The Academy is proud to present workshops on entrepreneurship to students, community members, and University staff throughout the year. We cover a wide variety of topics, from writing a business plan, to effectively marketing your product in the Nascent Entrepreneur Workshop Series. Please explore the workshop descriptions below, visit our calendar to view upcoming events, and download handouts and slides from previous presentations in the event archive.
Nascent Entrepreneur Workshop Series
- Writing an Effective Business Plan:
Thursday, November 13- 5:00-6:15pm
Levis Faculty Center - Music Room
Curriculum Developed By: Kimberly Sugden
Whether tackling a global challenge, starting a new for-profit venture, or, being an intrapraneur within a larger organization, success is aided by planning. Effective business planning is essential to creating a vision and strategy to reach your organizational goals. This active learning workshop helps you to capture your mission, target consumers, financial plan, operational/management structure and translate it into a concrete business plan to interest investors, contribute to a venture plan competition, or align all employees to your company mission. - Marketing Research:
Thursday, November 20 - 5:00-6:15pm
Levis Faculty Center, Music Room
Curriculum Developed By: Cindy Kehoe
Learn how to identify and measure your target audience for your new business. Marketing research is an integral tool in aligning the needs of your business with the value and demand in the marketplace. Discover resources across the web that will help your business grow and reach the right consumers. - New Venture Modeling
Thursday, January 29 - 5:00-6:15pm
Levis Faculty Center, Music Room
Curriculum Developed By: Kimberly Sugden
Have you identified a business plan that will turn your entrepreneurial idea into a successful endeavor? Have you found a target niche that will make you profitable? Now all you need are models to help you decide what ventures will lead to long-term growth and success for your entrepreneurial idea. - Guerrilla Marketing Workshop:
Thursday, February 5 - 5:00-6:15pm
Levis Faculty Center, Music Room
Curriculum Developed By: Kimberly Sugden
Target your consumer niche and market to them before your competitors do! It's a media jungle out there, consumers are bombarded with too many messages, so make your advertising count, and do so economically. From small business owners to marketing students, come learn techniques for building brand awareness, pricing products, and effectively promoting without breaking your budget.
- Financing the Venture:
Thursday, February 12 - 5:00 - 6:15pm
Levis Faculty Center, Music Room
Curriculum Developed By: Kimberly Sugden
Learn what financial tools are critical to include in a business plan, what alternatives your business has for funding your product/service offering, and what investors are looking for in a new company that adds value to their portfolio.
- Making the Presentation:
Thursday, Feburary 19 - 5:00-6:15pm
Levis Faculty Center, Music Room
Curriculum Developed By: Kimberly Sugden
Polish your overall business plan presentation to showcase your company to investors, judges, employees and peers. Learn how aspects of your business plan should flow into the presentation and how to capture the attention and concisely convey the value of your company in your venture presentation.