“This year we had over 50 competitors from all over Nebraska.  We’ve had a good diversity of students and we’ve grown over last year, so were excited about that,” said Travis Pillen, graduate assistant for the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship.

Students used their presentation and communication skills to present their idea to panels of industry experts from across the state and received feedback to further develop their idea. According to organizers, the event has nearly doubled in terms of interest and spectators. It was estimated that 300 people attended this year’s competition.

Five winners each received $1000 to further pursue their idea.  The Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship continues to work with students following the event.

“We continue to track the students as most of them are still in classes. We follow up with them and continue to provide any type of assistance they need,” Said Kathy Thornton, director of the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship.

Students who participated stressed the importance of the judges’ feedback in this process.

“All of the judges give insanely good criticism. It really helps you prepare for the real world,” said Tanner Odell, a junior enrolled in Lincoln Public Schools Entrepreneurship Focus Program.

Taylor Ford, a sophomore at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said, “This has been a valuable experience. I got some feedback and was able to make some connections with other entrepreneurs that could help me out in the future.”

The following winners were announced:
Beth Barmetler, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Kyle Powers, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Jason Kruse, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Ryan Cairns, Southeast Community College
Madison Gifford, Lincoln Public Schools Entrepreneurship Focus Program

Other news from the event:
Quick Pitch Competition awards five student entrepreneurs $1k (Video)
Idea to sale in 3 minutes

The stay-at-home mom had turned an old dining room in her Weeping Water, Nebraska, home into a photo studio. To create a thriving home-based business, her plan was to shoot photos at home as well as at local scenic spots and other nearby towns east of Lincoln and south of Omaha.

Michela Wipf takes Entrepreneurship Program classes to fuel the success of her photography studio in Weeping Water, Nebraska.

Her income the first year? 300 bucks.

Business picked up, but Wipf’s Captured Memories Photography didn’t earn the money she hoped for until she began taking entrepreneur classes online through Omaha’s Metropolitan Community College’s Entrepreneurship Program.

The classes taught her marketing, how to build a solid business plan and how to operate her business with sound legal and financial principles, Wipf said. With two classes left to obtain her certificate in entrepreneurship, Wipf’s photo studio income has already quadrupled.

“I’m now booked every weekend,” she said. “I’m so excited to see how my business will grow next year after I’ve completed the program.

Wipf is just one example of the Entrepreneurship Program’s remarkable success since Metro launched the curriculum in 2006.

Ten students enrolled in the program’s first semester. This winter, in its fifth year, Metro officials expect about 1,000 students to enroll in the Entrepreneurship Program. They take the classes either online or at three Omaha metro-area campuses. Plus, Metro’s Fremont campus began offering Entrepreneurship Program classes this fall.

The program, already the largest entrepreneur education program in Nebraska, has gained national attention. The American Association of Community Colleges has awarded Metro with its “Best Entrepreneur Education in the Nation” honor.

“Education like this is the best way to reduce failure and increase success in running your business,” says Heather Nelson, the Entrepreneur Program’s manager and a full-time instructor.

The program’s six classes (with a seventh on its way) feature no tests or quizzes. Students are encouraged to apply the lessons they learn to the businesses that they are building or sustaining.

“The classes are no different than launching a business on their own,” Nelson said.

Entrepreneur Program Classes
Metropolitan Community College’s Entrepreneurship Program offers these six classes with a seventh (focusing on business creativity and innovation) on its way. Class titles are:

• Introduction to Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurship Feasibility Study
• Entrepreneurship Business Plan
• Marketing for the Entrepreneur
• Entrepreneurship Legal Issues
• Entrepreneurship Financial Topics

The poor economy and the corresponding increase in media coverage of entrepreneurship, Nelson said, has spurred more people, such as those who’ve enrolled in the program, to look into running their own businesses. Many ordinary people are now more attuned to seeking out business ownership possibilities, she said.

“A lot of students here see these opportunities and say things like, ‘I can start a business that’s affordable. I can rent this place I saw. But I need to educate myself before I take this leap.’”

The average male student is 28 years old, and the average female student is 44. That statistic aside, it’s hard to categorize the typical Entrepreneur Program student, the age of which has ranged from age 10 to 70, Nelson said.

