Real Business

“Do you actually live here?” was the first question I was asked when I was announced as a Bath Entrepreneur in Residence. Strangely enough, a BEiR (as we’re called) does not actually have to reside at the university.

In fact, the post carries no requirements whatsoever. Some might think this lax but it plays to entrepreneurs’ strengths: the position is (just like any business) what one cares to make of it.

In the case of the University of Bath, I’ve been able to make a lot of it. I teach a number of classes in entrepreneurship, will be judging a business-plan competition and have had a lot of interaction with students about their business ideas.

I agreed to do all of this because I’ve always believed that the one thing most business schools lack is direct contact with business. (The fact that many insist on calling themselves Schools of Management has always implied to me that “business” is still something of a dirty word on campus.) Theory counts more than practise, so having a lot of practitioners on site can’t be bad.

This cuts both ways of course. Not only can entrepreneurs inject a valuable dose of reality, but we can learn a lot, too. Many of my preconceptions about university have been overturned: they aren’t ivory towers, packed full of listless, spoon-fed undergraduates studying pointless subjects. At least at Bath, they’re full of highly motivated kids who’ve worked hard to get there and are serious about challenging careers.

Even at undergraduate level, some of the students have already started their own companies. Dominic, Ed and Jason started the Bath Soup Company and are now looking for distribution, while Chris and Will’s frozen-yoghurt business, Arctic Farm, is already selling through Harrods and Sainsbury’s.

Doing their degrees while running their businesses has got to be the perfect training for a lifetime of entrepreneurship: always too much to do, always too little time. They’re inspiring because they’re living proof that, with experience, you can sometimes overwork a problem when what you need to do is just get out and talk to your customers.

I love being around these students because they’re optimistic, energetic and determined. But I also get a lot from them because they’re totally wired. A few months ago, they were given a pop-up shop in the middle of Bath and, every day, a different team tried out a new business there.

Being a business for one day only poses its own unique problems, not least of which is that your marketing doesn’t have much time to build momentum. And since all the money they had went on products, their marketing budget was non-existent. But these students had a market before they opened the door. How? They’d promoted their companies on Facebook, creating demand and footfall before they sold a single item.

When I teach my course on managing generational differences, I’m always struck that each age group thinks its way of working is best; they’re surprisingly intolerant of each other and seem to think that leadership consists of teaching others to work their way.

It’s amusingly contentious. But, as I work with these young students, I learn my own lesson: that there is no “right” way of working, only styles that are appropriate to projects. I like being challenged by Lithuanians who want to act first and reflect later. It’s healthy when Chinese students wonder whether a few rules mightn’t simplify processes.

The proof of the pudding lies in the fact that I’ve employed one of them, because being with smart, motivated young people is good for business.

A number of universities run these “Entrepreneur in Residence” programmes – if there isn’t one near you, there should be. One of the joys of entrepreneurship is that you never stop learning. That applies to teaching, too.