Another underutilized business resource is the entrepreneurial
center. As companies continue to shed their human cargo, more than
300 colleges have started teaching some variation of an
entrepreneurial curriculum that includes courses, lectures,
seminars, workshops, and degree and outreach programs.
The University of Southern California boasts a comprehensive
entrepreneurial program, implemented in 1971, as does The Arthur M.
Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College. Harvard
University, The Wharton School and dozens of others throughout the
United States also offer entrepreneurial programs.
Here's a ready-made opportunity to hook up with others who
are seeking help. Most entrepreneurs take courses or work with
teachers or students to strengthen their business practices.
Entrepreneurial centers also present fertile networking
opportunities for start-up entrepreneurs.
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Dennis Ackerman, director of the Bank of America Entrepreneurial
Center at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, says
entrepreneurial centers provide more in-depth advice than SBDCs and
tend to cater to entrepreneurs with more business experience.
Explains Wendell Dunn, a professor and executive director of the
Batten Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the Darden School
at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, "We tend to
be a research center and think tank, addressing issues such as how
new businesses [originate] and how wealth is created."
In short, entrepreneurial centers often offer an explanation of
the theories behind business practices, whereas SBDCs focus on the
nuts-and-bolts techniques for starting a business from scratch.
"SBDCs provide business advice to entrepreneurs within the
community, whereas entrepreneurial centers are academically linked
to a college or university and provide a curriculum for students
with an outreach program for entrepreneurs in the community,"
says Dunn.
While many SBDCs are associated with colleges, most operate
independently from the school and the services available to
entrepreneurs are standardized. At entrepreneurial centers,
however, services available to entrepreneurs vary. At some schools,
they're provided by faculty; at others, they're provided by
graduate business students.
One thing most entrepreneurial centers are equipped to do is
steer entrepreneurs to the best resources throughout their state.
Ackerman also points out that most entrepreneurial centers
specialize in key industries. Old Dominion's entrepreneurial
center, for example, specializes in technology. If you have a hot
new software product or your goal is to be an Internet service
provider or systems integrator, Old Dominion is the place to get
cutting-edge advice. But if you're opening a small restaurant
featuring gourmet vegetarian cuisine, you'd be wasting your
time going there.
There are also entrepreneurial centers, like the Nebraska Center
For Entrepreneurship at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, that
provide both specialized and general information primarily to
students and secondly to non-student clients.
Most services initially provided by entrepreneurial centers are
free, while many schools, like Old Dominion, require entrepreneurs
to pay a small fee once their company is profitable or after it
reaches a certain equity, debt or sales goal.
Since all entrepreneurial centers are not created equal,
it's critical you find out whether each provides the help you
need via a meeting with its director.
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