Many have advanced degrees and expertise in their field; they just need business acumen to launch their startups or improve their existing ventures. Others are unemployed, underemployed or, like Wipf, want to start a business in their home. They want to better their lives for themselves and their families, Nelson said.

The program isn’t about churning out graduates, Nelson said. Only 18 percent of students are Metro business students taking Entrepreneur Program classes. The rest come from other skill-specific programs – such as Metro’s early childhood education program and nationally recognized culinary school – and take entrepreneurship classes to complement their studies. Some students are not seeking a degree at all. Instead, they take one or more classes they think will help them in their business ventures, Nelson said.

“This is not a program where we’re going to measure success by the number of degrees we hand out,” she said. “We’ll measure how many small businesses are started and how many jobs are created and factors like that.”

The program is about more than learning from its three full-time and five adjunct faculty members, Nelson said. It’s also about networking and learning from each other.

“The classroom,” Nelson said, “is where the most powerful networking takes place. And when you add in the great content this program offers … very powerful things are happening.”

Wipf said that she shares much from her fellow students, whom she knows only from their online interactions.

Thanks to her classes at Metro, Wipf learned how to conduct a feasibility study to help her understand what potential customers wanted in their hometown photography studio. She sent surveys to people in Weeping Water to learn what they wanted in props, backgrounds and photo-shoot locations. This helped her develop a marketing plan that led to her business success, she said.

“Lots of people in small towns want to open businesses, but don’t know how to do it,” Wipf said. “I recommend this program. It’s fantastic, and you can get it done in a year if you really push.”

To learn more about the Entrepreneur Program, visit its website or e-mail Nelson at hnelson@mccneb.edu.

In the 1990s, businessperson Dale Watley provided the college with a donation to help found the incubator. The institute has since been a major player in economic development in the 25 county region served by Central Community College.

Don Hulme, coordinator of the Small Business Institute, said an incubator in central Nebraska is important because it helps entrepreneurs establish a business in their own town rather than moving to another location for the assistance of an incubator.

“It was established to encourage the formation and growth of small businesses in the area serviced by the community college,” Hulme said.

The incubator provides counseling to small businesses and answers questions the entrepreneurs may have about starting the business. They also counsel already existing small businesses.

The SBI also has a specific location that serves as the business incubator, a space for clients to use for their business to save money on finding a location elsewhere. Its services have served anyone from manufacturers, service organizations, an auction house and a caterer.

“We’ve talked with any kind of business we can imagine,” Hulme said. “We’ve had varying kinds of businesses in our incubator.”

Small business owners utilizing the incubator are required to pay utilities and costs associated with the business. However, Hulme said the savings from using the incubator are higher than going elsewhere.

“We offer a facility that says ‘would you like to come into our facility?’ with a  little more space,” Hulme said. “We provide a building and a small lease amount less than going somewhere else. We’re fairly successful with our incubator.

“We offer them with services in advertising and we’ll try to find some help for them in bookkeeping.”

Like most incubators, the SBI also has a small loan revolving program. Instead of competing with banks, the SBI is able to provide some funds to these businesses and once the business pays back that loan, the money is then provided to another small business, creating a cycle.

The small business is allowed up to three years in the building location.

Hulme said the success rate of the SBI’s incubator is a good sign of the upward trend of entrepreneurship in places like Nebraska.

“We’ve been around a long time, we have a pretty good success rate,” he said. “I see a slight increase in those people wanting to start a business. On the incubator side, I see us growing into an incubator that makes available space for technology and Internet-type business startups.

The Small Business Institute at the Central Community College established the incubator with the goal to help business ventures see their visions become realities. Today, it still does this but its role is more important during the recent economic times because it helps spur job growth.

“One of our main purposes here is create new jobs,” Hulme said. “Small businesses are the real heart of what’s going on in the state.”

In this post, Nebraska Entrepreneur reports on two additional NCTA programs that teach the “art of ownership”: the 100 Beef Cow Ownership Advantage Outreach program, designed for adult students, and the Business Builders program, which encourages ownership among young Nebraskans of rural “Main Street” businesses.

100 Beef Cow Ownership Advantage

The Outreach program enables adults with agricultural experience to benefit from the 100 Beef Cow Ownership Advantage program without a traditional student’s two-year time commitment.

The goal is the same: To build collateral and gain experience in the business-side of farming and ranching through partnering with an established farmer or rancher. Banks typically require significant collateral and business experience for the large loans needed to purchase a farm or ranch.

