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Ok, I'm about to start an entrepreneurship club in my college (Universidade de Sao Paulo - Brazil). The main reason for that project is that we students don't have any entrepreneurial culture and we don't get motiveted by "the structure" to enter in this world.

I thought about an online plataform that allows members to post interesting texts, indicate entrepreneur projects that are happening or will happen (people can actually see what that project is all about and decide if they would like to help or not) and, more important, a place where people can meet people that are motiveted by the same factors. For the future question, I chose an online plataform because its easier to manage, what increments the sucess chances when the founders are gone.

What do you guys think about this structure? Is something missing? Anyone have any knowledge about other club in other countries?

Thanks for the attention.

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5 Answers

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Start small. Focus first on people that truly have interest in growing the ecosystem. They are the one that will stick with you in early days.

In Australia, we have mailing list called 'Silicon Beach' or Sydney OpenCoffee meetup (http://www.meetup.com/open-coffee-sydney/). This thing wasn't easy in its early days. Thanks to few people that keep sticking around, and eventually the community grow become what it is today.

Again, most important is the people (community).

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Yeah...That's the idea. We from the team (3 people) know that entrepreneurship calls attention, but only few will gets the hand dirty. – Lasse Oct 15 '09 at 4:23
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There are many activities that a university entrepreneurship club can organize in order to help the students become entrepreneurs. Mainly guest lectures that either speak about their personal experience or professional lectures that talk about specific subjects (idea generation, legal matters, raising capital). In addition, you can organize field trips to interesting startups, VCs and businesses in your area. Once you have enough people, you can organize competitions, such as elevator pitch or business plan competitions.

The key factor is getting enough people committing to the club. You don't want to organize a lecture, and then find out that the room is almost empty. That requires a lot of marketing work, and it doesn't always work out. One way of reducing the risk is opening events to outsiders, especially students from neighboring universities and their entrepreneurship clubs.

The most important function of the website is to help with the marketing of the club events. What seems to work best is to have a blog with interesting articles and a calender in the main page that includes all the club events, as well as related events in the area that might be of interest to your community (such as events from neighboring universities).

I would not add a forum at first, since a dead forum is much worst then no forum. Add links to your facebook and linkedin groups, and advertise via those websites and a mailing list you can build. Expect that 5-10% of the people that confirm their arrival to an event in facebook will show up (that has been my experience anyway).

One more thing, don't make your club a one man show... Find a management team that will help you, even if you can handle everything yourself. If you want your club to exist after you graduate, you need continuity, which means you need a number of people that can replace you. If you choose one successor, and something comes up, a club without a head cannot exist. I have had a successor quit because his girl friend died in a plane crash, and another didn't handle the internal university politics well and almost got the club shut down while I was on exchange to another university. Things happen, and you need a team that can handle things as they come.

Good luck, and feel free to ask for advice (I have a soft spot for university entrepreneurship clubs :) )

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The idea of making some lectures was something we loved in the beginning, but we thought it would not help us to reach our goal. That's because we think that student will only feel what entrepreneurship is like when they work on it. I think that most lectures are motivational and only attract a great number of enthusiasts...and trully i don't want to waste time with non-commited people. As hwijaya said, I need a small number of people that love the idea...It's been really hard. The web plataform was to simplify the structure. That people could participape even if they were at home(continues) – Lasse Oct 15 '09 at 4:37
We thought about and shared blog, that people (from the club) could post texts and event's. This plataform would permit that members post ideas for project like helping the entrepreneur departament in the college to re-think the course. Make visits to other starups is something we are fighting to implement, we are working with one entrepreneur group we discovered and I think that this will be great. And the best part, this group if full with entrepreneurs that don't have any knoledge about management, and since we study this, we could share knowledge and receive the practical experience. – Lasse Oct 15 '09 at 4:45
There are two things you can accomplish in lectures. The first is to teach the audience how to do things, and as you have mentioned, it could be lectures about management and anything else your community needs to learn. The second thing you can get in a lecture is to convert the enthusiasts into entrepreneurs. Some people might want to start their own business, but are scared they don't know what they need to do. In a lecture, they can come risk free and learn what it takes. Some might figure out that starting a business is not for them, but some might figure that it is. – RonGa Oct 15 '09 at 7:21
I have been in 10 clubs in 6 universities (3 of the clubs I started) and all had lectures, with great benefits. You never know where success will come from. The most pointless activity we ever organized turn out to be very beneficial. We had a monopoly session once, in which we set up a few tables and let club members play. I thought it was a bad idea until two years later a friend told me that he met his business partner in the game, and now they have built a multi-million dollar startup in the cellphone video space. Any activity you organize might have benefits you could never expect. – RonGa Oct 15 '09 at 7:27
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These are good starts, to get the ball rolling. As a recent graduate and student leader, I can definitely vouch that recruitment will be the hardest part of the recruitment drive. The thing about entrepreneurship clubs is that most of the people who gravitate towards them have that passion engrained. But getting them is the hard part.

Once you have them, humour them with some networking, but sooner or later, it has to be about getting something done, otherwise your own club will still be "working through the structure". Don't aspire to be a club that operates just on networking. Build some more value into it.

I would HIGHLY suggest you join the following group on LinkedIn, and try to arrange some meetings with the co-ordinators of SIFE in your region. It will give you some much needed resources, experience, and support to take your entrepreneurship club to the next level.

http://www.linkedin.com/groupInvitation?groupID=56221&sharedKey=133BE0424807 (if that link doesn't work, just search SIFE Brazil in the search)

Best of Luck!

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Yeah, you are totally right. Let me explain it better to you...we will not just work online, we (each member of the group) will foster new projects that could be implemented by the club members and the interrested people would sign to the project online. But the work need to be done in the real world. When project has stated the plataform will be used to tell other members how the work is going on and eventually they could ask for help and other things. We hope that this business model works....=) Thanks a lot for the LinkedIn and for the SIFE recommendation – Lasse Oct 15 '09 at 4:55
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There's a really good entrepreneurship club in Cambridge (UK) - Cambridge University Entrepreneurs.

Since you're all in the same place, you might find physical meet ups more useful than virtual ones. CUE organises lectures, pub meets, a business creation competition, mentoring sessions, all sorts of great stuff. As a first step, why don't you just all meet up? If there are enough people with an entrepreneurial spirit you'll be able to make it happen.

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Pub meets are the best hehehehe and we will surelly try to arrange a club meeting every month that people can meets each other in the "real world". I will look for this Cambridge club. Thanks a lot. Do you think that competition attracts the right people for the club? I'm very suspicious about it. – Lasse Oct 15 '09 at 5:00

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