Education
Great entrepreneurs learn something new every day. Start today, right here. Explore resources for education and training, expand your knowledge base, read what the experts are thinking. Go after information that will empower you to achieve your desired outcome. These resources are updated frequently, so there's always something new for you here.
Grand Valley State University
Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Grand Valley State University provides students and the business community educational opportunities to learn about entrepreneurship and to advance the skills needed to become a successful entrepreneur.
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The Family Buiness Alliance
(FBA) is a partnership of the Chamber and the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University and is dedicated to strengthening the profitability, progress and continuity of West Michigan’s family businesses. The FBA provides information, tools and resources for family business owners, family members, executives and employees through a variety of workshops, seminars and networking opportunities.
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Kauffman: 2010 State of Entrepreneurship
Carl Schramm - State of Entrepreneurship Address Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, delivers the State of Entrepreneurship Address at the National Press Club in Washington D.C.
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The Design of Business
Most companies today have innovation envy. They yearn to come up with a game-changing innovation like Apple's iPod, or create an entirely new category like Facebook. Many make genuine efforts to be innovative-they spend on R&D, bring in creative designers, hire innovation consultants. But they get disappointing results. Why? In The Design of Business, Roger Martin offers a compelling and provocative answer: we rely far too exclusively on analytical thinking, which merely refines current knowledge, producing small improvements to the status quo.
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GVSU Business Resource Portal
As one of the most comprehensive business support networks in Michigan, we are dedicated to sharing knowledge, expertise, and opportunities within the West Michigan business community and beyond. Search the directory below by service category or by organization to tap into our intellectual, technical, and human resources available through Grand Valley State University and its affiliated organizations.
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The Family Owned Business Institute at Grand Valley State University
The Family Owned Business Institute is a web-based resource designed to serve the needs of family businesses, and provides access to pertinent information and research, such as succession planning. This online resource includes journals, books, magazines and databases full of information.
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The Employers' Association
Nonprofit association acting as an off-site personnel department, provides information on area wage, salary and benefits practices and performs project work for which an employer may not have internal resources.
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Aquinas College
Provides a liberal arts education with a global perspective, emphasizes career preparation focused on leadership and service to others, and fosters a commitment to lifelong learning dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the common good.
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Supply Chain Management Council
Dedicated to supporting the competitiveness of West Michigan manufactures by promoting best practices in integrated supply chain management. Programs include the peer-to–peer Sunrise Series workshops for executives, Tours of Best Practice and, in partnership with MSU’s Board Graduate School of Management, a Supply Chain Management Certificate Series for supply chain professionals.
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Calvin College
Serves students, faculty, alumni and the community by providing educational and business opportunities for those looking to commercialize their ideas.
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Cornerstone University
Emphasizes leadership with a focus on global business, entrepreneurship and innovation.
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Davenport University
Davenport University offers a bachelor's degree with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship.
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Hope Opportunity Center
Encourages and provides academically-based co-creative servant leadership opportunities.
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US Dept. of Commerce and Kauffman on Innovation
Forum on Innovation U.S. Department of Commerce and Kauffman Foundation event on innovation
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Grand Rapids Community College
Grand Rapids Community College's Entrepreneurship certificate is a two-semester program that prepares students to start a business and / or grow an existing small business.
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Western Michigan University
Biosciences Research & Commercialization Center of Western Michigan University is a commercially focused and science-driven translational research center that dedicates its pharmaceutical expertise and universtiy resources to the commercilization of promsing life sciences discoveries and growth of Michigan’s life sciences business sector.
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The Center for Community Leadership
(CCL) is one resource in Grand Rapids for community orientation, leadership development and community engagement programs. The CCL offers a portfolio of nationally recognized programs including Leadership Grand Rapids, Inside Grand Rapids, Download GR, Leadership Advantage, Leadership Forum and Customized Leadership Programs designed to connect and enhance leaders in our community.
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MIT on Organizing an Outside Board of Directors for a Startup
In the past two weeks I have attended Board of Director meetings of five different privately held entrepreneurial companies. Three were required to elect a representative of their venture capital investor firm to the Board. The other two had sought out good outside directors for other reasons. What if you don’t have outside investors or if you are not required by your financing sources to have an active Board- should you bother?
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The Center for Emerging Enterprise
A place where we focus on undertaking projects that are meaningful and are not easily accomplished. 600 7th Street NW Grand Rapids, MI 49504 Phone: 616.233.2620
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Don't Bore The Board of Directors
Now that you have a great Board what exactly do you do with it? Boards, being composed of people, come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Not surprisingly there is no one "recipe" for effective use of a Board, but here are some ideas and observations.
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Biggest Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make
Jerry Kaplan, serial entrepreneur, executive, technical innovator, and author, elaborates on the five biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make: 1) Having unclear goals and an unclear mission 2) Trying to prove that they are smart 3) Greed - doing it for money. 4) Hiring people that they like rather than people that they need. 5) Not knowing when to let go.