Requirements for adult students are reduced since they have practical working and life experience that takes the place of some traditional courses, said Weldon Sleight, Ph.D., dean of NCTA.

Starting in mid-May, the adults take four courses over an eight-month period: a basic Farm & Ranch Management course delivered over the Internet;  the NCTA Cow/Calf College for three days in May; the Nebraska Ranch Practicum, which is approximately two days a month starting in June; and the Nebraska EDGE program that helps them put together a business plan and partnership agreement with an established farmer or rancher. They also apply for a low-interest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) loan for up to $300,000.

“So for these guys, it takes an average of two days a month for eight months, and then they have the knowledge that they will need to do the same thing as the younger students who come here for two years,” Sleight said.

NCTA Student Ambassadors

The Business Builder program will be piloted in two communities this year: Grant and Oshkosh.

Similar to how the Advantage programs pair students with established farmers and ranchers, the new Business Builder program will match students with existing “Main Street” businesses in rural Nebraska.

“The Main Street business owners are getting older, just like our farmers and ranchers, but there’s no one there to take their place,” Sleight said.

As part of a curriculum taught by NCTA instructors, high school seniors in Grant and Oshkosh will survey the demographics and business opportunities in their areas. In addition, the program will ask owners of community businesses when they plan to retire.

The program will match owners planning retirement with students interested in taking over those businesses. Students will develop a partnership agreement with the business owners who will mentor them. Each student will also develop a business plan specific to a business and apply for a loan to buy a part of the business.

Students will go to college but return home to work at their matched businesses during school breaks.

“It’s important that the original owner help that young person get established, get the customer base switched to her rather than continuing on with the older owner or going out of town for the same service,” Sleight said. “And so that’s that linkage thing that’s so critical in mentorship.  So we’re pretty excited about what can happen with that,” he said.

Funding for the Business Builder program comes from a rural business enterprise grant awarded by USDA Rural Development, NCTA and Perkins County and Garden County high schools.

Tim Mittan, the center’s director, said expanding the incubator office space within Southeast Community College’s building at 285 S. 68th Street Place will enable the incubator to add four new tenants to its current 13.

The SCC Entrepreneurship Center opened the incubator program to tenants in 2007.

“We wanted to create a nice, safe place for businesses to get started,” Mittan said.

This year, some businesses the incubator has nurtured over the past three years are beginning to make it on their own.

Engine House Café owner Roger Pletcher graduated from the center’s virtual incubator in October 2009.

Another business, Lincoln Life Coaching Center, graduated in February 2010. Although its partners ended that business and went separate ways, one of those partners, Deb Savage, said the incubator allowed her to learn from her first business attempt without “going broke” and now start a second business.

“Because for me, at least, I’d been a nurse for 23 years when I started and lacked a lot of business knowledge and background,” she said. Savage and four other partners recently opened a new business, KNECnet d.b.a. Up With Nurses.

“I’d never have been able to do this had it not been for the incubator,” she said.

Serenity Health Massage and Meridian Consulting are slated to graduate this summer. Nebraska Air Quality Specialties is scheduled to graduate in the fall.

SCC Incubator Lobby

Mittan said he’s not sure if the owner of Meridian Consulting will be able to wait until his business’s scheduled August date to graduate. The business is growing too fast.

“He cannot grow anymore here. He has employees. They are bunched up in two small offices. He’s running out of space. He’s running out of everything,” Mittan said.

While faster-than-expected growth might require adjustments, it’s a challenge many new businesses would likely welcome.

Mittan has directed the SCC Entrepreneurship Center for four years. He had a challenge of his own to meet when the center began developing the incubator program three years ago. Three previous incubator programs in Lincoln, all run by nonprofit organizations, had failed in previous years.

Like an entrepreneur preparing to start a business, the center staff started by researching their market, looking at entrepreneurial needs in the area and examining what made other incubators successful.

Mittan said a representative from a successful Colorado State incubator gave strong advice: “‘If you don’t create an incubator that emphasizes what you do as a college,’ he said, ‘you’ll fail.’”

The SCC Entrepreneurship Center incubator program followed that advice. The program has an educational component. The incubator is designed to help practical service businesses – businesses in the same industries for which Southeast Community College provides training, like auto repair, welding, accounting, day care, and practical nursing.

