When thinking about entrepreneurial spirit, there are several different things that can come to mind. Leadership. Vision. Creativity. Open-mindedness. Risk-taking. The list can go on and on. At Golden Gate BPO Solutions, we pride ourselves on the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s what we’ve established our business on after all. We saw a need for a more niche-focused provider in our space, the business process and contact center outsourcing industry. And we went after it by becoming one of the first client-centric, high-touch services based outsourcing organizations to provider tailored and customized solutions to smaller and mid-size companies.
It’s important to understand that entrepreneurship isn’t something you can just learn or be trained on. It’s a characteristic that is inspired over time through passion, ambition and dedication.
That’s why it’s imperative for us as an organization to help mentor and grow young entrepreneurs when they first show the chops and desire to excel in those characteristics, and we do this through our involvement with the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business.
In early May, our CEO and Dingman Center Board of Advisors member, Stephen B. Ferber, mentored students as a part of Business Management 461, an undergraduate course where classmates form teams and start real-world companies that earned hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. What’s so amazing about this is that every student team made money in a situation where the students went through an entire cycle of entrepreneurship – something even many adult entrepreneurs find extremely challenging, if not impossible, to do in today’s business world. Not only did these undergrads succeed in business, but they truly experienced what entrepreneurship feels like to get an idea of what their career path may be in the future.
Students also learned how to execute ideas and pivot when necessary. Ferber referenced one of his favorite mantras, “a well-executed average idea is much better than a poorly executed great idea,” before congratulating and presenting winners in five categories:
Most Creative Idea: Chill-O, a company that sells jelly ice pops or “gelsicles” with real fruit. Unlike traditional ice pops, the treats do not become a drippy mess at room temperature. “In fact, the flavor of our gelsicles intensifies when they defrost,” the company claims on its Facebook page. “It becomes a bar of jelly.”
Most Likely to Persist after 461: Terp Gear, which sells Maryland-themed iPhone cases. Students sourced their products from China and sold them on Amazon. They hope to expand by selling cases decorated for other universities.
Most Challenging Pivot: Frocket Power, a company that sells T-shirts with bold pocket designs. The original concept was Study Buddy, a tutoring service that failed to generate revenue.
Most Profitable Company: By Accident Photography, a photo services company led by photographer Justin Derato, an environmental science and policy major scheduled to graduate from UMD in 2018.
Most Profitable Individual: Derato, who enlisted 17 classmates to support By Accident Photography. He said the secret to his company’s success has been persistence and flexibility. “Whatever you do in life,” he said, “there are going to be bumps and turns.”
The passion and involvement that we at Golden Gate BPO Solutions share for helping mentor these students most definitely shines through in their own young success and entrepreneurial spirit and ideals. We know that it will be something they will continue to exhibit every day in their own careers in the future.
Written by Jaime Weinsier