A class of job creators

Sunday, January 29, 2006

By MIKE LANDIS

The Register-Mail

GALESBURG - To the majority of college students, the idea of delivering food to classmates late in the evening likely isn't appealing. For Michael Sales and Whitney Bryant, it's a business plan.

The Knox College students are in Dr. John Haslem's business and technical writing class and presented their business idea, Gizmograms, Tuesday morning.

Students in Haslem's class are in the midst of putting together for-profit campus business plans - some have joined forces as partners while others are flying solo. The plans are comprehensive as students are charged with considering and presenting an executive summary; the management team; marketing aspects ranging from competitive analysis to pricing; and the impact, viability and profitability of the business.

Haslem said he wants the students to "think like an entrepreneur" and envision themselves as job creators rather than job applicants.

"As a teacher, I am always looking for assignments to create pedagogically interesting and rich learning opportunities," said Haslem. "With this one, I am seeking to have the students draw upon what they already know and to use it to learn something about what they do not know."

The assignment has proven thought provoking, fresh and creative for the students.

"You have to think about a lot of things," admitted Sales. "Honestly, it's a lot more than I thought it would be."

"What I've learned so far in this class is that business is all about attitude - being smart, funny, charismatic. Good managerial skills and accounting is really icing on the cake because once you get to a certain point, you can just hire other people to do that if you can't do it yourself," said Knox student Geoffrey Trager, the brains behind KC Creation, a business venture that promotes the sale of art work created in the Knox community.

"For me personally it's just been a lot of fun to be hands-on with a class and something I'm actually interested in for once instead of the professor just always telling you to do this and you should write this paper. We actually get to take advantage of what each student is personally interested in doing and we get to run with it," said Andrew Caplan, who along with his brother Michael, is pursuing a movie rental business entitled Knoxflix.

Presentation time

Not only do the students have to put a business plan together, they get to hone their public speaking skills by presenting their businesses in front of Haslem and classmates.

Sales and Bryant were first up Tuesday morning with Gizmograms, a late-night delivery service for Knox students wanting a snack from the campus eatery. Following Sales and Bryant, Trager unveiled his plan for KC Creation.

"The idea essentially started as an epiphany when I met this artist and I saw what she could produce," said Trager. "It inspired me to expose her - in the best of senses."

"As far as coming up with the idea, I learned the most from watching people present. This is my first business class, so I see it very differently than most people. This sort of thing is new to me and starting your business and being the owner is almost like a form of self-realization or actualization within the real world because money makes the world go around."

"Studying this and getting involved for the first time I think is great preparation for post-graduate life in general."

Question and answer

During the presentations, classmates are scrutinizing the proposed businesses and preparing questions. The question and answer sessions following the presentations have proven invaluable for the students.

Galesburg High School graduate John Hawkinson and his business partner, Doug Franke, were the class guinea pigs. They were the first to present their business plan to the class - Day by Day Laundry. The venture has Hawkinson and Franke offering to pick up, wash, dry and fold laundry for Knox students for a small fee. With the limited number of washers and dryers on campus and the machines always being in high demand, Hawkinson and Franke feel like they've found a niche on campus.

"I thought, especially since we were the first to go, it was very beneficial to have the feedback," said Hawkinson.

"I appreciated the feedback," said Trager. "Doug (Franke) brought up some points about requirements of the business plan that I didn't put in there because I didn't find it necessary. We have this template that we are supposed to fill out, but I've sort of designed the business based on my skills, the artist's skills and tried to strip away the unessentials and tried to be as efficient as possible."

Partners Clark Smith and Sam Sowl are pursuing the business Textbooks for Cash, a method of selling old textbooks in a more profitable manner for students.

"We had really good feedback because people aren't having to give us money, they are having to give us things they don't want in old textbooks. Everyone has them on this campus. What we're doing is providing a service where we will sell their textbooks for them at basically no cost to them except for what we make off the profit," said Smith.

Caplan found the student feedback especially helpful.

"With our DVD rental business, it was kind of a feeling out process originally because we kind of ran into problems with liabilities and legal issues surrounding renting out movies that the movie company isn't making a profit off of," said Caplan. "After doing the presentation, we pretty much got a ton of feedback from everyone because they were all asking questions trying to clarify certain issues they found problematic in the business plan. It helps out in the overall sense of trying to gather everything you need from your own business."

Laying the groundwork

Haslem has also involved the local business community in the project.

"I have been assisted immensely by some of the people and expertise that we have right here in Galesburg," said Haslem.

Dick Johnson and Cat Garza of the Western Illinois Entrepreneurship Center stopped by the class and shared their business insights, while Brad Clark of First Bank helps students understand the business loan application process.

Some of the on-campus businesses are already up and running, said Haslem.

"I've been very impressed with the formal presentations and business plans," said Haslem. "Everybody is taking ownership of their projects and that makes it more meaningful and important."

Enough profit for lunch

For Haslem, the director of the Center of Teaching and Learning at Knox, this is the first time he's revolved the entire class around creating a business. He has, however, led his Knox students down a similar path before. In 2000, he guided a group of Knox students with an idea through the process of business development and incorporation. The result was dhaga.com inc., a profitable web design and network solutions company that completed several projects locally, including the first Galesburg.org portal Web site.

Later in the term, Haslem will have students follow a similar template to develop a plan for a business outside the Knox campus. As for the Knox businesses, the end game is rather modest. Haslem and the students are hoping to make enough money to enjoy lunch at Jalisco's on the final day of class.

"I don't know if we're all going to come out of here being entrepreneurs," said Smith. "I think some of us are probably going to go on to work 9 to 5 jobs, but it's given us an opportunity to see how people make a lot of money. There are a lot of people out there working for minimum wage and it's giving us an opportunity to see why all these other people are making so much money off the people who are working for minimum wage."