Entrepreneurs Association helps create opportunities

Monday, March 10, 1997

CLUB:

Anderson School group fosters exchange of ideas, gives advice on
starting a businessBy Gregory Mena

Daily Bruin Contributor

According to Paul Love, the average MBA student can graduate,
join a Fortune 500 company and earn a substantial salary with
relative ease. However, for Love and Chris Jarvis, entrepreneurship
offers something more valuable than immediate security. To them, it
is about "breaking the rules, being in control, fighting
bureaucracy."

Both men are among the new board of directors of the Anderson
School Entrepreneurs Association (EA), which coordinates a variety
of programs for students interested in starting their own
businesses. The new board of directors was elected on March 3,
beginning a year of volunteering their time to run the association
for all of its dues-paying members.

The Entrepreneurs Association (EA) is a student-run group that
works closely with the Harold Price Center for Entrepreneurial
studies, to create extracurricular programs for members, such as
speaker programs and experience programs. The Price Center oversees
all entrepreneurship education at the Anderson school.

"The EA is for people who want to their start their own
business. We offer all of the resources to do it." said Maxim
Weitzburg, the new director of programs.

Among the twenty programs organized by the EA is the Venture
Capitalist Round Table, which brings wealthy individuals or
institutions to Anderson to discuss the possibility of investing in
members’ proposed business ventures.

For students who are not able to win funding, the EA gives
students the opportunity to earn money to invest in their own
businesses. Under this program, students create an original, viable
business project and compete for cash prizes raised by the
Association. The winners of the Venture Proposal Competition are
each awarded a $5000 prize.

Despite the often competitive atmosphere of some EA programs,
Ronit Schiff, the former director of marketing, said that members
aren’t afraid of other students stealing their ideas, and freely
share their ideas.

"You should be careful who you talk to outside of the school,
but there is a lot more to be gained by sharing your ideas and
getting feedback (within the EA)," she explained.

Tracy Stevens, the new EA president, said that since the
members’ backgrounds and agendas are so different, exchanging ideas
is especially beneficial. She added that membership has increased
to 368 members, more than half of the full-time students at
Anderson, and noted that she thinks that this represents a shift
away from traditional business careers such as investment banking
or corporate consulting and finance.

Stevens said that because it is difficult for small businesses
to send recruiters to universities, she plans to focus on the EA’s
Small Business Career Placement program during her tenure as
president.

"I want to develop career management for those students who are
choosing the less-traditional career paths," she said. "(Students)
want to feel a direct contact with the business. They want to see
results and to know that what they are doing is beneficial to the
firm."

Weitzburg says that one way of establishing personal contact
with local businessmen is the Mentor Program, which has been so
popular that participants must apply and be selected to join.
Selected EA members then meet informally in hour-long, one-on-one
sessions with prominent entrepreneurs to discuss business
strategies.

Director of Marketing Chris Jarvis, who founded a business in
February, defined entrepreneurs as risk-takers who "are willing to
sacrifice guaranteed money today for flexibility down the road
­ it’s about lifestyle."

"It is the pleasure from building something out of nothing,"
agreed Weitzburg.

JUSTIN WARREN/Daily Bruin

Members of the Anderson School Entrepreneurs Association include
(l. -r.) Paul Love, Tracy Stevens, current EA President, Chris
Jarvis, and Maxim Weitzman.