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The entire foyer of Rockwell Hall West, home of CSU’s College of Business, was brimming with enthusiasm. Charisse Bowen, Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship at CSU, founded the Venture Accelerator program last year and already it has produced remarkable results. “Students go on to do very real things.”
Last year’s alumni have found substantial success outside of the program. Ten out of the twelve graduating companies are now self-sustaining ventures. CamKeeper, last year’s 1st place team in the Venture Adventure Challenge (the business pitch competition that happens at the end of Immersion lab), has gone on to secure $150,000 in angel funding. Other teams have experienced similar success. Stuff’N Mallows, the ingenious injectable marshmallow product we’ve all been waiting for, can now be found in 17 stores in Colorado. Idias Bionenergy, another inaugural alumni enterprise, is preparing to build its first bioreactor facility.
The success of last year’s businesses validates the Venture Accelerator’s methods, which chose thirteen companies (not everyone has a team, some are solo) this year. The Accelerator program consists of two stages: the Immersion Lab and the Startup Spring Board.
The Immersion Lab is “a 16-week intensive track program that engages student entrepreneurs and their teams in hands-on, execution style training focused on launching their new ventures.” Venture teams attend weekly workshops all taught by experts in their field. Mentors and advisors help these teams throughout the Immersion Lab to work towards their goal of emerging from the lab with a sound proof of concept.
Teams will then be invited to join the Startup Spring Board program, where they will put the skills they learned in the Immersion Lab to use as they bring their ventures from concept to reality. The goal is to have the business ready for launch or investment at the conclusion of the Startup Spring Board. Accelerator companies are each eligible for awards of between $3000-$5000 from the CSU Student Business Advancement Fund that they can receive at any time during their 12 months in the program. The use of these funds is to support the next stages of development for these businesses, such as prototype building, patent filing, or beta website building.
This year’s Accelerator class showed impressive promise, with startups representing a wide variety of industries and backgrounds. The maturity and capability of these students never ceases to impress both Bowen and the mentors. William Cobb and Robin Steele, who mentored a number of the top companies last year, worked the room trying to cherry-pick this year’s superstar. When asked what he looks for in an entrepreneur, Cobb replied, “Enthusiasm and a willingness to learn.” While mentors such as Cobb and Steele can only lend their expertise to one team in earnest, that doesn’t keep them from fostering relationships with other teams. Cobb attributed this to the nature of the startup community in Colorado, which he described as very open and helpful, certainly a very special time and place to be entrepreneurs.
It seems that by the end of the process, mentors might learn as much as the students they end up teaching, and that is what makes this program so special and noteworthy. CSU is unlocking the true potential of its students by empowering them to bring their ideas to reality and embracing their entrepreneurial nature.