-2013_-Economic-Imperative.pdf

Article Originally Published in Forbes.com, 6/24/2013 @ 10:55AM
Does Entrepreneurship Education Matter? Candida Brush

This is a question that I and my colleagues here at Babson College are frequently asked by the media, entrepreneurs, friends and fellow academics. The number of colleges and universities offering courses has grown dramatically from 253 schools to more than 2600 worldwide (Katz, J., E-web- SLU.edu, 2012; Kauffman Foundation, 2012). With this rise in courses, also comes the question of metrics- how do we know that these courses are effective? The most popular way to measure, based on questions posed by the many rankings organizations, has to do with the number of students “starting a new venture right after graduation”.
In the first place, this the narrowest possible measure of entrepreneurship, and may not in any way reflect the value of entrepreneurial learning. The vast majority of graduates who study entrepreneurship are not likely to start a business until 5 years after graduation. Why? Because they need experience in the industry and practice using their entrepreneurial capabilities. Here at Babson College we teach entrepreneurial thought and action. Students learn how to identify or create opportunities, acquire resources, and build a team to create something of economic and social value. Students learn both learn predictive and creative approaches and practice these behaviors. Even though 100% of our students are required to take entrepreneurship courses, only about 11-15% actually start businesses at graduation. But, our recent alumni survey shows that 5 years out more than 50% are founders, co-founders, or part of a start-up team while 68% think of themselves as entrepreneurs!
In the second place, ‘start –up’ doesn’t capture the other pathways into entrepreneurship. Here at Babson, we believe entrepreneurs can come to entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs come to entrepreneurship by buying businesses, acquiring a franchise, commercializing technology, starting a venture within a family, corporation or social enterprise. When these other pathways are considered, we find that 25% of our students are in fact “entrepreneurs” at graduation.
Finally, our alumni survey confirms what we teach about entrepreneurial thought and action. Our graduates are ‘ambidextrous thinkers’- using both creative and predictive approaches in all their work endeavors, whether or not they own their own business. More than 80% report they are highly confident in their ability to think creatively, while 66% report that they are highly confident in their ability to identify and create new business opportunities. This also supports work by my colleagues, Kate McKone-Sweet and Danna Greenberg, who describe entrepreneurial leadership in their book, The New Entrepreneurial Leader.
And so here at Babson College where we have been teaching entrepreneurship since 1978 and have been ranked #1 in Entrepreneurship by most polls for the past 20 years, we find that Entrepreneurship Education MATTERS, but not in the way it is typically measured.

The message is clear: entrepreneurs create jobs and stimulate economies, at the same time, more of our future leaders are interested in pursuing entrepreneurism, be it traditional or social.  New economic realities and student interest are driving growth in the area of entrepreneurship support and capacity building; this growth is creating strategic advantage for University and College recruitment efforts, student success, fund-raising activities and regional economic development.  Based on the ongoing review of research, survey results and best practices, the following broad success factors have been  developed as a “best case” template in building a best-in-class campus entrepreneurship support ecosystem:

1. Leadership and Strategy– First and foremost, there needs to be palatable support for entrepreneurship capacity building at all levels, especially the most senior. Entrepreneurship support initiatives must be more than a “new program.” The promotion of entrepreneurism and support for student ventures must be incorporated into strategy, policies and procedures across the institution.  In addition, the leader of entrepreneurship initiatives must be adept at dealing within an academic institution, yet also be uniquely qualified as someone who is familiar with entrepreneurship and building the conditions that lead to entrepreneurial success.

2. Funding – There are two parts to funding: first, sustained and sufficient funding for entrepreneurship support; all successful projects require appropriate capacity and funding for supportive projects and initiatives,  not just funding for the efforts of one individual.  Second, funding to support student ventures is a key ingredient and should likely include some combination, or all of: direct funding support to help de-risk early ventures; micro financing programs; access to angel and venture capital networks; and, seamless path finding to available grants and loan programs.

3. Community Engagement – Key to the success of any new venture is access to relevant communities which might not be easily accessible. Most student entrepreneurs don’t have experience with, or connections into, these networks. Formal and informal networking opportunities are required for students (and faculty) to link to and learn from potential clients, collaborators, strategic partners, professionals and suppliers. Alumni networks are a key asset to be leveraged to this end.