Center staff found at least 85 percent of the vocational technical students said they wanted to start their own business.

However, when the incubator opened, center staff received more requests from people in the community than students to locate at the incubator. Of the current incubator tenants, only two are students, Mittan said.

“We weren’t expecting that,” Mittan said. “We thought we might have some. I didn’t realize that 95 percent othe businesses would be from the community.”

SCC Incubator Office

Despite a somewhat different clientele than the center expected, Mittan said the incubator is meeting the center’s goals. Tenants must meet educational requirements, although the requirements vary depending on each business’s needs. Participants must leave the incubator after three years.

“That makes my job harder because we have to make sure they have a solid business in three years,” he said.

Since the center and the incubator are housed in a Southeast Community College building, tenants must follow the college’s rules. Tenants cannot serve wine at business openings or open houses. On holidays and snow days when the college is closed, tenants have no receptionist or mail service.

“Following some of the college policies is a little confining for them, but I think most of them deal with it just fine,” Mittan said. Tenants do have access to the building 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so even if the building is closed, businesses can operate.

Besides constant access to the building and reception most business days, tenants get copies and faxes at an inexpensive rate, use of the shared conference room, use of classroom space if necessary, discounts on any SCC workshops (but not full-credit classes), at least three networking events per year, corporate discounts, and free access to center staff business counseling.

An onsite secretarial service is available to them part-time; the center bills the tenants back for the secretarial time they use.

SCC Incubator Tenant Conference Room

While the incubator program rent is priced to be affordable for new businesses, Mittan said tenants aren’t there for the cheap rent.

“They need the networking, they need the support, they need to know what they don’t know,” he said.

Mittan and education specialist/recruiter Linda Hartman have an “open door” policy for incubator tenants when tenants need business advice.

“They don’t have to take our advice, but we’re pretty good at what we do,” Mittan said. “We’re pretty good at business basics.”

Mittan also encourages tenants to create business agreements with each other favorable to tenants.

“This takes some of the risk off, provides them clients and creates bonds between everyone,” he said. In addition, once tenants leave the building, they still have the relationship, he said.

Incubator tenant David Hefley, owner of Meridian Consulting, said the business relationships and friendships among tenants are an important incubator benefit.

“We are able to talk among each other about the challenges small businesses face,” he said.

Mittan and Hartman interview people interested in the incubator program and request that they complete a business concept form. Depending on when a business is accepted, the business may need to wait to start the program until a directly competing business graduates or until space is available.

More information on the incubator program is available on the SCC Entrepreneurship Center Web site.

“We teach entrepreneurship across our entire curriculum,” said Weldon Sleight, Ph.D., dean of NCTA.

Entrepreneurial skills can help rural residents to establish and maintain both agricultural and non-agricultural businesses in a time when Nebraska’s rural population is declining in many counties, Sleight said.

“Many times our children leave farms and ranches to go away to college and never find their way back,” Sleight said. “And that’s an unfortunate situation. Many times students who go away to college have never been shown what opportunities are at home.”

Of Nebraska’s 93 counties, 75 have lost population over the last eight years, he said, and some of these counties’ populations have been decreasing for decades.

“Rural Nebraska is dying, and we absolutely need these young people to go home to these rural communities and establish families,” Sleight said.

Nebraskan farmers’ average age has increased from 48.5 years old in 1982 to 58 today. NCTA’s programs aim to lower the average age of the farm, ranch and “Main Street” business owners in the state.

“It takes young people to go home, to have children, to keep the schools open, to keep Main Street open,” Sleight said.

The solution, he said, is ownership.

“If they own something, they’ll stay,” he said. “But if they are just hired hands, when a better job comes along they will leave,” Sleight said.

In this post, Nebraska Entrepreneur looks at two of the programs NCTA offers to promote agricultural operation ownership: the 100 Beef Cow Ownership Advantage Program and the 100 Acre Advantage Program.
Both are designed to help a young person get business experience running an agricultural operation and obtain the collateral needed to purchase a ranch or farm.

Traditionally, a young person interested in ranching or farming might work as a ranch or farm hand, hoping that in 10 to 20 years an opportunity to buy agricultural property might arise.

