Spring semester is coming to a close at College of Coastal Georgia, signaling the end of another academic year. This is also a time to reflect on what happened during the recent academic season. The most important thing for me was the reintroduction of MGMT 4100 — Entrepreneurship — to the regular schedule of classes.
For 42 years — yes, 42 — I taught all sorts of economics courses. All were fun. Economists think in a very unique way and it was a special challenge in those courses to see if I could get students to think in that way too.
But now it is time to do something different, and something that will make a difference. So, entrepreneurship is it. The interesting thing is that while economists teach about the importance of entrepreneurs to our market economy, economists have done little research into what entrepreneurs actually do. So, what was I to teach?
The first thing I wanted to get across was that entrepreneurship is not small business management. Clearly, entrepreneurs end up managing businesses or nonprofits. However, management is second. The entrepreneurial act is one of creativity, not management. What need or problem will I fill or solve and what will I create to fill or answer it? This is the creative heart of entrepreneur.
In addition to problem solving, virtually all entrepreneurs have personal stories as to why they have ended up being entrepreneurial. I refer you to the video testimonies of our local entrepreneurs at www.1millioncups.com/Brunswick. All are wonderful to hear.
So, how was the course designed? How was I going to teach entrepreneurship? I decided that I would teach entrepreneurship by simply treating students how entrepreneurs are treated and judged. If you think about it for a moment, strangers — customers, judge an entrepreneur every day. If they don’t solve a customer’s problem they will not be successful. An entrepreneur may think that they have found a problem that needs solving, but if it is not a problem for a stranger then the entrepreneur will not be successful.
So, students created self-selected three-to-four person teams. Each team then had to identify a problem that strangers needed solving. They did this by canvasing strangers. Do you have this problem? They actually talked to people.
Next, they had to create a solution. However, strangers needed to tell the students that the solution they created was in fact a solution to the stranger’s problem. Again, they needed to canvass strangers.
Each team had a mentor from the local community and each week a local entrepreneur would come to class to tell their personal story.
Once they had a problem and a solution the students created six-minute presentations for judges who themselves were strangers to the class.
The course grade was based on a total of 100 points. Over the 16-week semester, students accumulated 50 points toward their grade by doing things that I would simply record in my grading spreadsheet. The remaining 50 points were determined by their end-of-the-term 6-minute presentations to the judges/strangers at the Ritz Theater. So, strangers determined student grades. No book, no tests, few lectures, and minimal requirements. All they had to do was to satisfy strangers — all they had to do was to act like an entrepreneur.
What problems did the teams address? Boredom of college students, funding for third-world water projects, cleaning the environment, convenient mobile dog grooming, finding parking places, promoting small local businesses and how to compete with the College’s bookstore.
What were their solutions? A hookah bar, video arcade, social media videos, up-charging on water bills, a well-equipped van that was used on weekends, sensors and smartphone applications in parking lots and a bamboo toothbrush (that is now sold on Amazon under Nabi Effect).
We are off to a good start. Hopefully, new entrepreneurs are on the way. At the very least, there is now a greater appreciation of the power of strangers and the creativity of entrepreneurs.
Reg Murphy Center