4. Mentoring – Linked to community engagement, but important enough to have its own category, is mentoring. As with industry and professional networks, students don’t often have deep connections to the key individuals who can guide them along the entrepreneurial path. Formal mentor programs provide great opportunity for alumni involvement and community engagement. Interesting to note that in the most recent Princeton Review of the best Campus entrepreneurship programs, the top 25 institutions all had multiple mentoring programs.

5. Incubation – While a physical incubator or space is not essential, the benefits are very attractive. A formal incubator or “co-location” space provides for a leverage point for recruitment of students and funders, a focal point for broad cross-campus entrepreneurship initiatives and an opportunity for like-minds to benefit from the energy, synergies, peer competition and peer learning that often spurs great innovation.

6. Learning – Entrepreneurship courses are different than business courses.  Entrepreneurship courses cannot just be re-purposed or rebranded business courses; they must have a focus on early-staged, entrepreneurial ventures.  The goal of entrepreneurship training should not be to teach a laundry list of the standard content (e.g.  Business planning, rules and regulations, etc.) is easily gleaned from internet searches. Instead, it should focus on teaching skills and process, shaping attitudes, and instilling confidence. Like a sport, this can only be done by having participants “do” it in a safe, low risk environment prior to launching.
Also vital to a healthy entrepreneurship learning environment is non-credit learning including opportunities for personal development. In addition, key activities should be facilitating lessons learned from guest speakers and extracurricular activities & competitions that provide an opportunity for experimentation and skills development. This non-credit, experiential learning may be even more important than typical for-credit courses that have to conform to academic rigor, testing and easy measurement of learning – things that don’t always sync with creating a learning environment of experimentation, learning through failure, and the fluidness of entrepreneurship.

7. Celebration – The promotion of the available opportunities and capacity, as well as the public celebration of success is key to long term sustainability.  All stakeholders need to be well informed and engaged in the ongoing successes and activity of the initiative. Proactive communications and celebrations are vital for student recruitment, fund and sponsor development and for the student entrepreneurs and their business success.
​
Related to celebration is the notion of measurement and metrics of success. Many worthwhile initiatives can be implemented quickly and efficiently with lasting and measurable impact. However, it must be noted that most new ventures will fail and those that succeed will take years to demonstrate it – (fyi: longer than an election cycle.) What is equally important to the economic impact metrics generated by the success stories we all know of and celebrate, are the skills, mindsets and attitudes that are shaped in the process for all others as well, and unfortunately this is extremely difficult to measure and report on. Patience, confidence and the knowledge that we are shaping and impacting future generations is required. This impact is not short term endeavor, but it is certainly worthwhile. Many practices, best and otherwise, have provided an opportunity to learn and adapt. While some have a head start on entrepreneurship programming and branding, many are playing catch-up. Regardless of the relative stages of the institutions in their programming we must continue to support as many as we can and promote the value of entrepreneurship as well as the creation of an entrepreneurially minded workforce of leaders, whether they end up in new ventures, old ventures, not-for-profits or ngo’s.

As described by Peter Drucker, entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art, it’s a practice. As such, teaching entrepreneurship is not an easy task with some instead preferring to believe that entrepreneurship cannot be taught and others defaulting to teaching those start-up topics that only mask as useful, but do not come close to helping participants understand how to “do” entrepreneurship - eg. how to write a business plan (see also my post on Business plans.)

Fortunately, many have been able to draw a distinction between teaching entrepreneurship and teaching successful start-ups. There are, in fact, too many variables at play for anyone to presume that they can teach the successful start of a business. Entrepreneurship, on the other hand, is a skill set and mind set, a culmination of practices and processes that come together to help create an entrepreneurial mind capable of entrepreneurial action; this can be taught

Entrepreneurship can be taught, but not in the way that you would teach many other subjects. Similar to teaching a sport, one cannot teach theory and not have the students of the game actually “do” the sport. Entrepreneurship educators must promote an environment of doing and experiencing rather than talking and telling. Content must focus on the principles and practices of creating good business ideas, establishing solid business models and learning how to validate their ideas and assumptions, prior to investing time, energy and resources into writing business plans, or worse launching their ventures too soon.
​
The goal of entrepreneurship training should not be to teach a laundry lists of content that is easily gleaned from internet searches, instead it should focus on teaching skills and process, shaping attitudes, and instilling confidence. Like a sport, this can only be done by having participants “do” it in a safe, low risk environment prior to launching.

