Minding your own business

Entrepreneurship Program links students who want to start their own companies with faculty and alumni who will help develop the ventures

Modeling their own line of active wear during a meeting with natty executives in a Manhattan office did not sell their products, as Evan Geller and David Cohen had hoped.

The Brown students failed to persuade the executives to distribute their T-shirts and sweatshirts, and the pair wishes someone had talked them out of wearing the clothing in that setting. "Throughout the years there were questions we had and would have liked to have asked someone," said Geller.

But like true entrepreneurs, once they saw the need, they filled it. Starting this semester, students will have the chance to learn from successful alumni and faculty entrepreneurs how to run their own companies: The Entrepreneurship Program, started by Geller and Cohen, will kick off Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.m. in the Faculty Club. (Seating is limited. Call 863-9959 to reserve a space.)

After running their clothing company, Yellow Planet, for three years, Geller '99, an economics student (left), and Cohen '99, a law and public policy student (right), decided to make the Entrepreneurship Program their business.

The change was a natural transition, said the pair. Despite some bad decisions, their clothing at one point was on the shelves of 33 stores, including the national chain Urban Outfitters, and "students started coming to us" for advice on how to start a business, said Geller. They created the program because "we figured there were better people to answer those questions than just us," Geller said.

Geller and Cohen structured the program as an independent organization committed to bringing faculty and alumni together to facilitate the development of new student ventures. Successful entrepreneurs will lead lectures, group discussions and provide individual mentoring for Brown students.

Undergraduates as well as graduate students may enroll in the program regardless of their concentration. There is no application process and no cap on the number of students who can sign up. Geller and Cohen have set the goal of educating more than 40 students in the art of launching and running new ventures in the first year of the program.

The only requirement is that interested students have a business plan. Over the course of the semester, participants will learn how to develop marketing strategies, form a team to run the business, and raise capital to finance the plan.

Before students leave for summer break, a panel of alumni and faculty will judge the business plans. The winner of the best overall proposal will receive a $10,000 prize, and a returning undergraduate will receive a $3,000 summer stipend, to set their idea in motion. The program is expected to run every spring semester.

There is no better time to start a company than as a student at Brown, say Geller and Cohen. Not only can an entrepreneur tap into the expertise of alumni and faculty who have succeeded at such ventures, but they can recruit talented students for their company.

In their own experience, Geller and Cohen hired students from Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design to design their line of clothing. They also sought the counsel of Barrett Hazeltine, professor emeritus of engineering.

"There are lots of students who are interested in doing these kinds of things," said Hazeltine, who teaches two management-related courses. "Clearly there is a need" for such a program.

The opportunity that Brown presents for students to structure for their own learning is also the quality that defines many entrepreneurs, said Cohen.

Brown alumni and faculty who are successful entrepreneurs will sit on the program's advisory board. Three alumni will speak at the kick-off event: Tom Scott, co-founder of Nantucket Nectars; Tom Pincince, a founder of New Oak Communications; and Elizabeth Hamburg, a member of the management team that founded Vimpel Communications, a cellular company in Russia.