Features
Minding Their Own Business
Students turn pastimes into money-makers through CME partnership
BY REBECCA KENDALL
During a recession, some of the most reliable sources of income come from creative entrepreneurship. This summer, six new student-run businesses have been launched thanks to a partnership involving the College of Management and Economics, the Guelph-Wellington Business Enterprise Centre and the Ministry of Small Business and Consumer Services.
The student participants come from a variety of disciplines but were all enrolled in the fourth-year entrepreneurship course led by Prof. Fred Pries, Business. They’ve each received $3,000 in start-up funding for their business.
“For me, this is the best educational opportunity of my life,” says psychology student Vanessa Glavac, who launched a jewelry business called Beads by U in April. “I think learning through experience is the best way to learn. I’m not sure what career path I’ll take yet, but I see entrepreneurship as a definite possibility.”
Glavec, who’s been creating jewelry for herself for years, says she saw a need for easy-to-understand instructions for do-it-yourselfers. So she created an instructional DVD, is giving demonstrations at home jewelry parties and is selling finished jewelry, including bridal and custom work. From now until September, she’ll be making and selling jewelry at a table at the Quebec Street mall every Friday and at the Guelph Farmers’ Market on Saturdays.
“I’ve learned the importance of listening to people and giving them what they want,” she says. “Your customers will be happier, you’ll be happier, and your business will be more successful.”
Personal health problems led Scott Tate, a certified kinesiologist and personal training specialist, to start his own personal training and health consultancy. Choose to Stay Well Inc., which was launched this spring, evolved from years of struggling with the contemporary model of medicine and health care, says Tate, who earned a human kinetics degree from Guelph in 2005 and is now doing a degree in applied human nutrition.
“I came to the realization that there was much better care to be had by integrating the various health practices and making individualized health teams starting with myself. Choose to Stay Well Inc. leaves ego at the door and seeks to shape health plans for people based solely on their needs, goals and interests. The core purpose is to create a new definition, perception, practice and value for health and wellness in each client, not simply ‘make them an exercise plan.’”
Glavec and Tate both plan to keep running their businesses beyond the summer. Kim Alderdice, on the other hand, has set up her business, Kim’s Swim, as a seasonal operation in Bolton and will continue just until August, when she’ll return to Guelph for the fall semester.
The fourth-year management economics student, who was already a swim instructor, started her business June 1.
“The unique selling point of Kim’s Swim is that it offers private one-on-one instruction, and there are always two instructors in the pool,” she says. “If you have two children, then each child has his or her own swimming instructor and that one family is the only one on deck. Parents go crazy for this. I also teach the program daily rather than weekly, which gives parents better scheduling for the summer and contributes to a faster learning curve.”
She and her instructors will also make house calls, giving lessons in a client’s backyard pool.
“The most valuable lesson I’ve learned is that running a small business is a lot of work,” she says. “You think being your own boss is going to be great because you’ll get to set your own hours and do whatever you like. In reality, because it is my business, I care a lot more about the job I do and the image I project. This opportunity has been amazing for me.”
She believes this experience will increase her chances of getting into an accelerated MBA program one day. “I also think my success with having run a solid business will look amazing to future employers.”
Pries says he noticed significant changes in how the students thought about their business as they developed their plan. In a number of cases, they started with a hobby and by the end of the term, they’d turned their idea into a real business.
“What’s unique about this program is that students actually run their own business,” he says. “It’s one thing to write business plans, but it’s another to launch the business, make sales, manage finances and even hire and manage employees.”