Student entrepreneurs bring business ideas to life on campus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Jacob Freehart

Staff Writer

Introduction into Entrepreneurship students transformed the Siek Campus Center into an Expo on Friday, Dec 7.

Students enrolled in the class displayed their semester long final projects from 10-11 a.m. They put forth their creativity, problem solving skills and their real world business ideas, showing how much effort went into their projects.

Displays included custom woodworking, restaurants plans, new apps, and more.

Students worked in teams in order to learn about the steps required to start a business, including market validation, legal requirements and competitive analysis.

Johanna Mather, professor of accounting, entrepreneurship and marketing, was proud of her students and the work they put into developing their business concepts.

“I thought that what they came up with was fantastic,” she said. “I am always fascinated by the creative ideas that these students have and how they work to execute their idea in the real world.”

Mather applauded how dedicated her students can be to their projects, even once the semester is over.

“I am most proud of how professional these projects are, especially since last spring semester a group actually made their project into a business and now have a store in Colonie Mall called ‘The Happy Teapot,’” she noted.

The projects on display included a wide range of industries. Food, personal care and other types of services were all on display.

Fair Foods, Second Chance Salon, Yeet, Night Owl Café, Adirondack Angling Arts, GoodPush Skate Shop, Tree Boss Removal Service and Hair’s 2 You, were some of the business names that students created.  

To explain why their own idea would survive out in the business world, each project had a balance of research and reasons that made it unique to what they provided.

Stephen Stewart, business administration student, and Deen Legesse, in the pre-med program, called their business ‘Night Owl Café.’

“92 percent of college students want an accessible café late at night where they study and relax later, while off campus,” they explained.  

As college students themselves, they know how to cater to their audience. “We would pitch it as a college like atmosphere with couches, study areas, free Wi-Fi and good music,” they said. “We excluded things like alcohol because we knew that it would take away from the main purpose of having college students studying.”

Another innovative project was Adirondack Angling Arts, created by Miranda Trombley and Taylor Vincent, both in the entrepreneurship program.  

When deciding on an idea together, they simply combined their two pre-existing businesses and now are seeking to make it into a reality.

“With us joining our businesses, it just made everything easier because there was stuff that I didn’t know that I do now that will make selling my product better,” Trombley said.

“As far as working together it was a very unique business and our partnership is an awesome opportunity to help each other sell our products more effectively,” Vincent added.

The projects show that dreams can be accomplished with a little bit of guidance and some hard work.