In 20 years of working in the entrepreneurship space I have never signed an nda. With that said, I deal with the question a lot and here are my thoughts:

1. I don't want to know about the details of your business - I likely don't know your space well enough to help you beyond general business advice - so giving me secrets of the business won't really matter. If you have "secret sauce" keep it secret - but, as an example, I don't need to know what your hamburger recipe is to help you understand how to start a restaurant or even a hamburger restaurant.

2. Ideas don't win, executing does. If I could "out-execute" you and if I was interested in stealing your idea, I'd wait until you launch, then copy what I like, and then win - so telling me your idea only gives you a few months head start. And fyi, there is no real advantage in being the "first-mover" - the world is riddled with examples: IBM and Ericsson had the first smart phones; White Castle was the first fast food restaurant; Google was about the 4th search engine, etc. In addition, if my lawyer and I are smart we'll alter the idea just enough to render any nda useless.

3. I have a fulltime job and no knowledge of your industry or space; I have no interest in stealing your idea - and there is a good likelihood that no-one else does either. If someone is close enough to your industry to be interested in starting a business in the space, they've likely thought of this, or a similar idea already and for one reason or another, not acted on it.

The most successful entrepreneurs that I have met talk to people a lot; they actively seek out and get help.  You (and everyone else) need help to successfully start a business. Don't miss out on good advice because you are afraid someone will steal your idea; ideas don't win - you and your execution will win. 

**
This may also be a helpful read: http://www.forbes.com/sites/wilschroter/2013/08/22/why-investors-dont-sign-ndas/2/

For more than a decade I ran an Entrepreneurship Centre helping thousands of clients each year and I’d now like to apologize to them. At the time, it was common place to promote and teach business planning as a start-up best practice.  In fact we eventually built our entire service offering around the business plan and the individual components of a fulsome plan.  We didn’t know any better.

I started having doubts about this strategy when I learned that banks were making moderate sized business loans based almost solely on the applicant’s ability to pay back the loan, not on a critical assessment of the business plan. Similarly to a car loan, you could get a business loan if you had a good credit rating and history; the bank manager didn’t test drive the car to determine if you were buying a lemon, they were simply concerned about your ability to pay back.  At the same time I began to collect a lot of evidence that suggested that most successful business owners had not in fact written a business plan – at least not in the early days of their new venture and many of them were returning to the Centre years later to now write one.

It seems there are a number of issues with business plans that we had previously overlooked (an oversight that many are still making today):

1.       A really good (seemingly) business plan could be written without ever talking to a potential customer.  Many great business plans are simply not based on any market need, justification or reality – but they read really well!  Case in point: see any number of prize winning business plans submitted at business plan competitions, most never coming to fruition.

2.       Good business plans include actions plans, implementation time lines and concrete strategies; in other words, an execution document. These are all valuable and necessary tools, but an early-staged business plan is usually based only on speculation about the market, client needs, buying cycles etc.  As such, these seemingly good action plans and strategies are (again) not based in reality and tend to waste a lot of time and resources when the entrepreneur tries to implement them.

3.       Well-articulated and well written business plans are often used as a proxy for good business ideas. Good plans often disguise as good potential businesses, but in reality most written at an early stage are merely a work of fiction, at best a quality research paper not based on actual knowledge of the market or client interaction.

Like winning in sports, you need to do it to be good at it – you can’t just learn about it and plan for it in isolation of actual experience.  All the information and data you need to start a good business needs to be gleaned the old fashioned way – talking to customers, suppliers, and other key industry players then crafting a viable solution based on real needs. There is also a fair amount of trial and error involved in getting to a viable business. Most businesses will adjust (pivot) with experience so the plan is likely wrong before it’s even written.  We need to pay a lot more attention to business models vs. plans at an early stage. Business plans are usually taught and written much too early in the process. Entrepreneurs need to concentrate first on getting the model right (www.businessmodelgeneration.com) and validating the customer problem/solution fit (http://steveblank.com/2009/06/25/convergent-technologies-war-story-1-%e2%80%93-selling-with-sports-scores/) before starting on the business plan.

