In July 2023 I spent 2 weeks participating in a Columbia University Summer Program called ‘Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Changing the World Via Venture Creation’. This program looked to embrace my passion for all things entrepreneurial and combine it with practical, detailed information about launching a start-up. A how-to for fledgling entrepreneurs like me. I literally want to change the world via venture creation – so let’s do this!
The Course Outline
Columbia’s summer Venture Creation course was described like this: “Intended for students interested in creating new business ventures or social enterprises, this hands-on course focuses on the creation, evaluation, development, and launch-readiness of new business or social ventures. Participants are guided through the new venture creation process as applied to student team-selected venture ideas. For each student venture, key issues are addressed in a fashion highly consistent with other formal venture-planning processes including business model development, customer discovery, product-market validation, in-depth industry and market analysis, product or service innovation, brand development and go-to-market strategies, team selection and management, profit models, financing, and legal considerations. By the end of the class, participants have generated robust business models, with supportive venture plan documents, investor pitches, websites, and crowd-funding videos.”
Wow – how perfect. Right?
The Glows and the Grows
Yeah, I got that phrase from one of my middle school teachers. (Shout-out to Ms. Jen!).
On the ‘glows’ side of our imaginary white board, this course connected me with international like minded peers who I enjoyed brainstorming with. Consequently, I got fresh ideas and new perspectives. And we discussed some pretty novel launch ideas. Also, the instructor was Columbia educated, with real-world start-up experience, and familiarity teaching courses on entrepreneurship and venture creation. I felt confident in her knowledge and she provided us with lots of opportunities to ask questions.
Now for the ‘grows’. This course really came 6 weeks too late to be the goldmine of information I was expecting. Even though on paper all the topics in the course description sounded complicated and high level, what I discovered was that Jacob and I had worked through many of them already in launching ‘Serene Habits’ (read the article here). We just didn’t have the technical language to assign to the skills we had gained.
Being the only student in the class with any real-world business start-up experience was a surprise. I found myself in a natural leadership role, as other students looked to learn from my recently acquired knowledge. Now, there’s certainly a whole lot to learn from guiding a group through a project. Collaboration and team-work skills are vital for my future. But I wasn’t expecting this to be the bulk of my learning, and I found myself a little disappointed. Certainly, I extended my knowledge in many areas, and formalizing my skills was valuable. But the knowledge transfer felt a little reversed. While I expected to be energized with daily take-aways to apply to my own launch project, I often brought lessons from that project to the class, without a lot of concrete reciprocation.
Conclusion
Overall, I’ll look back on Columbia’s summer Venture Creation course as being valuable. Anything I didn’t gain in new know-how was more than made up for in increased confidence. Knowing that I’m on the right path in my own real-world launch journey, and that Jacob and I intuited our way their on our own, feels pretty good. I’m hoping to attend another summer program in the future, probably at a different school. As a result of this experience I will have many more discerning questions to ask as I make my selection. Such are the lessons of life!
You can learn more about Columbia’s programs at this link: Columbia Pre-College Programs.