I have an idea, but no one else to help me. Can you help me find a co-founder type of teammate?
I’d like to join someone’s team. How do I find them?
I’d like to find teammates with different skill sets than mine. Do you know anyone?
I want to do a startup but I need a co-founder. Where do I go?
These are queries I hear from students all the time. It doesn’t matter the domain discipline, student level, or the idea; students are not encouraged to find and build teams for projects outside of class. Students know they should work in teams on innovation projects – they can’t do it alone. However, they don’t know how to solve the problem of finding the right people. They don’t have the training to do this, there are limited opportunities to network, and students are intimidated by not knowing where to go or how to do it. But if you give students the chance, will they build great teams, solve big problems, and advance their ideas and projects towards reality? You bet they will.
If they’ve talked to me, or anyone at the Big Idea Center, then they are already halfway there to solving the team building problem. The Big Idea Center is a community of innovation-minded students, faculty and staff. We are all about ideas being limitless and helping students achieve their dreams. But we can’t help students if they are not already seeking. They need to want to engage. And if they do, the benefits to them are… limitless.
Additionally, for those students who really want to build a team or join someone else’s team we have designed an event with you in mind – Big Idea Blitz (taking place 5 PM, Friday, January 24 to 5 PM, Saturday, January 25). This event is designed to introduce the student to how to develop an idea and a team to create something that matters, that has legs, that has a chance to really become a product or service in the real world.
At Blitz, you will have the chance to pitch ideas, vote for the best projects, recruit teammates, or join a team with a big idea that resonates with you. You can consider these teams to be 24-hour teams, the length of the Blitz event, or 365-day teams, where the team gels and bonds and continues working together towards a common goal. No matter what path you choose, Blitz gives you the opportunity to meet other like-minded folks, interested in innovation and entrepreneurship. We help, but we don’t dictate. We facilitate, but we don’t judge. We encourage – that’s why the Big Idea Center exists.
I have seen that if we, at the Big Idea Center, provide a platform – like Blitz – for students to ideate, build a team, work together for a while to see where it goes, and get some help along the way from our entrepreneurs in residence, students will rise to the occasion and do those things that they must do to get to the next level of realizing their dreams.
The next real level for such projects is the Randall Family Big Idea Competition (starting in February and running through March). If you take the idea/team/project from Blitz into the Randall Competition, you will be further along than those who are just starting to develop and test an idea and build a team. My call to action to all of you students is to participate, to try, to do something for the first time – Blitz – and then see where it goes, where it takes you. Because, in my experience, students who are engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship are better students, better citizens, better employees and better people – because they make innovation real.