UT Tyler’s East Texas Entrepreneurship Center is sponsoring the inaugural East Texas “New Venture Day,” Friday, April 7. Students will compete for a $15,000 cash prize for idea development and product launch. Brandon Reynolds, director of competitions and mentoring for ETEC, explains how students will pitch their ideas to a panel of judges, just as they would if they were seeking funding for a new business.
Mike Landess: For UT Tyler Radio, I’m Mike Landess. UT Tyler’s East Texas Entrepreneurship Center is hosting the first annual ETEC New Venture Day Friday, April 7 at the Soules College of Business. It’s a day of activities designed to inspire and promote innovation and entrepreneurship in East Texas. The ETEC Director of Competitions, Brandon Reynolds, is our guest. So tell us about this. This is the inaugural, right?
Brandon Reynolds: This is the inaugural, and really the context of it is to give an opportunity for student entrepreneurs to come and showcase themselves, to be known, to be seen. We also have speakers who come in that we’re starting with one this year. We want to grow to a much more full, robust, a line of speakers in the future, but it also showcases our business model competition. And really that’s where our students are able to come and pitch their ideas in front of a panel of judges, and it’s actually for real dollars to really start their company. So it’s a very rubber-meets-the-road kind of situation.
Mike Landess: Is that the $15,000?
Brandon Reynolds: That is the $15,000. So awarded out, like I said, it’s real money, and so it’s really intended for them to start their business and to grow it here in East Texas.
Mike Landess: Now the event last year–was there a clock on that? That they have to do it within a certain period of time?
Brandon Reynolds: So yeah, they do have a time on this business model competition. I will say that we have two different competitions, so sometimes they get conflated a little bit. And so our Big Idea pitch is really low-hanging fruit, if you will. It’s an easy entry for students to come in and experience this. And so it’s 90 seconds. We’re probably gonna go to one minute again. And, so it’s 60 seconds. A lot of times I tell ’em, 60 seconds doesn’t seem like a long time until you have to pitch an idea. Then all of a sudden it becomes really long if you don’t know what you’re doing and becomes really quick if you do. So, it’s always interesting to see them. Now, our business model competition, which we do in the spring, is an evolution of that. So that is about an eight-to-10 minute presentation with about 10 minutes of Q and A. Our big idea pitch in the fall doesn’t have any Q and A. It’s just you get up there and pitch your idea. You just have to sell it. In the spring, it’s a lot more involved, more in depth. So, the purpose of the competition is to show your idea, that you validated it. And the principles we work on are ideation, validation and cultivation. And really, so if you look at it to progress, so in this, in the fall, you’ve had an idea, you went and pitched it. You got some feedback, you’re like, Hey, this is a really interesting idea. Explore it. Or, Hey, maybe you’re ahead of your time, or, oh, there’s somebody doing it, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in either case. It’s just how do you approach it after that? And so the springtime is where they can come in and say, you know, I took that information, that feedback. I went out, I talked to my potential customers. I discovered who they were. I discovered what they wanted. Oh, by the way, I found out that they really wanted this, and also this is what they’re willing to pay for it. So it’s the whole process of de-risking. And so as an investor, when you come in, you hear a pitch. That’s the biggest thing is risk. So how much risk are you willing to tolerate? Well, if you can de-risk an idea, now it becomes a lot more attractive. Why would you want to embark in an endeavor that no one really is interested in? And so especially if money’s involved. And so really that’s what we’re trying to do, teach the students to think businesslike. So if there’s a need somewhere, then someone’s willing to pay for that need because that need needs to be met. So just look, how do you think, how do you perceive the world? How do you see these opportunities to grow something? And it’s not necessarily about invention. We run into that a lot. We tell students, you know, there’s invention, but there’s also such things as a better mouse trap. So if you can do a better mouse trap, cheaper, more efficiently, and people want that.
Mike Landess: Let me ask you this question. Are they working with an existing product, or they have to come up with the product and the pitch?
Brandon Reynolds: It really depends. A lot of the stuff we’re working with is actually new technology. Some of it could be disruptive to the current industry. Some of it are iterations on existing technologies, much more efficient ways of doing things.
