"[The Wolff Center] helped tremendously," says Blood. "They showed [students] everything we needed to do step by step. They had total outlines for business plans and classes just on business planning. Any questions we had, [the professors] were always there to meet with us one on one, after class, whenever we needed it."
Since graduating in May, Blood has been growing her business full time and hopes to reach $100,000 in sales this year, selling her products online at jessandco.com and through small specialty boutiques in Houston, near her Seabrook, Texas, locale.
There's a large focus on feasibility planning at the University of Houston, says Dan Steppe, director of the Wolff Center. Students are given tools to evaluate an idea relatively quickly to determine whether or not it's workable. "We need to get the unfeasible projects out of the way so you can concentrate on the feasible ones," says Steppe.
Feasibility means evaluating the potential of a business idea and how well it fits into a student’s desired life plan. The center uses three specially designed computer software programs to help students work through feasibility planning, financial models and personal success models. The goal is to determine what kind of life you want your business to bring you, which then helps you determine what type of business is best for you.
The Wolff Center offers myriad programs including a mentoring program, a three-day student retreat and a mock term sheet negotiation, where students are coached by business executives and attorneys in the fine points of negotiating a mock merger or financing deal.
Finding his own success under the Wolff Center's guidance is Robert De Los Santos, 24. He founded Sky High Party Rentals, an inflatable moon bounce rental company in Humble, Texas, as a local enterprise in 2006. When De Los Santos began his studies at the University of Houston in Fall 2006, he decided it wasn't enough to be small and local. He wanted to be the go-to shop for every moon bounce renter in Houston. "When I got to [the Wolff Center], they put me in a different mind set," De Los Santos says.
As a current student, De Los Santos is able to attend Entrepreneur's Organization meetings in Houston and hear big-time CEOs share their success secrets. "I get out of [those meetings] all pumped," says De Los Santos, who is set to graduate in 2009. He networks with CEOs at the events and gets lots of valuable advice about growing and even possibly franchising his business in the future.
De Los Santos' interest in the Wolff Center increased when he found out how competitive the admission process was—he wanted to be surrounded by high-energy entrepreneurial students like himself. He also used the network of motivated students at the university and hired 10 people from the entrepreneurship club on campus (of which De Los Santos is president) to really build the brand and get a strong web presence and search engine optimization in his local area. Those strategies have helped him grow his business to a projected $500,000 to $700,000 in sales for 2008.
Looking at all of these programs around the country, one thing is clear: Students have entrepreneurship on the brain. Some are even coming out of high school with a business already started and looking to build that enterprise throughout college, notes Chadha.
While there's no better time to be an entrepreneur, it's also a great time to be an entrepreneurship student, as so many programs today offer the chance not only to learn real-life business planning, but also to network with top entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.
Get additional resources and details on the top 50 colleges at entrepreneur.com/topcolleges.
—By Nichole L. Torres
Copyright © 2008 Entrepreneur.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
