Even the catchy name, a play on “Lollapalooza” and other modern rock festivals, is geared toward an audience of students. And after 10 years of drawing business-oriented students to their event, the sponsors of ‘Entrepalooza’ hope they’ve enabled many of them to pack a more powerful punch as they seek to launch their start-ups. The co-presenters of the annual campus event — the University of Michigan Ross School of Business’ Entrepreneur and Venture Club and the school’s Samuel Zell and Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies — held their most recent effort, Entrepalooza 2009, in mid-September and drew about 450 registrants. UM’s business community pooled its resources — and its entrepreneurial alumni — to give attendees an opportunity to connect with successful start-up veterans, reports Mary Nickson, Entrepalooza’s program manager. “Our purpose is to introduce our undergraduate and graduate students to entrepreneurship — the whole breadth of it — from ideation and launching a business to funding a business; from legal considerations to the different types of start-ups, including non-profits.” Other topics covered, she adds, include “what you do to promote good culture within your organization; getting your product to market; and alternative financing — from VCs to state funds to grants to angel investors and bootstrapping,” says Nickson. “We use our resources and network database to bring successful entrepreneurs here to share their experiences and insights on different facets of building and growing start-ups.”

The half-day event culminates with a “Lunch & Learn” just for the students. Faculty for the working lunch “include recent graduates who launched their businesses while they were here,” Nickson says. “They talk about the process and the resources they utilized; we try to do two or three presentations so the students can learn from more than one just one person.” Former Entrepalooza participants say they found the event helpful as they considered their careers as entrepreneurs. “Basically, it gave me the opportunity to hear a lot about different aspects of what’s involved in being an entrepreneur — from raising money to dealing with legal issues — and to see what that life is like,” says Merrill Guerra, MBA, the CEO and founder of Realkidzinc, an apparel firm targeting girls aged 5-12. Guerra has been both a participant and a presenter. “I do think it came in handy when we started up ‘real kidz,’” she says. “Entrepreneurs tend to have a group self-identity, and I got the feeling that these people were just as ‘crazy’ as I was, and that I was doing the right thing.” A detailed article on Entrepalooza appears in the November 2009 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

Posted November 24th, 2009 under Intellectual Property Marketing

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