Mississippi State University's Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach continues to grow after moving to a larger space in McCool Hall last year.
After moving from a second floor suite to a 2,000-square-foot facility, the center's entrepreneurship teams have tripled in number since 2014. Along with the new area, the center also provides a small startup space in the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park for technology companies.
MSU's E-center Director Eric Hill told the SDN in the past three years, the center has gone from 30 to around a hundred entrepreneurship teams that predominantly consist of students from all academic colleges in the university.
Hill said the new facility has been one of the largest drivers in the growth of the center because most students will have a class in McCool Hall so they will be able to physically see it. Also, incoming freshmen will now be able to see the center during orientation and learn about it.
“Those two factors alone expose people that MSU has that resource and then hopefully (students) drop in and find out more,” Hill said.
ANGEL INVESTING
The E-center recently became involved with a new angel investor funding program called the Bulldog Angel Network (BAN). MSU alumnus and founder of BAN, Wade Patterson, told the SDN the Bulldog Angel Network was established to provide investment money that MSU students, faculty or alumni companies will be able to use to initiate their businesses they started up through MSU's E-center.
Patterson also said many of the people who are joining BAN are willing to help mentor students in order to increase the odds of the student's business being successful.
“There's really just not a lot of investment money in the area and so I'm trying to solve that problem with the Bulldog Angel Network,” Patterson said. “It's designed from the ground up to have members from all over the United States.”
Hill said the center's future growth lies with BAN because it is the missing link between ideas with potential from the lab and turning them into a real company.
“Wade brings an unbelievable amount of experience to the table that we otherwise couldn't have,” Hill said. “By organizing our alumni network and highlighting opportunities, it allows alumni to reconnect with the university and help support these students and faculty members that are starting businesses that really can change the world.”
The Bulldog Angel Network is separate from Mississippi State University.
FUNDING
In fiscal year 2017, Hill said the E-center has received $5.52 million in grants to help students, MSU researchers and U.S. armed services veterans develop the skills they need to be successful.
Hill said he is excited about the $495,300 grant from the National Science Foundation which was awarded to the center in March. Only 67 schools nationwide have the been awarded this grant. The NSF grant helped to create an I-Corps site at MSU.
“The whole purpose of (the NSF grant) is to fund high technology based startups in the STEM field,” Hill said. “(Students) can apply through our center, get a small NSF award and then they can go on to compete for a $50,000 grant at the national scale.”
Hill said another big award was from the Small Business Administration, which administers roughly $824,000 to the center for five years totaling around $4 million. Hill said the award goes toward helping the center begin global training for veterans who are transitioning out of the military and are interested in entrepreneurship as a career path.
“We will be teaching a six-week follow-on course that these guys can take while they're over seas and they can learn about how they can start a business and actually write a business plan during the course and hopefully by the time they leave the service they can start a business,” Hill said.
Other smaller grants combined with the NSF and Small Business Administration helped to bring the total to over $5 million. The center's 2017 fiscal year ends June 30.
The overall vision for the Center of Entrepreneurship and Outreach, Hill explained, is to make students and people aware that MSU has the capacity to help grow entrepreneurs.
“At the end of the day, we hope that the center has a steady stream of young students that are coming up with amazing ideas through their coursework and then building out companies that are financially stable by the time they graduate so that they can step out of the classroom and into a real life business environment they created,” Hill said.