Mike Landess: Now, there are three levels, three components essentially for this day, that you’ve got set aside. Can you go through those for me?
Brandon Reynolds: Yes. So initially we want to have a showcase for entrepreneurs. Due to time constraints and a lot of other factors going on, we had interest in it, but not enough to really make a showcase of it. So we’re kind of replacing that this year. But we, over this next year, we want to give students more opportunity, more time to know about it, to prepare themselves. So we are gonna bring that back. That is a component we want to do. obviously we have the speaker component and the competition component.
Mike Landess: Who’s speaking?
Brandon Reynolds: So this year we have Mr. Alden War. He’s actually a local entrepreneur and he’s gonna come and speak. Older, but not college age. He’s kind of in the middle. So it’s, it’s interesting because he brings a seasoned approach to it, but he’s also young enough to actually speak to the college students. You know, it’s now like, you or I getting up and we talk to them and they’re like, oh, you don’t know what we’re dealing with. This is actually a young man who’s done it, and he’s closer to their age.
Mike Landess: You hate it at this point in our lives, too. Watching their eyes glaze over.
Brandon Reynolds: Yeah. Quite honestly, you know, and that was actually discussed with a colleague yesterday. My boss, the director, Jeff Hallett. When you talk to students, and they can get that ah-ha moment, you see they’ve been working on this, but the pieces aren’t quite fitting, especially if they come from a discipline that’s very rigid, such as, you know, computer science, engineering, those are very processed, linear process kind of disciplines. And then when you explain to them the concept of what they’re doing, because quite honestly, they don’t understand that they’re actually consumers. So how would you approach it if it were you? And you kinda see this light bulb come on. They’re like, oh, I get it.
Mike Landess: Now, one of our recent interviews was with the CEO of Genesis Group. Phil Burks has written a book called, “How to Eat a Failure Sandwich,” talking about the whole business of being an entrepreneur and that it’s a tough road. And to paraphrase him, essentially what he was saying was, “Don’t be afraid to fail, but fail forward.” How hard is it to express that component to entrepreneurship in general to your students?
Brandon Reynolds: Well, first off, I love Phil Burks. He’s actually partnered with us on some of our competitions and other things. So he’s a great person to have around, especially at these events. He actually talks to the students and engages with them and tells ’em just what you just said. And so, we definitely appreciate him and we love having him around because he’s done it.
Mike Landess: Yeah.
Brandon Reynolds: And so now for students, It’s kind of interesting because the culture we come in now doesn’t like failure, so it’s hard to help. Some folks understand that a failure can be a success, really, cuz it’s what you get out of it. And so I come from the lean startup days where it’s fail and fail fast. And so don’t waste our money, but let’s, if we’re gonna fail, let’s do it quickly because in failure you’re gonna learn what you need to do and what you don’t need to do. And so having that kind of, especially from everything’s graded perspective, and you try to be at the top of your class. It’s very counterintuitive. And so to have them to understand that this isn’t a classroom, this is real world, that you’re gonna take something that is conceptual and put it out to in the wild. Classroom conceptualization isn’t necessarily dealing with people, and people are very, they’re the X factor. You never know what they’re gonna do. Now if you go out and talk to them, you find out what they want to do, you reduce that. But having said that, it is a bit of adjustment. Not now. I will say we do have the students that come through that just want to, they don’t care. It’s like, let’s get at it. Let’s go for it. Sometimes you have to reel them in a little bit. It’s like, listen, OK? You getting a little too ahead of yourself. But, uh, for the most part, I would say of the students we deal with, once they can understand it’s OK to fail, then that’s when they can really shine. It’s just, I think a lot of ’em need permission to say it’s OK. And by the way, your first go at this probably is gonna fail. You know, your first iteration’s not gonna be as successful as you would hope.
Mike Landess: Our thanks to Brandon Reynolds of UT Tyler’s East Texas Entrepreneurship Center. For more information about New Venture Day, you can go to our website, kvut.org. For UT Tyler Radio, I’m Mike Landess.
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