Creating Social Value Blog / Social Innovation

Real Talk About College Entrepreneurship

By Prabha Dublish ’18, Co-Founder of Womentum.

An entrepreneur is someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down.” – Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn.

As a college student who founded a tech nonprofit, this quote really resonates with me. Throughout my time at Babson, I’ve heard from many people thinking about starting a business who say that they are waiting for the right time or until they’ve learned the right skills. But after starting my own organization, I learned that you will never be ready; you just have to do your best to prepare and be ready to roll with the punches.

This concept is what inspired the upcoming senior seminar, Real Talk about College Entrepreneurship, which I will teaching alongside long-time collaborator Derek Tu ’18. A senior seminar is an opportunity that Babson College provides second semester seniors to teach current students skills or topics that may not be covered by the current curriculum. Derek and I see our senior seminar as an opportunity to demystify the false ideas that many college students have around starting a business in college, such as waiting until the “perfect moment” or thinking that you won’t succed unless you have the mythical “typical” qualities of an entrepreneur.

The topics covered will range from finding the right co-founder to acquiring customers to getting plugged into the Boston ecosystem. In addition, we are inviting prominent Boston investors, student founders, and startup gurus to share their tactics and strategy playbooks on how to build killer companies. You’ll have a chance to hear their personal stories and work on Harvard Business School inspired cases based upon their mistakes and success.

Now, you might think you have to be an entrepreneur to be part of this seminar, but Derek and I would welcome all students, whether you identify as an entrepreneur or just exploring the space, to join the conversation. The best part is that these courses are 0 credit, so you don’t have to worry about your GPA. If you’re interested, you can sign up just as you would for a credit bearing course on the Registration page on the Babson Portal.