Exemplary Exercises for Entrepreneurship Education

The 48-Hour Project

In my experience, the most influential and educational project is an adaptation of an exercise developed by Tina Seelig (2009) for Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Week. Students are placed into groups and tasked with creating as much value as possible in 48 hours. The term “value” is intentionally vague and may be defined differently for each group, but I tell students that their definitions of value must be (a) quantifiable and (b) recognizable as valuable to other students. Group members are allowed to plan and schedule their actions, but must select a 48-hour window in which they will create value. I also tell the groups that I will provide a nominal amount of money or supplies. For example, I have provided groups with 5 quarters, 10 paperclips, or 30 rubber bands. At the beginning of the 48-hour window, I provide the group with the supplies. At the end of the 48-hour window, the group must submit a brief report describing how they defined value, what actions they took to create value, and how much value they created. After all groups complete the project, each group is asked to create a 5-minute video to present their project to the class. Videos are peer- and instructor-rated for creativity, appropriateness of the definition of value, and amount of value created. Instructions for the 48-Hour Project are presented in Appendix A (available online at http://mtr.sagepub.com/supplemental).

Success in this project can take many forms. Groups are often surprised at the impact their actions can make in such a limited time frame. For example, one group started with 10 paperclips and organized a clothing drive, collecting 950 items valued at $4335.12 based on the Goodwill valuation guide. Another group started with a package of sticky notes and launched a crowdfunding campaign, raising $1,455 for the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration. These groups recognized the limitations of their initial resources (paperclips and sticky notes) and chose instead to leverage their social networks to communicate their idea and create value. Another group used $1.25 I provided to purchase trash bags and spent their time extracting recyclable materials from trash cans and dumpsters (quantified as 5 pounds of aluminum, 6 pounds of plastic, 7 pounds of cardboard, and 20 pounds of paper that were recycled instead of thrown away). Although they chose to focus on social as opposed to financial value, they successfully quantified this value and were rated by their peers as having the highest amount of generated value in the class.

This project serves multiple purposes. First, it allows students the opportunity to think creatively in the service of accomplishing a goal. Second, it provides students with a realistic preview of challenges they will face as entrepreneurs, including the creation of value and communication/marketing of an idea to others. Students who create social value learn about problems associated with recruiting volunteers, soliciting donations, and forging relationships with local organizations. They also experience the challenge of quantifying and communicating social value. Third, this project teaches students to rely on more than just physical and fiscal resources. Students learn quickly that the paperclips or rubber bands are a distraction. Their main ability to create value lies in their human resources, including time, effort, knowledge, skills, and abilities. Finally, the 48-Hour Project asks students to find the best way to communicate their ideas and results to the instructor and their peers. Students learn the value of emphasizing strengths and communicating how they handled problems or setbacks in a way that makes them more marketable.

The Marshmallow Challenge

The Marshmallow Challenge is a teamwork or leadership exercise that requires students to build a freestanding structure using 20 strands of uncooked spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and a marshmallow in 18 minutes (Wujec, 2010a). Instructions for the Marshmallow Challenge are presented in Appendix B (available online at http://mtr.sagepub.com/supplemental). Although not originally intended as an entrepreneurship exercise, this challenge has many ties to entrepreneurial thinking and behavior. First, creativity and innovation are directly rewarded. Second, students draw on their own knowledge while determining the expertise of their group members. Groups must leverage their strengths to maximize success in a limited timeframe. Third, students must protect their intellectual property by finding ways to ensure other groups cannot copy and improve on their ideas. Finally, this exercise places students in a leaderless group situation where responsibilities must be delegated and conflicts must be resolved quickly.

I usually assign this challenge as an in-class project with randomized group assignment and no advance warning. This forces students to collaborate quickly while minimizing the impact of prior experience and existing relationships. I assign extra credit to the winning group(s) and follow the assignment with a discussion of the aforementioned concepts as they pertain to entrepreneurship. The website also contains a TED talk by Tom Wujec (2010b), which can supplement the discussion.

Alternate Uses and Remote Associations

I demonstrate the concepts of convergent and divergent thinking in creativity (Guilford, 1956) by assigning an in-class exercise where students must complete two tasks. The first task, known as the alternate uses test (AUT), was developed by J. P. Guilford and colleagues (Wilson, Christensen, Merrifield, & Guilford, 1960). This task presents students with different objects (e.g., a brick, a fallen tree branch, a wet flash drive) and asks them to think of as many uses for each object as possible. The second task, known as the remote associations task (RAT; Mednick, 1962), presents students with a set of three words and asks them to find a related fourth word. For example, the words “falling,” “actor,” and “dust” are all associated with the word “star.” Instructions for Alternate Uses and Remote Associations are presented in Appendix C (available online at http://mtr.sagepub.com/supplemental).