But if property is for sale and the person needs a large loan, the bank will ask for collateral and business experience. A person with only farm- or ranch-hand experience likely won’t have enough of either.

NCTA’s Advantage programs help students get the collateral and proven experience they need to qualify for a loan.

In the 100 Beef Cow Ownership Advantage, an NCTA student locates a rancher nearing retirement willing to participate in the program. The student creates a partnership agreement with the rancher, writes a business plan and buys 100 cows from the rancher with a low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Administration (FSA).

After graduation, the young person works full-time for the rancher, caring for the rancher’s herd and the purchased 100 cows that remain part of that larger herd.

“We think they will be much better employees because they’ll be owners,” Sleight said. “Their cows will be part of the herd, but they will be able to see that they are building something for the future,” he said.

Sleight said in 10 to 15 years after graduation, the young person could own 300 cows, either through purchasing additional cows or saving heifers.

Three hundred cows would have significant collateral value. In addition, since the FSA loan requires a business plan and cash flow statements every year, the young person would have proven experience in the business of managing the ranch or farm.

In this scenario, when ranch property comes up for sale, the young person will have the collateral and experience the bank requires for a loan.

Similarly, the 100 Acre Farm Advantage Program aims to help young farmers establish themselves in the business of farming. The NCTA student creates a business plan and partnership agreement that includes working for an existing farmer for three years after graduation. The student applies for a low-interest FSA loan to purchase seed, fertilizer and equipment to farm a portion of the land.

After three years, that person is eligible for a low-interest FSA loan for real estate of up to $250,000 that requires a 5 percent down payment. Sleight said NCTA hopes the person can save about $25,000 for the down payment during the three years working for the established farmer. The young farmer can then borrow an additional $250,000 bank loan guaranteed at 90 percent by FSA to offer little risk to the bank.

“This means a student could borrow half a million dollars, or $475,000 plus his or her $25,000, to buy that farm. This could happen three years after they graduated from college,” Sleight said.

Today 43 students participate in the Advantage programs, Sleight said, and 15 traditional and adult students in the 100 Beef Cow Ownership Advantage Outreach program have received loans.

Partners for the Advantage programs include the FSA, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA), as well as farm and ranch organizations.

“The thing we want to do … is not just send them home to be a hired hands,” Sleight said. “We want them to go home as a partner.”

In another post, Nebraska Entrepreneur will report on the Outreach program for adult students and the Business Builder program, designed to foster ownership among young people in rural Nebraska’s “Main Street” businesses.

The annual Nebraska Summit on Entrepreneurship is one event addressing those needs. It brings together those committed to increasing entrepreneurship – university officials, educators, business development specialists, business leaders and government officials – with students and members of the public who want to be entrepreneurs.

The Gallup Organization, the Nebraska Business-Higher Education Forum and the University of Nebraska sponsored the fourth annual summit. The event drew about 400 people from across the state on February 26, 2010 to the downtown Lincoln Holiday Inn to share ideas, create partnerships and network.

President JB Milliken

James B. Milliken, president of the University of Nebraska, said difficult economic times should not discourage Nebraskan entrepreneurs.

“I believe that opportunities for entrepreneurs in Nebraska are ripe, despite the struggling economy, or more accurately, because of it,” he said.

Milliken cited a recent Kauffman Foundation study that found more than half the companies on a recent Fortune 500 list were launched in a recession or bear market. The same study suggested job creation from startup companies is less sensitive to market downturn compared to job creation from other companies.

In addition, Milliken said, studies cite Nebraska as a good place to work and live. For example, in February, Gallup.com named Nebraska the second best market in the nation for job creation. Fortune Small Business magazine named Omaha and Lincoln among the best ten mid-sized cities in which to launch a business. The magazine article called Omaha, third on that list, a “hotbed of entrepreneurial activity.” The article said Lincoln’s small business owners form a “tight-knit community” that offers support for entrepreneurs.

Milliken said the University of Nebraska is committed to equipping students not only to get jobs but also to create jobs.

Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman said Nebraska is a model for the rest of the country in job creation and job opportunities. While the U.S. overall unemployment rate is about 9.7 percent, Nebraska’s 4.7 percent unemployment rate is among the lowest rates of unemployment by state.

Keynote speaker Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of the Gallup Organization, gave a call to action.
He said keeping the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) larger than the GDPs of other countries is necessary to maintaining U.S. leadership in the free world. If the U.S. doesn’t build businesses bigger and faster than other countries, the U.S. will lose that leadership, he said.

