Help Wanted: What Is It To Be the Nation’s Leading Public University for Entrepreneurship?
If you’ve heard me speak publicly over the last six months, it is likely you’ve heard my goal for CU-Boulder: to be the nation’s leading public university for entrepreneurship.
It is time to create a blueprint for achieving this objective. Your feedback on what needs to be in the blueprint is invited below. I’ll get back to this topic in a moment. Hang in with me for a bit. I’m a professor. I’ll eventually get to the point.
This is the time of the year when students on campus face exams. It is also my test season. The Silicon Flatirons Center Entrepreneurship Initiative Advisory Board’s twice annual meetings provide an accountability event. It is a rambunctious board stocked with entrepreneurs, VCs, attorneys, and strong wills. The Board’s candor and intellectual firepower gets the adrenaline pumping like a final exam. Most important, there is usually a certain truth serum – for better and worse – associated with the Board meeting. I sweat it. I learn a ton. And I love it. The Board has been one the principle architects for our Entrepreneurship Initiative.
The Advisory Board met this week. It delivered, as usual. In particular, two items around the spring meeting caught my attention:
First, the numbers for the past year (June ’11 thru May ’12) are notable. Here is the 2011-12 SFC Entrepreneurship Initiative by the numbers (assuming that our two remaining May events are not a disaster):
- 48 public-facing events presented or co-presented
- In-person event attendance = 6,648
- Average attendee feedback rating = 1.64 (1 = outstanding; 2 = valuable; 3 = mediocre; 4 = poor)
- 16 Clients served by Entrepreneurial Law Clinic; the ELC also supported TechStars teams during Summer term 2011 (tip of the hat to Mike Platt who leads the Summer ELC)
- Six outreach presentations by the ELC to micro-development entities such as Mi Casa and Centro San Juan, reaching over 200 individuals
In perspective, the three year trend is encouraging:
|
|
2009-10 |
2010-11 |
2011-12 |
|
E.I. Events |
32 |
42 |
48 |
|
Attendees |
5,250 |
6,132 |
6,648 |
|
Average Feedback |
N/A |
1.50 |
1.64 |
And note that this is only a portion of entrepreneurship activity across CU. Surrounding the campus is a Front Range region that has long been a world-class place to start a business. And this startup scene is increasingly propelled by an entrepreneurial university. CU just claimed the national championship at the Venture Capital Investment Competition. Indeed, there is a ton of entrepreneurial activity across the CU-Boulder campus, including work by the Deming Center, ATLAS, Tech Transfer Office, e-Space, CESR, Center for Music, CSUAC (in computer science), and others. Not only do each of these organizations have interesting projects, but we frequently collaborate, including presentation of the New Venture Challenge, CU’s cross-campus entrepreneurship championships.
Second, related to CU becoming an entrepreneurial university, our Board chewed over the following question: what would it look like for CU-Boulder to become the leading public university for entrepreneurship? (See, I told you that I’d eventually get back to the point.)
This is an explosive question. It forces us to think hard about what entrepreneurship is, how to define and measure it, and what the role of universities should be. Your input is welcome. The question can be addressed from at least three dimensions. One, what factors genuinely matter because we think the cut to the core of the “leading public university for entrepreneurship”? Two, what factors affect external rankings and should be focused upon, knowing that prospective students, employers, and others look to those rankings? And three, what is going on at competitor public universities, including Texas, Washington, Michigan, North Carolina, and Cal-Berkeley? What is CU-Boulder doing that outpaces or, in contrast, lags behind these other institutions?
Please leave your comments and suggestions. I’ll then synthesize comments, feedback from our Board meeting, and my own thinking into a Blueprint strategy for CU-Boulder, which I’ll post here in the coming weeks. I look forward to your ideas and insights.
Brad Bernthal is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Law School and Director of the Silicon Flatirons Entrepreneurship Initiative.
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Great post Brad – I think that one of the most important factors in developing a reputation as the leading public university for entrepreneurship will be to attract students that are seriously interested in starting their own business. There is an interesting scholarship program at Clarkson which offers a break on tuition in exchange for equity in the company:
http://www.technologytransfertactics.com/content/reprints/611-clarkson-u/
While several CU officials are quoted in this article as saying that a similar program might be difficult to implement at a larger public university because of more complex bureaucratic policies, it is an interesting idea that could perhaps be modified to attract students interested in startups to our campus.
Reputational aspects are an important side of this equation. The ability to attract top-tier, creative class talent is essential to any startup environment. One thing we do well at CU-Boulder is provide opportunities across schools and departments for students to get entrepreneurial training and community connections. We could do more to publicize this and say, essentially, “Irrespective of your major or graduate program, CU can plug you into a world class startup scene.” A question remains what metrics go into measuring this and how do you compare what we do at CU-Boulder with other public universities. Based on discussions with others, I’d expect CU to rank among the best in terms of cross-campus and community startup opportunities.
