A class called New Venture Creations is teaching students how to run small businesses serving other students and the community of Ottawa.
Marylou DeWald, division chair of business administration, said the class is required class for the entrepeneurship concentration, otherwise it’s a business elective.
“This particular project is called the the ten dollar business,” she said. “The object is that they are allowed to use ten dollars to start and run a small businesses for eight weeks.”
“It’s as realistic as we can make it but the object is to get them to understand what’s easy and not easy,” DeWald said.
Tyler Curbow, a sophomore business major, started a business called Safe-Ride-Us, which is primarily a designated driver for hire.
“I shuttle people back and forth to Lawrence or anyone else that has been drinking,” he said. “I also do shuttle service to the airport for anyone who’s living on campus who doesn’t have cars.”
Curbow said he has learned running a business is difficult, especially when other things like school and soccer are part of the equation.
“Since I am an athlete, I have a hard time working on the weekends when I have games,” he said.
DeWald said the students do this to understand what running a business really means.
“If they make a sale they are able to plow their net profit back into the business,” she said. “It’s not just theory they actually have money at stake.”
DeWald said the first half of the class is prep, followed by eight weeks of running the business, with a wrap-up the last week of class.
“If they didn’t have the ten dollars in the first place they can borrow it from the ‘bank’,” she said. “So that has to be repayed at the end with interest.”
DeWald said the class is on a rotation every other year.
“If the demand’s there we’ll offer it every year,” she said, “but so far the demand’s not there.”?
Meghan Warhurst, a senior business major, started a business called “Commendable Cleaning.”
“I clean people’s houses off campus, Ottawa residents,” she said. “It’s not easy to start a business in a small town. I don’t have any sales yet.”
Curbow said that he would recommend the class to anyone who has an interest in business.
“It’s a hands on way of learning basic principles that you learn in business class,” he said. “You really get to learn to put them into practice.”