A few days ago I received a meeting invite from one of my
favorite Owen Professors: David Owens. He’s our resident innovation guru and
soon to be published
author. He had invited a small group of students to meet with two representatives
from the Financial Services
Forum to discuss innovation and entrepreneurship. Plus, he was offering
free lunch; so obviously I went.
I did a little research prior to the meeting to answer some
questions like: What is the Financial Services Forum? What do they do? Why
would they be interested in talking to me?
According to their website: “The Financial Services Forum is
a non-partisan financial and economic policy organization comprising the CEOs
of 20 of the largest and most diversified financial services institutions doing
business in the United States. The purpose of the Forum is to pursue policies
that encourage savings and investment, promote an open and competitive global
marketplace, and ensure the opportunity of people everywhere to participate
fully and productively in the 21st-century global economy.”
Basically, they were asking us for our ideas on how public
policy can help promote small business creation in the U.S.
You’re probably wondering why we are such bad-asses to be
invited to a meeting of this caliber. Well, at Owen we have more than handful
of rock star students with start-up and product development experience. Take Annie
Skidmore, a small
business owner and one crazy creative lady or Megan Allen who is Co-founder
of Georgie Beauty. Then there is
Owen Blogger’s very own Blake Knight who,
before Owen, made a career of working at start-ups. And as for myself, I am
currently participating in an in-school internship with a start-up to develop their Nashville
marketing and launch strategy.
Some topics of our discussion:
1.
Reduce
the restrictions and regulations of starting a business. Word on the
streets is that most start-ups fail. Business Week puts the failure rate at
64.2% over 10 years. Plus, they don’t usually reach a point of profit for
several years. This brings up questions of the necessity for regulations and
taxes on entities that are already shelling out limited cash on things like
patents, prototypes, and attorney fees.
2.
Incentivize
talent to take risks with start-ups. As mentioned before, I recently signed
on for an unpaid marketing internship at a start-up. Since I’m a student, I
could use the money, but instead I’m going to get class credits. However, this
is not an option for everyone and start-ups can’t complete with the pay and
benefits of a large corporation. The catch is that they still need great talent
to make the company successful.
3.
Promote
educational institutes to focus more on business. Education is always
preparing students for a test or for the next level of education. But what
happens when you go through all the levels of education possible and you
realize you have no idea how to job interview? Or that you didn’t even know it
was an option to start your own business?
4.
Help
start-ups entrepreneurs connect with each other. Business is really often
all about networking. How much easier would it be to start a business if you
had a networking of people who had been there before? People who could answer
questions and help avoid pitfalls?
The meeting was a rare opportunity to speak directly with
key influencers in Washington and participate in drafting economic policy to
spur job growth, and hopefully they walked away with a few ideas to include in
their report.
