In 2004, I took a business plan writing class in my MBA program. Best class I’ve taken up to that point because I was finally taking entrepreneurship electives.
Little did I know, there was a more important lesson learned here.
The Professor gave us back our final paper, which was a business plan we were working on throughout the semester.
I did well, but was surprised on the answer I got to my question.
“Professor, now that I have the business plan written, what resources does Fordham have to help launch businesses?”
To which the professor replied, “I don’t know. Good luck.”
What???? It was my first obstacle I had to overcome as an entrepreneur.
I contacted career services and tried to track down an Entrepreneur Club but everything came up short. Most importantly, I talked to many of my peers to gauge their interest in entrepreneurship and to my surprise, there was a lot.
After wallowing and trying to make sense of this, it came to me that this is a great opportunity to rally like-minded people to foster the development of entrepreneurship at a grass roots level at Fordham.
So I took the first step in starting Fordham’s first Entrepreneur Club (that’s what it was called back then).
I was able to promote the new club by piggybacking off a Small Business Association (SCORE) meeting that consisted of about 50 MBA students in a Lincoln Center dorm conference room.
My time came to present my elevator pitch, which was, “The Fordham Entrepreneur Club fosters the development of entrepreneurship within the Fordham Community. AND it’s booming!”
I was the only member.
But after the meeting, a few great people approached me to be on the executive board to help execute the entrepreneur club.
And thank God they did, because without them, this wouldn’t have been successful.
The first thing we did was change the name to “The Fordham Entrepreneur Society.”
We solved a real problem of fostering the development of entrepreneurship within the Fordham Community and it even expanded to the undergraduate school at Rose Hill.
From James DeVoe, Co-founder, FES and dear friend: “Definitely some great times. The best part was sitting, listening to each other’s ideas. No one wanted to steal ideas from another, but just the opposite, everyone wanted to see each other succeed. True selflessness.”
We had a blast doing it – we made some very special relationships.
The club became the biggest club on campus in a short time.
When you’re passionate about something, you will go through great lengths to accomplish your goals.
Technically, my most successful start-up to date, but that’s going to change 🙂 However, it goes down as one of the most cherished things I’ve been a part of.
