Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge grows to reach more students through Kansas Masonic support

MANHATTAN, Kan., Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Entrepreneurial activity is a critical component of economic success in the United States, where business start-ups are responsible for about 20 percent of job creation. 

Kansas schools, from universities to high schools and middle schools, are encouraging young people to think like entrepreneurs to stimulate business growth in the Sunflower State and nationwide.

The Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge launched about four years ago and was a way for Kansas State University's Center for Advancement of Entrepreneurship to reach throughout the state to affect the business environment. Teams of students compete in a high school or college division to pitch their business ideas and top winners in each category receive dollars to move their ideas forward.

For Chad Jackson, center director, the program's growth has been nothing less than exciting. Initially just a competition for K-State students, a small local contest between students at Emporia State University and K-State led to growing the competition to include Fort Hays State University. Soon, the challenge to think creatively about business spread to all Board of Regents universities and some high schools.

"We partnered with an economic development agency called Network Kansas, and we grew it statewide," Jackson said. "We had 29 finalists. Each of the high school teams had competed in a regional competition, and then the best regional winners came to K-State for a competition."

The winners divided $11,000, depending on their final slot, to support their business pitch.

Then last year, the Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge partnered with the Kansas Masonic Foundation and Kansas Masons across the state to "really grow the program," Jackson said.

"This year the program is open to every high school in the state of Kansas," he said. "Each high school team will partner with a local Masonic lodge to get mentoring, advice and support, and ultimately each Masonic lodge will be able to send one team on to K-State for the finals."

During the next competition, $75,000 in cash prizes will be awarded to the winners. Just like in the Shark Tank television show, teams of college and high school students will get up in front of an audience and judges and share their passion to win.  

"They pitch their ideas, the judges ask questions, then ultimately the judges select the best one to get to come back in the afternoon and do another round," Jackson said. "I think it's creating this baseline of learning that's so beneficial. We know that not all of these students are going to go on to start businesses, but they've developed an understanding of business and how it works that's going to benefit them the rest of their careers. We want them to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. We want them to think like entrepreneurs."

Ben Jackson, co-owner of Bunjii, was one of the Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge winners last year, and he can attest to how much the program affected the launch of his new business. Bunjii is an app that operates as a "friend with a truck," allowing users who need something hauled to find someone near them to do the hauling.

Ben Jackson, a truck owner, knows what it's like to have friends constantly calling to use his truck. Although he didn't mind helping out, more than four calls close together triggered an idea in his head when he was a junior at K-State.

"My phone rang again, and this time it was Harrison, my classmate, and he asked if I could help him move his couch across town. When I was texting him, something clicked, and I ended up pitching the idea to Harrison," Ben Jackson recalled.

More than a year and a half later, Ben Jackson and Harrison Proffitt are partners and getting ready to launch their app. During their senior years, both of them business majors, the two worked with Chad Jackson and were deep into everything entrepreneur – learning, competing, talking with mentors.

"We won all the contests we participated in. It was an absolute blast," Ben Jackson said. "This Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge was absolutely the launching platform that put Bunjii on the map and has put us where we are today."

The challenge, along with another program called K-State Launch, taught the two men how to pitch their business, he said. "We pitched our business to entrepreneurs from Manhattan and Kansas City. I think it was probably right around 10 minutes to pitch, and then 10 minutes as well for them to literally tear the company apart and find reasons why it won't work. When you're starting a business, a good question to ask isn't how will this work, it's what problems are keeping us from working and trying to solve those problems."

Their experience at K-State gave them the confidence to begin raising money. They needed $200,000 to get started developing the Bunjii app.

"We went out and probably had 25 investor meetings set up, most of these in Kansas City," Ben Jackson said. "The questions that they asked us during K-State Launch were very similar to the questions that were asked by investors. I'm going to go out on a limb right now and say without Kansas State's entrepreneurial program, Bunjii would not exist."

The app is still being tested, but Ben Jackson and Proffitt went ahead and launched it in the Kansas City area as a test market. So far, it's been successful.

"We had a driver tell us, 'hey, I was online as a driver for six hours today, and my truck just made its monthly payment,'" Ben Jackson said. "It's one of those things where it's a great deal for the truck driver, because the truck can pay for itself. It's a great deal for the customer because they maybe bought a table that will take two weeks to deliver from the store and they need it right now."

Stories like Bunjii's are what made the Kansas Masonic Foundation get involved with statewide support. The fraternal brotherhood organization has thousands of members in just about every town in Kansas, and many of them have been businessmen in some shape or form, said Robert Shively, KMF executive director.

"Our members are eager to share their expertise and knowledge with students in their hometowns," he said. "But it's also important to us to fund opportunities like these, which grow the economic climate in the state and create exciting futures for these entrepreneurs."

Chad Jackson said the ideas pitched by entrepreneurs at past events run the gamut, from using drones for agriculture, an idea pitched by two high school girls from Atwood, Kan., and a winner last year to cell phone repair companies to apps like Bunjii.

"It's so much fun because these students, they pitch their ideas. They get up and learn to speak in front of people and they get to articulate their ideas, and that's really important," he said. "And on a whole other level, they're researching a business. You have to know it inside and out, from marketing and finance and operations. You're learning how that business works, so you're really setting a foundation of learning."

The response from high schools statewide has been "overwhelming," Chad Jackson said. "Not only from high school teachers, but when you look at economic development agencies associated with communities -- they get excited about it; they see these high school kids that have really good ideas and are interested in entrepreneurship, and they know that's the potential future of their communities."

For more information about the Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge, visit ksechallenge.com.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kansas-entrepreneurship-challenge-grows-to-reach-more-students-through-kansas-masonic-support-300372239.html

SOURCE Kansas Masonic Foundation

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]