Integrated Learning: Learning from Young Alums

You graduated from Hope College within the last two years.  Since graduation, what surprised you most about the transition from being a student to being an alum?

• Loss of community.  Friends move all over the world.
• Loss of spiritual grounding.
• Loss of time.
• Search for fulfillment and meaning in work and outside of work.
• Work and life balance and need for personal time.
• The opportunities and challenges of being a servant leader.

Advice:

• Make the most of your time at Hope.
• Start building relationships and networks early.  Use linked in to find people to take out for coffee to learn about their work.
• Get a mentor.
• Take advantage of your professors and small class size.
• Get an internship, or two, or three!
• Check out opportunities through CFL.  :)
• At work, help your peers succeed.  This will pay dividends in the long run!

Thanks Becca, Caleb, Jake, and Kristen!

Entrepreneurial Development: How do we create demand?

Who, no matter what, will buy your product or service?

Your mom.  Because of the relationship.

If you have a true relationship, it will be the #1 thing that will help you develop your business.

A relationship helps you understand.



Mike Glupker of Brightformat

 



What is a prospect?  What is a customer?  What is the difference?

A prospect is someone who is aware of your product or service, willing to part with money to buy it, but not current buying from you.  If the prospect is buying from you, he/she is your customer.

Ultimately, we want to create demand for our product or service.

Did anyone demand the light bulb, telephone, automobile, etc. before they came on the scene?

Inventors create products or services.  Entrepreneur creates demand.

To do so, entrepreneurs create relationships with their first customers so that they can understand.

How do you do this?

They begin by imaging a funnel.

John Johnston of Brightformat

Entrepreneurial Development: Lasting Moments and YesCam

Hope students Russell Fyfe and Cassandra Gatton and recent alums Scott Bahash, Elliott Barney, and Scott Brandonisio have launch a new business called Lasting Moments and have filed a provisional patent for their YesCam.

See and endorse their business idea at: http://strt.gd/x28C!

Student Consulting: We need Jims, Tracys, and Virgils!

We are looking for a few good people to serve as project leaders in CFL's student consulting business.

Characteristics:

• Someone who gets excited by students changing the world!People skills: high level of emotional and social intelligence (e.g., a managed ego)
• Servant leader--student focused; able to consult with and through students to develop them as Christian leaders; able to lead, mentor, advise, and sometimes parent them by asking questions
• Post-promotion: beyond worrying about climbing the ladder
• Critical thinker and problem-solver
• Able to commit to at least 10 hours a week

Entrepreneurial Development: How Social Media Can Help With Lean Startups

Paul connects.

 

 

How can we use social media to do customer development and validation?  Specifically, how can we discover problems/opportunities, validate problems/opportunities, locate potential users/influencers, verify price, and drive signups in the context of the Lean Startup process? 

 

Paul of Connex Social teaches us.

 

Students engaged.

Entrepreneurial Development: Accountability Mondays!

 

Russell gets the business.

 

 

This summer, in the HEI incubator, Monday is the day student entrepreneurs give status reports.  Jim and Seth then help them set goals for the coming week.  

 

Accountability Mondays may be one of the best new wrinkles in this years incubator in terms of challenging students and moving projects forward.  I've co-taught with practitioners before and I highly recommend it, but integrating their expertise into student planning and implementation seems the brighter move!

 

 

Cassie explains.

 

 

 

Jim and Dustin process!

 



GROVO is SPAM. AVOID!!!!

GROVO IS SPAM.

Many of you are getting messages that say Steve VanderVeen is inviting you to Grovo.   These messages are not legitimate!!