On the morning of Feb. 9, 42 students in Curtis Hall received a sweet wake-up call: Dunkin’ Donuts food and coffee delivered to their dorm rooms. The Entrepreneurs Club was testing its latest venture, a service that has students select what they want for breakfast and a delivery time, then pay with their ‘Gate Card when it arrives.
One of many business ideas the club has, the test went well, and yielded a substantial profit that will go toward future ventures. The club is always coming up with ways to meet demands they see in the Colgate and Hamilton communities, all while learning about what it takes to start a business.
“We view the club as a learning experience,” said Harrison Gillis ’13. “We want to get our minds around the practical ideas of starting and running a business, so that if we do have plans to start one, it’s not the first time we’ve dealt with these concepts.”
In addition to executing ventures, club members meet with local entrepreneurs, hold classes and seminars on different aspects of entrepreneurship, and speak with alumni who have successfully launched their own businesses.
Those alumni contacts have begun to play a major role in the club’s programs. One has them following the endeavors of Nick Kokonas ’90, whose restaurant Alinea in Chicago was recently ranked best in the nation by S.Pellegrino. Kokonas also is working on a book about the restaurant business, so he has experience in the publishing world, too.
The club members will follow his efforts, pose questions to him about what he’s doing, and then Kokonas responds in unique ways.
Bharadwaj Reddy ’12 explains, “Nick gets back to us in a high-tech fashion — e-mail, Twitter, blogs, because he can’t get here, so we’re maximizing the time for this opportunity. He’s going to be Skyping with us whenever possible, e-mailing us, teleconferencing, etc.”
In addition to following Kokonas, some club members are participating in a seminar called “Thought Into Action,” a class taught by alumni and offered to about eight students on campus.
One alumnus participating is Wills Hapworth ’07, an entrepreneur himself and the founder of DarkHorse Investors, a company that invests in college students’ start-up businesses.
“There is a serious interest in entrepreneurship at Colgate that needs to be answered and nurtured,” said Hapworth. “Creating a great culture for start-ups and turning thought into action is difficult but essential, and the students, school, and alums all seem to be making steps in the right direction.”
The number of ventures the club has in the works is indicative of how the entrepreneurial spirit is starting to thrive at Colgate.
Whether selling Indian and Chinese food at the Coop or hosting an “idea raffle” at Winterfest, the club’s members are always thinking of creative ways to meet the demands of the Colgate community while putting their business knowledge into action.