I think this is a great question to be asking, but I’m wondering what lead to the “public” part of the equation. Why is the goal to be the number one “public” university for entrepreneurship and not just the number one university for entrepreneurship. When I think of the primary difference between public and private universities, I think money. When I think entrepreneurship, I think do more with less. So, I’m curious how that qualifier ended up in the statement.
Funding is a relevant factor. A bigger issue is that MIT and Stanford are in a different universe for the foreseeable future. Beyond size of endowment and facilities is 60+ years of ingrained culture at each school of connecting innovation and commercialization. Lots to be learned there. But for now I’d put them in a separate category.
Great thoughts! I wrote a blog post in response. The main takeaway is that I think the most critically important thing we do is increase the number of successful student startups that come out of CU, and the size of these successes. I’ve expanded on a couple ideas I have to do that:
http://www.benbuie.com/blog/making-cu-the-1-public-university-for-entrepreneurship/
Comment
Sorry … somehow, my previous response posted when i navigated away. Lots I agree with here, but I don’t agree about isolating yourselves from what is or is not working at other places (or isolating yourselves at all). We have found leaning from others’ mistakes and successes to help a lot (in the same way any startup would do within a vibrant community) … might be worth to just ask around Boulder given the density of know-how already there. I also don’t quite understand the competitive stance, but it is often positively received at institutions seeking reputation (sometime at the expense of impact). So, it might work when speaking with admins as a tactic, but, perhaps, less so as a strategy. I can speak from experience that decades of a sum-zero mentality hurt Upstate New York–it is now diminishing and many are taking a deep breadth of fresh air.
Several worthwhile insights, Ben. Interesting to learn that CU got your attention based upon its ranking in entrepreneurship. Like what you’re doing to stimulate interest through StartupCU!
Hi Brad,
I like your approach … to finding an approach! What is interesting to me is that we face a different situation in Syracuse: sparse surrounding startup community with an increasingly growing startup presence on campus. We have actively tried to grow a blended community for the past few years geared towards blurring legacy silos (e.g., within institutions, across institutions, between institutions and community, etc etc.). We focused on our strengths and the fact that healthy ecosystems support all types of businesses including high-growth-minded startups … and continue to drive towards critical mass by driving density of entrepreneurial/growth mindeds as high as possible (e.g., in the Boulder sense).
We started over 4 years ago (really more) and have learned … a lot. Hundreds of students (many of whom never even knew what “startup” meant) have gone through both “course work” and our accelerator; the community–while starting with leadership from champions within the institution and the community at large–is starting to be led by entrepreneurs. This past spring we had over 120 teams apply for funding (year-over-year exponential growth) and this summer, between The Syracuse Student Sandbox (www.syracusestudentsandbox.com), Start Fast (www.startfast.net) and existing bootstrapped and angel/venture backed companies/”graduates,” there will be 60+ startups within a two block radius in the center of Syracuse and a local mentor network in the hundreds (not to mention the global alumni reach). Not high in relative magnitude terms, but some nice density given that number was closer to zero only a few years back.
Funding, internships and jobs are being generated. And, now, we are starting to see more angel groups being formed and active efforts to get some local funds off the ground (beyond the few that currently exist).
Candidly, we did it by focusing on what it takes to start a company (really a community) as opposed to what it takes to build a ranked academic program per se. Our goal is to build a platform upon which startup-mindeds can recreate a region. While these goals are complementary, they are different enough to warrant the creation of different types of choices, offerings and networks. For example, this effort actually grew from Syracuse University’s iSchool and other partnering schools across campus such as our own dSchool. It now includes our B-School (one of the highest ranked entrepreneurial programs in the country) and many of the other colleges on campus … as well as other institutions in the region (both formally and informally) including Clarkson who–as stated above–are doing some very cool things. So far, so good. We are guessing that we have about 10 years, or so, to go. : )
The “curriculum,” funding sources (we needed to literally create those), etc. can be found here (Note growth in number of applicants from “year 1″ onward (4 to 120+) and that some of the early ones are already beyond both Angel and Venture rounds):
http://idea.syr.edu
Some blog posts summarizing some things can be found here (should list 3 that are most relevant):
http://infospace.ischool.syr.edu/author/mderedita/
As well as a post by Brad Feld who visited last Spring:
http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2011/02/two-days-of-entrepreneurial-community-building-in-upstate-new-york.html
I think the potential for building something in Boulder is incredibly high given all of the pure entrepreneurial pieces in place already. I’m not sure what significant differences there are in terms of barriers in regard to “private vs public” but I am guessing they could be lumped into a pile of institutional and uniquely academic … stuff that is addressable (albeit at an academic pace).
