What is the Future of Entrepreneurship Education?

Seven top young entrepreneurs and leaders in the entrepreneurship education movement shared their thoughts during a panel at the Future of Entrepreneurship Education Summit (February 18) at the University of Central Florida. The summit, created by Extreme Entrepreneurship Education (also led by young entrepreneurs), gathered over 130 top entrepreneurship education leaders from government, foundations, organizations, media, and corporations to talk about the future of the field.

Their panel was moderated by Donna Fenn, author of UpStarts!, and included:

• Ryan Allis of iContact (earned over $40 million in 2010). Ryan built the firm from its start in July 2003 to its current size of 240 employees and 67,000.

• Scott Gerber of the Young Entrepreneur Council. Scott is a serial entrepreneur and Scott is the most-syndicated young entrepreneurship columnist in the world.

• Trevor Owens of the Lean Startup Machine (LSM). LSM teaches entrepreneurs how to rapidly improve their businesses through a customer feedback process called customer development.

• Chris McCann of Startup Digest. Startup Digest publishes a weekly email newsletter of the best events in 57 cities and 6 Universities to over 100,000 subscribers.

• Caryn Shick of Incuba8. Incuba8 is a series of initiatives that inspire and generate entrepreneurial activity that cultivate cultures of action, fully vetted ideas and make concepts a reality.

• Travis Kiefer of Gumball Capital. Gumball is a social enterprise that has challenged over 3,000 students at 25 schools to raise maximum revenue and awareness on poverty alleviation using only $27 and 27 gumballs.
• Ankur Jain of the Kairos Society. Kairos is a student run, not for profit foundation created to tap the power of the brightest undergraduate entrepreneurs to develop business innovations with global impact.

Watch the Full Panel

To watch the full, 1-hour panel, visit the following links:

• Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa3VIbHYdIg
• Part 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O9dx98j5yc
• Part 3 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyI5KeaispI
• Part 4 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBaJEvofzzY

Visions for the Field

Starting with the end in mind, below are the participants’ personal visions for the field of entrepreneurship education:

• Entrepreneurship education and financial literacy should be required for all high schools.
• There should be viable opportunities as entrepreneurs should be given to those who are not college bound.
• There should be less business plan competitions and more events where youth can test their ideas.
• The overall density of entrepreneurs should increase so entrepreneurs don’t feel alone.
• Students should have their context shifted so they realize they can create businesses that solve big social problems.

Highlights

How do we get there? Below are highlights on strategies panelists provided for aspiring entrepreneurs and those supporting aspiring entrepreneurs:

• Reaching the first 100k is the hardest.  But once you reach this level, it becomes easier to scale.  You’ll need to spend three to four years to reach the $1 million revenue and ten years to reach the $100 million mark.

• It’s important to create business models that aren’t based solely on raising money.  Instead, create a solid product or service and generate sales.  The pay-off should not be the goal of venture capital but rather the creation of a solid business model.

• It’s not about the best idea but the EXECUTION of the idea.  Know the landscape of your industry and your company and know how to play the game of business.

• It’s important to learn how to sell.  You don’t need a product but you will need to have masterful sales skills. Get started selling before you focus on building.

Written by Michael Simmons and Malla Haridat. Michael Simmons is the co-founder of the Future of Entrepreneurship Education Summit and Extreme Entrepreneurship Education. Malla Haridat is the founder of New Designs for Life and a blogger at 9to5entrepreneur.com.

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