So I’ve got a bit of a problem.
I’m only one person.
I only sit in class with 40 other people.
I’m in the Marriott School, where only a fraction of BYU’s population attends.
And I’m trying to meet web/tech entrepreneurs from all over campus so that I can introduce them to angel investors, service providers, and potential co-founders.
In any given population 10% of the population is entrepreneurial. That means that at BYU there are approximately 3,000 entrepreneurs. How many of them are tech/web entrepreneurs? A lot more than just the ones who come from the computer science dept. I know quite a few of them, but there are so many more out there. Where are they?
Whether they be Math, Science, English, Humanities, Computer Science, or Political Science majors, they are out there. They have ideas for companies, or they have already started companies.
How can I find them?
What activities would they want to attend?
What is interesting to them?
If you’ve got any ideas, let me know.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Matthew Reinbold // Nov 12, 2008 at 10:53 am
Free pizza.
They may be entrepreneurs but they’re college students first and foremost.
2 Luke // Nov 12, 2008 at 11:01 am
http://jordy.gundy.org/byu-web-startup-group/
3 admin // Nov 12, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Matthew,
Most students are students first, you’re right, but the kind of students that I’m talking about are entrepreneurs first. That’s the point is that they are who I’m trying to find.
I’m talking about guys like Stephen Rosenbeck, founder of Garb Gameday Wear, and Brant Choate, founder of Simple Slice, Devlin Daley, co-founder of Instructure.
These guys I’ve all met in just the last couple of months. I know there are lots more of these creative and competent entrepreneurs. It’s just a matter of finding them.
4 Jordy // Nov 12, 2008 at 5:19 pm
With student groups that I ran (back in the day), I’ve found that if you have real solid meetings with good content (i.e., you provide meaningful value) and then just advertise the crap out of them, interested people will sort of just come out of the woodwork.
Obviously you’ll be posting fliers around campus, but don’t forget some of the less conventional approaches. Try, for example, to get the DailyUniverse to do a write up on what you’re doing. Provide some meaty content in “press releases” so they can mostly copy and paste.
Also, I’ve found that many teachers will announce upcoming club activities in class if they are at least somewhat related to course material and you provide a little write-up. Entrepreneurship or business formation professors are no-brainers to hit up, but there are probably lots of related CS and IT classes that would also participate.
Anyway, good luck to you!
5 admin // Nov 12, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Jordy,
All good ideas. We recently had a story written up in the Daily Universe.
http://newnewsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/70012
Good idea on the press releases. I think they can help make it easier for a reporter to do a story.
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