View full sizeKent State University students Chris Haynes and Rachel O'Neill, right center and right, meet with Kate Harmon, the program manager at Blackstone LaunchPad, and marketing manager Zach Mikrut to talk about business ideas. The office is on the first floor of the student union. KENT, Ohio — "Have an idea?" That's the question posed on the sign outside a small cube of offices strategically located on the first floor of Kent State University's student union.
Inside is Blackstone LaunchPad, an innovative program to provide mentoring, resources and advice to student entrepreneurs.
"It's a very nurturing process for them," said executive director Julie Messing. "There is no such thing as a bad idea. We help them through it – ask them questions."
Blackstone LaunchPad is a partnership between the Blackstone Charitable Foundation in New York and the Burton D. Morgan Foundation in Hudson. Each provided $1.6 million to fund programs at Kent, Baldwin Wallace University, Lorain County Community College and Case Western Reserve University.
The goal is to help all students, not just those in business programs, and support innovative projects and ideas that can lead to start-up companies, jobs and economic growth.
Since the Kent program began at the end of May, about 20 of the 60 students who have signed up are exploring business ideas. Traffic has been brisk since classes started Monday.
Rob White, 48, a senior majoring in Russian, is working on a proposal to export products from small and medium businesses to Russia. He said he has experience in that field but has received help at LaunchPad.
"It is a good sounding board and I get practical advice," he said. "What's useful is having to defend my idea and articulate it to someone else."
Janice Lapina, the program manager at LCCC, which opened its LaunchPad in mid-August on the first floor of the Bass Library, said students are excited. This week she discussed ideas with students majoring in fields including nursing, art and physical education.
"There is now somewhere they can go," Lapina said. "A lot of what I have gotten from the students is that they always had an idea but never knew where to take it."
Baldwin Wallace's program will open Thursday in the university's Center for Innovation & Growth. Director Michael Nock said he has talked to students since arriving on campus in April about becoming entrepreneurs.
"They are all fresh ideas and all things they can act on," he said.
CWRU will open its LaunchPad early next year. It had to determine how it would mesh with existing entrepreneur programs offered on campus, said spokeswoman Chris Sheridan. The program will be housed in the university's career center.
The Northeast Ohio project, announced last November, is the second of six LaunchPads that Blackstone plans to support. The region was chosen because of its concentration of universities, strong pro-business climate and support of entrepreneurship, Steve Schwarzman, chairman, CEO and co-founder of the Blackstone Group, a private-equity and financial advisory firm, said last November.
Blackstone's first LaunchPad program was established in 2010 in Detroit to include Walsh College and Wayne State University with the University of Miami, which developed an entrepreneur program in 2008 that was replicated by Blackstone.
The program at the University of Miami has generated 85 start-up ventures and 200 jobs and drawn more than 2,000 student participants, according to Blackstone. In the nine months since the program began in Detroit, 319 students have become involved, with 110 completing initial venture proposals.
The program succeeds because it allows students to set their own pace and helps them resolve issues, officials said. Staffers help student entrepreneurs find outside mentors and funding.
The student decides whether the idea will work, Messing said.
"One thing we learned is that the ventures that persist are the second and third ones a student talks about," she said.
The four universities will share information, including mentors and funding sources, Messing said. The schools plan to eventually offer the program to faculty, staff and alumni. And they will offer numerous events a year, some of which will be open to the community.
Messing promoted the program to more than 4,000 incoming students during orientation. Lapina said she will discuss LaunchPad in a required one-credit introductory class for all new LCCC students.
"I love it, it's fun talking about the program," she said.
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