There is still a valuable place for business plans – it’s just not as soon as we once thought.  As educators and coaches, we need to direct early staged entrepreneurs away from business planning and towards:  talking to customers; learning and adjusting; and, building profitable, scalable business models. The business plan can wait until they actually know what they should be doing!

The message is clear: entrepreneurs create jobs and stimulate economies, at the same time, more of our future leaders are interested in pursuing entrepreneurism. New economic realities and student interest are driving growth in the area of entrepreneurship support and capacity building; this growth is creating strategic advantage for recruitment efforts, student success, fund-raising activities and regional economic development.  Based on the ongoing review of research, survey results and best practices, the following broad success factors have been  developed as a “best case” template in building a best-in-class campus entrepreneurship support ecosystem:

1. Leadership and Strategy– First and foremost, there needs to be palatable support for entrepreneurship capacity building at all levels, especially the most senior. Entrepreneurship support initiatives must be more than a “new program.” The promotion of entrepreneurism and support for student ventures must be incorporated into strategy, policies and procedures across the institution.  In addition, the leader of entrepreneurship initiatives must be adept at dealing within an academic institution, yet also be uniquely qualified as someone who is familiar with entrepreneurship and building the conditions that lead to entrepreneurial success.

2. Funding – There are two parts to funding: first, sustained and sufficient funding for entrepreneurship support; all successful projects require appropriate capacity and funding for supportive projects and initiatives,  not just funding for the efforts of one individual.  Second, funding to support student ventures is a key ingredient and should likely include some combination, or all of: micro financing programs; access to angel and venture capital networks; and, seamless path finding to available grants and loan programs.

3. Community Engagement – Key to the success of any new venture is access to relevant communities which might not be easily accessible. Most student entrepreneurs don’t have experience with, or connections into, these networks. Formal and informal networking opportunities are required for students (and faculty) to link to and learn from potential clients, collaborators, strategic partners, professionals and suppliers.

4. Mentoring – Linked to community engagement, but important enough to have its own category, is mentoring. As with industry and professional networks, students don’t often have deep connections to the key individuals who can guide them along the entrepreneurial path. Formal mentor programs provide great opportunity for alumni involvement and community engagement. Interesting to note that in the most recent Princeton Review of the best Campus entrepreneurship programs, the top 25 institutions all had multiple mentoring programs.

5. Incubation – While a physical incubator or space is not essential, the benefits are very attractive. A formal incubator or “co-location” space provides for a leverage point for recruitment of students and funders, a focal point for broad cross-campus entrepreneurship initiatives and an opportunity for like-minds to benefit from the energy, synergies,  competition and peer learning that often spurs great innovation.

6. Learning – Entrepreneurship courses are different than business courses.  Entrepreneurship courses cannot just be re-purposed or rebranded business courses they must have a focus on early-staged, entrepreneurial ventures.  Also vital to a healthy entrepreneurship ecosystem is the non-credit learning available to students to include personal development, guest speakers and activities & competitions that provide experimentation and skills development opportunities.

7. Celebration  – The promotion of the available opportunities and capacity, as well as the public celebration of success is key to long term sustainability.  All stakeholders need to be well informed and engaged in the ongoing successes and activity of the initiative. Proactive communications and celebrations are vital for student recruitment, fund and sponsor development and for the student entrepreneurs and their business success. Many practices, best and otherwise, have provided an opportunity to learn and adapt. While some have a head start on entrepreneurship programming and branding, many are playing catch-up. On a positive note, many worthwhile initiatives can be implemented quickly and efficiently with lasting impact. However, speed of implementation is key to gain mind share on campuses and provide economic impact in communities.

It’s no surprise that global leaders are increasingly looking at entrepreneurship as a way to grow jobs and stimulate economies. The fact is, approximately 68% of net new jobs are created by small and medium sized enterprises. The reality is that large firms shed jobs and new firms – startups run by entrepreneurs – drive job growth.  The question becomes: What are we doing to stimulate interest in entrepreneurship and provide support to entrepreneurs? Some would see this as an opportunity not to be missed.