“We simply have to out-enterprise the whole world,” he said.

Thirty years ago, Clifton said, economists predicted the U.S. GDP would be behind that of Japan and Germany by today, given the economic trajectories of the time. The U.S., however, outperformed the projections by $100 trillion over that 30-year period.

Clifton credits entrepreneurship for making the difference. The economists’ predictions did not account for the invention of the Internet in the U.S., Clifton said.

Entrepreneurs of today and their mentors are keys to keeping the U.S. GDP in the lead in the next 30 years, Clifton said.

“The only way out of this is entrepreneurship,” he said.

The next big discoveries need to occur in the U.S., he said. Business leaders must ensure inventions like the Internet get commercialized and star innovators make their discoveries here, he said.

“As mentors, you and me, we’ve got to keep our eyes peeled for the best and brightest in the world,” he said.

Bo Fishback - Photo courtesy Kauffman Foundation

Bo Fishback, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, told participants about the foundation’s work in promoting and studying entrepreneurship.

Nearly 100 percent of net jobs are created by companies less than five years old, he said.

“Without startups, there is no job creation engine in this country,” he said.

The foundation is studying high-growth companies, which are critical to the economy, he said. About one-third of all new economic growth comes from fewer than 1,000 new companies started in the U.S. annually, he said. The foundation wants to help an additional 1,000 high-growth companies start up every year, he said.

The summit also included panel discussions on family business in Nebraska and student entrepreneurship and breakout sections on outreach, finance and taking products to market.

Shawn Thornton, a former heavy equipment operator who moved from California to Nebraska, said events like the summit have made him aware of the entrepreneurship resources available in Nebraska.

“There is a network of people and mentorship that I can tap into if I search for it,” he said.

For students schooled in the business of business, bringing a fresh idea from conception to cash-in is standard operating procedure. But college students majoring in other areas have little idea how to make opportunities for themselves when positions fill and prospects dwindle.

That’s where the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship, part of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Business Administration, steps in. Since 1981, the center has provided entrepreneurship courses to anyone interested, going so far as to waive class prerequisites for non-business students looking to gain valuable job skills.

Staff - Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship

“As it gets harder to get jobs in this economy, we see renewed interest from other (UNL) colleges,” said Kathleen Thornton, NCE interim director. “Students were not necessarily finding the jobs they wanted. Many of them were thinking about going into business for themselves, but didn’t have the business training and didn’t know where the resources were. They only knew what they’d learned in their disciplines.”

NCE, the second oldest such center in the country, makes it a point to fill those gaps in a student’s business savvy. Thornton estimates the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship has helped some 1500 students this year alone, either by hooking them up with mentors already established in Lincoln’s business community, or by reaching out to them through entrepreneur workshops custom-tailored to specific academic disciplines.

“We do one day workshops where we go in and tell them about the classes we offer and how that will help them round out their education if they want to be an entrepreneur,” Thornton said. “We also share a lot of success stories with them to let them know that other people from that discipline have gone and started their own businesses. When these students get done, they have some contacts and resources.”

But even with all this aid being handed out to non-business students, the NCE makes sure business college scholars aren’t left in the dust. The center endorses multiple business contests to spark the creativity of future entrepreneurs, giving them a chance to put their next great idea to the test. On February 25th, the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship and Lincoln’s Young Professional Group are teaming up to hold the 2010 Make it Happen UNL Student Quick Pitch Competition.

“A quick pitch is basically an ‘elevator pitch’ in which you have the time from the bottom floor to the top floor to share your idea,” Thornton said. “Students will have three minutes to pitch their idea to a panel of local entrepreneurs, business people and service providers, and then answer questions.”

The contest is open to anyone from high school freshmen to college students, and competitors will be duking it out for cash prizes. As an added bonus, the contest will be held in a Memorial Stadium skybox, providing a full view of the field below.

Through all its work helping students and fostering small business growth, Thornton believes the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship reflects the spirit of Nebraska itself.

“People in Nebraska are very entrepreneurial minded – I mean, who’s more entrepreneurial than a farmer?” she queried. “People here are very independent, and I think the ability to identify opportunity and try to find the means and the way to make it happen is present all around the state.”