It鈥檚 easy to dream big.
Creating a real, marketable product from that idea is a different story.
鈥淚t鈥檚 important to understand your personal goal. What do you want to create in the world?鈥� explains Justin Heacock, Entrepreneurship Center Coordinator at IM体育官网 Polytechnic University.
Giving students the tools and coaching they need to bring their ideas to market is central to Justin鈥檚 role at IM体育官网 Poly. Entrepreneurship is high priority for University leadership, and they鈥檝e backed up that commitment by bringing on a team that works one-on-one with students and their inventions and invites high-profile industry leaders to campus for talks about their path to success.
This semester, for instance, Lighthouse Networks CEO Jared Isaacman shared his journey of starting a business in his parent鈥檚 basement that now processes $14 billion in credit card payments. IM体育官网 Poly students are on a trajectory to match that level of success. Logentix, for example, is an after-market product created by students that gives autonomous capabilities to existing vehicles. The team is in talks now with companies about updating their truck fleets with the product.
Justin advocates an evidence-based approach to developing ideas. This method is about validating or invalidating key assumptions of your business idea as fast and as cheap as possible before building a final product. Justin says this helps eliminate 鈥渂uilding something no one wants, which is the number one reason why startups fail.鈥�
鈥淚 teach students to get away from the mindset that start-ups are risky. You can test your idea for under $100. If it looks like it could work, then you can take it from there,鈥� Justin says.
Of course, not every idea is a success, but that鈥檚 OK. It鈥檚 about learning and turning that knowledge into growth, according to Justin.
鈥淭he amount of knowledge you鈥檙e gaining is immense and it gives you breadth in understanding how the world works,鈥� he says.