Supporting this opportunity is the growing interest by young adults in entrepreneurship as a career choice. A Kauffman-funded study of youth aged 8-21 cites 40% of respondents as interested in entrepreneurship as a career option. In the past few decades, we’ve seen this play out at colleges and universities with the number of entrepreneurship courses rising dramatically.  A 2009 study by Professor Menzies of Brock University points to a 33% increase in the number of entrepreneurship courses between 2004 and 2009. And this wasn’t just the beginning of the entrepreneurship wave, the previous 20 year’s growth rate tallied in the hundreds.

More than just courses, we see an increase in the number of University and College based entrepreneurship centers along with the capacity to support students in their entrepreneurial ventures. We see everything from fully-funded and staffed physical centres offering a full range of services to virtual clusters of non-coordinated and informal entrepreneurship support activities.

The message is clear: entrepreneurs create jobs and stimulate economies. Students’ interests are driving growth in the area of entrepreneurship education and this growth is providing strategic advantage for recruitment efforts and fund-raising activities. What better place to leverage this important economic lever than in supporting start-up activity on campus, during a student’s academic career?

While many are discussing, studying, analyzing and debating, others have put a stake in the ground and declared that teaching entrepreneurship as a viable career option, and the skills that go with it, is an economic imperative.

In a recent article, China Daily reports that the government of China has ordered Universities “to start teaching basic courses on entrepreneurship to undergraduates to encourage students to start businesses and become self-employed after graduation.” (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-08/28/content_15714073.htm). Similarly, the EU passed legislation years ago to ensure that entrepreneurship was being taught in schools – as young as primary schools. See:http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/promoting-entrepreneurship/education-training-entrepreneurship/index_en.htm. Some specific examples include:

- In Bulgaria, the new Law on Pre-school and School Education, still under discussion in ministerial working groups, envisages entrepreneurship, creativity and developing a sense of initiative as one of the main goals of the educational system in Bulgaria. Entrepreneurship will be included as one of the subjects to be introduced. While the Ministry determines at national level the total number of hours for this area of the curriculum, schools are free to decide how to distribute these hours between a range of subjects.

- In Ireland, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has developed a short senior cycle course on enterprise. It has not yet been incorporated into the curriculum; its implementation is still under discussion between educational stakeholders.

- In Spain, the 2011 reform of the core curriculum for lower secondary education includes a new optional subject in the 4th year  Professional Guidance and Entrepreneurial Initiative. The reform will be implemented in 2012/13; nevertheless, the education authorities are free to implement it from 2011/12.

- In Cyprus, in the new curriculum for primary and secondary education to be implemented in school year 2011/12, emphasis is given to attributes, skills and working methods that enhance entrepreneurial behaviour as a cross-curricular objective.

- In Malta, a draft National Curriculum Framework (NCF) was launched in May 2011 as a consultation document. Education for entrepreneurship is proposed as a cross-curricular theme identified as essential for the education of all students and for achieving the aims of education. It is intended to strengthen the embedding of elements of entrepreneurial behaviour through the integration of entrepreneurship programmes, projects and activities in the established curriculum for schools both at primary and secondary level.

- In Poland, the ongoing curricular reform which will be completed in 2016 focuses on shaping attitudes and competences including entrepreneurship.

- In Sweden, entrepreneurship is part of the ISCED 3 school reform implemented in 2011, in the form of commentary material on how to look at entrepreneurship in the various programmes, and in the form of a forthcoming commentary material on the new subject of entrepreneurship, which will be published in 2012.

- In Iceland, national curriculum revisions were launched in 2011 and new subject curricula are expected in 2012. These revisions will include compulsory elements of creative activity for all subjects.

The question becomes: what are you (we) doing to encourage and nurture entrepreneurs? Where will my Country/State/Province/City be positioned economically 10 years from now when kids from around the world graduate having spent their academic careers being encouraged into, and learning skills supporting, entrepreneurism?

What is needed is more action, capacity and certainty around programs, policies and initiatives. Credit to initiatives and organizations that are working to make a change, including Start Up Canada, the Ontario Jobs and Prosperity Council and OCE’s Experiential Learning Program, though we need to move from talking and planning, or in OCE’s case – piloting – to action mode and long-term program commitment with respect to on-the-ground promotion of entrepreneurism and support for entrepreneurs. We are clearly losing out to other Countries in this area and the time for action and commitment is now.