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No Worker Left Behind
Provides tuition dollars to a two-year community college to help those who are unemployed receive training in a new field of work.
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CEO and Entrepreneur's Field Guide
The world of an entrepreneur is complex and demanding. This article provides entrepreneurs with key insights into critical areas that will significantly impact the chances of launching and sustaining a successful venture.
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Considerations for Founders
There are so many things which Founders have to worry about and do in launching a new venture- financing, people, customers etc. All of these are important but the reality is that most ventures fail because of people issues and are really a failure of the relationships among the team members. Teams come together around an interesting or exciting idea or opportunity and tend to get swept up in the idea. They often don’t talk about their shared aspirations, vision and what they want to get out of the venture. The venture gets launched without these discussions and then problems surface “Big Time” down the road when these undiscussed topics collide.
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The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur
Although entrepreneurs provide the majority of jobs in the United States, little is known about what makes them tick. The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur fills in some gaps by providing insights into high-growth founders' motivations, their socio-economic, educational, and familial backgrounds, as well as their views on the factors determining the success of start-ups. A team of researchers led by Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University, Raj Aggarwal of the University of Akron, Krisztina Holly of the University of Southern California, and Alex Salkever of Duke University surveyed 549 company founders of successful businesses in high-growth industries, including aerospace, defense, computing, electronics, and health care. The findings are presented in the following two reports.
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What Are The Terms? Part 2: Investors Need Some Control After Their Checks Are Cashed
This is the second installment of our look at the "non-price" terms of a typical professional venture capital termsheet. In last month's column I suggested that entrepreneurs and investors think about four broad categories of investment terms in order to keep the big picture in focus as they try to fathom the complexities of the deal. These categories are: (1) A Preferred Return, (2) Protection of Valuation and Position re Future Money, (3) Management of the Investment and (4) Exit Strategies. Today we will explore the second and third of these categories.
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What Are The Terms? Part 3: Run Don\'t Walk To The Exit
This is the final installment of our look at the four broad "non-price" terms of a venture capital term sheet: (1) A Preferred Return, (2) Protection of Valuation and Position re Future Money, (3) Management of the Investment and (4) Exit Strategies. Today we will look for that bright red "Exit" sign.
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A Little Advice On Advising: Three Models Of Success Will Help
You can't pick up a business magazine these days without reading something about the virtual corporation - the idea of forming "alliances" or "relationships" in order to accomplish business goals rather than building a big inflexible infrastructure of people. While that may seem like a novel idea, the fact is that successful entrepreneurs have been doing such things for years-not because it's "faddish" but because they usually have very limited resources at the outset. An entrepreneur certainly should seek professional advice from his/her accountant and lawyer. Yet, too many fledgling entrepreneurs either don't seek out advice from experienced business people or just don't make effective use of such advice.
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Seven Characteristics of Highly Effective Entrepreneurial Employees
Fast growing, entrepreneurial organizations need employees who regularly demonstrate entrepreneurial characteristics and work habits. Management of entrepreneurial companies must work diligently to recognize, identify and attract this type of employee during the recruitment process to assure a steady stream of the people with the "Right Stuff" to fuel growth of the venture. Employees come in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of different skills and quirks. Their outlook and approach has been tempered by past experiences, good or bad. In the relatively short period of time that you have to do hiring, you have to cut through the prospective employee's resume and verbal statements and figure out if he or she has the "Right Stuff". This is really important because just as "a bad apple will spoil the barrel", an employee with the "Wrong Stuff" will drag your whole effort down. It would be one thing if a Wrong Stuff employee simply didn't contribute, but it is worse than that-he usually sucks up scare management time, creates diversions for Right Stuff employees- you get the picture. So what are the characteristics of highly effective "Right Stuff" entrepreneurial employees? Here are a few to keep in mind as you interview potential new hires, you probably can think of others.
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The Business Plan
In January I had the pleasure of organizing and moderating the Annual "Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans" seminar series at MIT. Although these seminars are aimed primarily at MIT students who are planning to enter the $50K Business Plan Competition, many nonstudents attended as well. There were 12 excellent outside speakers covering the topics of marketing, finance, business plan basics and "war stories". In reviewing the notes I took during the series I was struck with how consistent the message was from these 12 speakers who never met each other and how similar that message was to what has been said by the 50 or so unrelated speakers who have participated in the series over the past six years.
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What Makes Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial?
This fascinating article examines the factors help to foster an entrepreneurial mindset.
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Overview of a Buy-Sell Agreement
The buy-sell agreement is a legal document that specifies how a company or its owners will redistribute ownership shares after one of the owners dies, becomes disabled, retires or otherwise leaves. The basis for the agreement is a contractual covenant by each owner (or the company) to redeem the stake of any owner who departs, eliminating many of the complications of having a surviving spouse (or even the entire family) at the ownership table.
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