Budding Student Businesses Fight for Space
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As any tour guide will proudly tell you, Stanford University has the second largest campus in the world. Coincidentally, Stanford is also home to one of the leading business schools in the country. Why then, is there no room for student businesses on campus?
Sophomore Kimber Lockheart, founder of the tentatively named Stanford Student Start-Ups, will pose this question to the administration in a meeting next month. Lockheart, inspired by a system of store spaces available for rent to student entrepreneurs she observed while visiting the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is attempting to create a similar program at Stanford.
“There are more entrepreneurs on campus than you would think, and all they need are the resources to start their businesses,” she said. “The biggest obstacles people face are time, space and funding. We can take care of the first two of those, which will help facilitate the third.”
Lockheart and a team of other interested undergraduates have developed a plan to make space for student start-ups that could be implemented as early as Fall Quarter 2006.
The plan would set aside space in a central campus location for five to six student storefronts and office spaces, and would be collectively managed by students. The team hopes that the creation of a community of student businesses would attract current entrepreneurs, facilitate an exchange of ideas among owners, draw on the Stanford alumni network for mentoring, and also make the University more attractive to potential students.
“It would be such a minimal space investment for the benefits you get from attracting students and ideas to the University,” said Lockheart. “If you’re like me and you knew that you were interested in entrepreneurship, you would be attracted to the opportunities such a program would offer.”
Currently, similar programs exist at Columbia University and Babson College. Babson, recognized nationwide as a leading school for undergraduate entrepreneurs, requires first year students in the Foundation Management Experience to start a business. On their website they tell potential students that they must, “plan and develop a for-profit venture, then launch, manage, and liquidate it, selecting a local social service agency to receive its profits.”
Lockheart, a computer science major, is an active member in the student business community as a former intern for SSE, the Business Manager for the Stanford Directory, and BASES officer. She says she felt disappointed by the opportunities Stanford offers to budding entrepreneurs.
“Every year, people in the CS department drop out to start their own businesses. One recently came back to talk at the entrepreneurial sequence series. This guy left so close to graduating, if he had just had a space on campus, he might have been able to stay and add to the community,” she said.
The program is also intended to draw in student entrepreneurs from outside the engineering departments. According to Lockheart, the Silicon Valley business association with “techies” can be intimidating to social science and humanities students.
“We want to support a variety of business plan models for undergraduate students; we want businesses that will stay small and stay successful on the Stanford Campus, but we also do want to support some of the companies that have the potential to be the next Google. Both will come out of Stanford and there are students that will do well at both types.”
The process to create the program will be largely hindered by the lack of space on campus. While the renovations of Old Union have just begun, various student groups have already claimed most potential slots. Unspoken for is space in Tressider, which will house displaced groups during the renovation and will potentially clear out in fall of 2006 or 2007.
The renovation of Old Union and subsequent reorganization of Tressider raised hopes for many homeless student groups that there might be space for them. Even SSE, the student run business group, struggles with finding larger space for the Stanford Store, a successful business that pulls in roughly $250,000 in revenue each year.
Nanci Holmes, assistant to the Director at the Office of Student Activities, who handles most of the groups seeking space on campus will tell you that, “Space in Tressider is worth more than gold at Stanford.” Even established student groups will likely find themselves without housing at the end of the construction shuffle.
Even though Stanford Student Start-Ups may experience more difficulty obtaining space as a newcomer, the level of demonstrated interest in the program is gaining momentum and may strengthen its case. A survey conducted by Kimber’s group revealed that approximately 7% of undergraduates are already working on start-ups, and several undergraduate students already anticipate the possibilities of the program. Sophomore Melanie Reynard had the idea to start a consignment store on campus to meet the clothing needs of Stanford Undergrads, and hopes that Stanford Student Start-Ups could facilitate infrastructure for space allotment and money management.
“I figure, hey, if the University is going to let that one guy sell fake paintball tickets in white plaza, why shouldn’t I be able to start a store that would offer a real student service?” she said.
The University will likely raise several concerns about the program, including educational value, space needs, and financial management. But Stanford Student Start-Ups will be able to point to similar programs that have found success at other schools, like the one at Babson College.
Until then, student entrepreneurs seeking to explore the art of starting a business may have to limit their interest to the classroom or wait until after graduation. Depending on the response of the administration, Start-Ups proposed venue for student innovation stands to have a tremendous impact on the entrepreneurial opportunities at Stanford.
