Mostly, that means providing students with interesting learning experiences. "If entrepreneurs just want someone to go out and do a project for them, we're not as interested, as opposed to the entrepreneur that will allow our students to sit in on key meetings and really get a feel for what is going on in the business," says San Diego State University's Alex DeNoble. "If they're looking for cheap labor and they're not looking to give something back in return, to me it doesn't work." Some schools devise mechanisms for ensuring student satisfaction. In Pennsylvania State University's Learning Factory program, for example, companies submit engineering problems for seniors to solve, but students themselves bid for the projects that they want to work on.
You further enhance your chances of getting help by self-selecting. The owner of a family business is obviously better off approaching a school with a family-business program. Hinting that you might hire the students you work with is also a good tack to take. At UNC, Sullivan is looking for companies with big ambitions and good survival prospects in part because they might someday employ his students.
In short, the opportunities at universities are there. But as with any successful marriage, you'll need to commit as much as your partner.
Interdisciplinary Help
Entrepreneurs in need of business and technical help can find them both at the new Center for Commercialization of Advanced Technology at San Diego State University (http://ccatsandiego.org). SDSU's Entrepreneurial Management Center and the University of California at San Diego's School of Engineering are collaborating with the Pentagon and a defense contractor to develop technology that has defense or homeland-security purposes. Once accepted into the program, businesses are eligible to receive a range of services. Students and faculty at the business school will hone business plans, while the engineering school can help with feasibility studies and R&D support.
Beyond the B-school
A number of schools, including the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Pennsylvania, have started legal clinics aimed at helping small businesses. The University of Chicago Law School Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship (http://clinic.ij.org), for instance, offers help to inner-city company builders. The clinic has three full-time staff members and is formally affiliated with the university's business school. It targets low- to moderate-income entrepreneurs in the Chicago area as well as ventures that have the potential to create jobs in depressed neighborhoods.
More Flexible VC Funding
Historically, university-run venture-capital funds have backed only teachers or alumni. No longer. Pennsylvania State University's student-managed Garber Fund invests in businesses outside the university. The University of Michigan's Wolverine Venture Fund (www.zli.bus.umich.edu/wolverine_vent_fund/) prefers companies with a blue-and-gold connection; simply employing an alum is enough. Penn State's Farrell Center for Entrepreneurship (www.smeal.psu.edu/fcfe) is run by a VC who trolls for deals at his day job. Meanwhile, the University of Maryland College Park's Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship (www.rhsmith.umd.edu/dingman) is much more focused: it seeks early-stage high-tech companies in low-income areas.
Design Makeovers
The Center for Design & Business (www.centerdesignbusiness.org), in Providence, a five-year-old joint venture between Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Bryant College, offers business help to designers and design help to businesses. In one part of the program, artists and designers with an idea for a product can take classes in entrepreneurial basics, such as writing a business plan or learning the ABCs of accounting. A second part is directed at established businesses that need to design a new product or refresh an old one. For $750, a company gets a two-hour brainstorming session with a roundtable of experts that includes design faculty or students from RISD and management faculty from Bryant, as well as other area experts and professionals.
Vouchers
The National Network for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization (www.n2tec.org), based at the University of Southern California, links up universities across the country to help faculty and student entrepreneurs tap a broad range of management and technical expertise. It also extends that privilege to minority- and female-owned businesses outside the academic world. Those businesses are eligible to receive vouchers good for purchasing up to $5,000 worth of resources at USC and ultimately other universities in the network, including technology licenses, consulting services from business-school faculty and students, and the use of university facilities, like laboratories and machine shops.
Meanwhile, under the two-year-old Kentucky Innovation Act, small and midsize Kentucky companies can use awards from the Kentucky Research and Development Voucher Fund (www.tig.kstc.com) to pay for R&D services at any accredited university in the state. Awards can run up to $200,000 over two years, and companies are required to match the award dollar for dollar, although they can use a mixture of cash and equity to do so.
Matchmakers
Companies have sprouted up to help businesses find the right professor for their needs. One is TechKnowledge Point (www.techknowledgepoint.com). B-school profs can put their profiles on the site, listing their qualifications. For a fee of $100 a year, CEOs can search the database to find the expert they're seeking. Utek Corp. (www.utekcorp.com) acts more as an intermediary in the important but often confusing area of technology transfer, helping small businesses license school technology.
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