The AUT uses divergent thinking because it asks students to create as many options as possible from a common starting point. The RAT uses convergent thinking because it asks students to find the “best” solution to a problem. Both divergent and convergent thinking are useful in the creative process, and these tasks demonstrate these concepts well. These tasks can also serve as an introduction to discussing the relative merits of divergent and convergent thinking. This discussion leads to the conclusion that iteratively cycling between the two modes of thinking ensures that multiple options are considered and the best option is selected. These tasks also facilitate discussion of decision-making tools such as brainstorming and the Nominal Group Technique (Delbecq & Van de Ven, 1971).

A variation on this exercise asks students to complete a set of alternate uses and remote association tasks individually and a separate set of these tasks in pairs or groups. By assigning these tasks to both individuals and groups, instructors can demonstrate the value of collaboration in the creative process. Students working in pairs or groups may use ideas from other group members to enhance their own ideas or follow a thought process they would not have generated if working alone, which can enhance creative output.

The Personal Branding Project

Entrepreneurs must cultivate an ability to sell. This skill is useful when introducing yourself to others, explaining an idea to interested parties, or soliciting funding. The ability to engage an audience and maintain interest through enthusiasm and authenticity is invaluable. Many business courses (especially those focusing on business communication) ask participants to practice and deliver an elevator speech, or a short and interesting description of what they are attempting to convey. Communication comes in many forms (e.g., verbal, nonverbal, written, electronic), and it is important for students to develop proficiency in each. This project provides an opportunity for students to research best practices for creating and using each communication tool. It also allows students to learn about self-marketing.

Since not all students have existing business ideas, the personal branding project is intended to teach students about selling themselves. This project involves four deliverables: a business card, a resume, a LinkedIn profile, and a 15-second “personal pitch.” Instructions for the Personal Branding Project are presented in Appendix D (available online at http://mtr.sagepub.com/supplemental). Creating a LinkedIn profile teaches students to think broadly about their skills and experiences while considering how to organize and convey that information to others. The business card and resume represent traditional forms of business communication. Asking students to fit pertinent information onto one card or one sheet of paper teaches them to prioritize the most important information. I encourage students to integrate the deliverables. For example, the card and resume should contain a link to the profile and the profile should provide the ability for viewers to download the resume. Organizations, employers, and investors may value different forms of communication, so students should be familiar with the most common options.

In the personal pitch, I ask students to state their name and talk about themselves as a professional and as a person. It is important to communicate skills and abilities, but it is also helpful to convey approachability. I encourage students to include information about interests or hobbies, particularly those related to an anticipated career. I teach a section on nonverbal communication (e.g., face the audience, make eye contact, what arm/hand position conveys). Students are encouraged to work with classmates to rehearse their pitches before presenting in order to receive feedback regarding content and presentation skills. Each student is required to present their pitch in front of the class. This provides each student with presentation experience which can build confidence.

Conclusions

One of my favorite aspects of entrepreneurship education is that many concepts can be applied to nonentrepreneurial careers as well. Additionally, many of the skills are applicable to students’ personal lives. An emphasis on creativity, problem solving, and communicating the importance of one’s actions to others is valuable to both traditional employees and entrepreneurs. The utility of the exercises listed above is not confined to entrepreneurship education, but could apply to other areas of management education including leadership, organizational behavior, conflict management, and communication.

This article is limited by an inability to empirically assess the outcomes of these exercises. The practical utility of these exercises remains to be determined by their ability to influence educational outcomes such as grades or course satisfaction. Ideally, these exercises will assist students in their future careers. For example, the Personal Branding project may lead to more successful job searches; the Marshmallow Challenge may influence effective team building, communication, and teamwork; and the 48-Hour Project may assist students in defining and communicating the value of their actions and outcomes. Future management education research should assess the impact of these exercises on educational and vocational outcomes. ¹

In management education, it is imperative that students learn skills that are applicable beyond the classroom. Experiential learning exercises at both the individual and group levels can encourage students to hone these skills in a low-risk environment. Classroom demonstrations of key concepts, such as those described above, are integral to engaging students and providing them opportunities to mimic real-world scenarios in a classroom setting. Overall, students are engaged in completing these assignments and seem to enjoy putting course concepts into practice.

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