I hope this helps and am happy to continue this conversation: maderedi@syr.edu , Twitter: @MDEredita
This is excellent, Michael, exactly the type of pointers that I hoped to elicit here. Thank you for highlighting Syracuse’s work — I was unaware of many of these initiatives and look forward to learning more. We conducted a survey back in 2009 of some interesting programs at universities — they are included in a report by Micah Schwalb available here: http://www.silicon-flatirons.org/documents/publications/policy/SchwalbHigherEdEntrepreneurshipColorado.pdf
Brad,
Arizona State University has developed a new model for the American research university, creating an institution that is committed to excellence, access and impact. An essential part of our strategy has been promoting and supporting cross-campus entrepreneurship. We’ve worked on changing how students at ASU experience entrepreneurship through a non-centralized, interdisciplinary and embedded approach. ASU’s interdisciplinary schools provided a backdrop for entrepreneurship to move from one discipline to another and to be enmeshed amongst multiple disciplines. (Visit http://entrepreneurship.asu.edu/sites/default/files/entrepmap_final_2010.pdf to learn more about how we have embedded entrepreneurship across disciplines.) Efforts to transform the culture of ASU through, for example, the university’s mission statement, courses for freshmen and pervasive communications, provided a means to embed entrepreneurship as a value that students could embrace.
Using our New American University framework as a guide, “a leading public university for entrepreneurship” is an institution that 1) provides high quality interdisciplinary entrepreneurship coursework and venture acceleration services (excellence), 2) ensures entrepreneurship programs and services are widely available at scale (access), 3) launches ventures that strengthen the economic, social and cultural vitality of the surrounding communities (impact).
To learn more about our entrepreneurship efforts at ASU, please visit entrepreneurship.asu.edu.
I’m happy to continue the conversation at Jacqueline.V.Smith@asu.edu or @jvs8.
Jacqueline Smith
Director of Social Embeddedness and Interim Executive Director, Office of University Initiatives, Arizona State University
Hi Brad,
I am admittedly biased in my opinion, but I think the most fruitful area to explore is the area that’s least efficient in e-ship eduction today: the Mentor / Protégé model of teaching.
The problems:
* Mentors are short on time — especially the good ones. This is made worse by the fact that a good mentor in our community is simultaneously (and often informally) helping lots of students / early-stage companies.
* Mentors who cannot explicitly see the impact they make are less motivated than they might otherwise be. A corollary: mentors who experience an environment where their efficacy increases along with their efficiency will become more deeply engaged. Such an environment explicitly shares evidence of students’ Progress-over-Time with the mentors, and alerts mentors when a student has acted upon a Recommendation a mentor has given.
* CU offers different types of expert mentors who come from different fields, thus the points of view of these experts vary greatly and that informs the nature of the advice they give. Entrepreneurs / students must “situate” the nature of the expertise that each mentor brings to the party. Cognitive science tell us this is very difficult, especially for folks who are young and less experienced in their fields.
* Mentors’ feedback is unstructured and fragmented. Student-entrepreneurs are left with a nearly impossible task of synthesizing, triangulating and prioritizing feedback and advice. Given what cognitive science tells us about the process of Mastering of a Complex Performance, it’s a miracle student-entrepreneurs make progress under such circumstances.
* Rarely do mentors have the opportunity to build upon the feedback the student has already gathered from other mentors. Thus, each mentor faces an illusory “blank canvas” problem when trying to help the student. It’s as if the mentor is the first person to give that student-entrepreneur advice…
Examining a successful model
Why do people think Y Combinator and TechStars succeed where some many other accelerators fail? From what I’ve gathered the answer is simple: It’s the quality and engagement of their volunteer mentors that make it happen, coupled with the uncannily good job the folks running those programs do in “cat herding” to make the most of these talented volunteers, AND the fact that these programs accept around 1% of their applicants. Thus, they “brute force” through the above-described problems taking advantage of the extraordinarily high levels of talent on both sides of the mentor / protégé relationship… CU, because it is not and will never be MIT or Stanford or TechStars or Y Combinator, will never have 1%’ers in terms of mentors and student-entrepreneurs.
What would excellence look like for CU in Entrepreneurship Education?
Entrepreneurship, as your post points out, has many facets and takes place in many areas of the CU. The demands on talented mentors’ time and the needs of CU’s student-entreprenerus are such that the Mentor / Protégé model doesn’t capture what’s taking place. We find ourselves in a Community-based Learning Environment where folks are learning from multiple experts, peers and near-peers. Yet, there are no systems in place that honor the additional complexity such a model introduces. Entrepreneurs must master a very Complex Performance and must do so via shallow engagements from “teachers” like angel investors, deal attorneys, professors, and successful CEOs.
Valid Evaluation is the first company to solve the above-described problems. We take entrepreneurship education to the next level by utilizing the state-of-the-art from Learning Sciences and Experience Design. We’re local and we want to help CU lead the charge into a new ear of Community-based Education for Entrepreneurs.
thanks,
Adam