Moore Impact: The Darla Moore School of Business Podcast

Faber Fellows Shaping Student Entrepreneurship

Episode Notes

Season 2 Episode 39

Faber Fellows Shaping Student Entrepreneurship

Elisha Wilson, Finance and Management Entrepreneurship student, and Nishita Patel, Supply Chain and Management Entrepreneurship student at the Darla Moore School of Business, are the Faber Center’s first fellows. As pioneers in this new student role, they are setting a foundation for future participants and contributing to the development of student engagement within the center. Their involvement represents an important step in expanding opportunities for hands-on learning and leadership within the entrepreneurship program.

The Faber Entrepreneurship Center at the Darla Moore School of Business fosters experiential learning through consulting projects and research initiatives that connect students with real-world business challenges. The center partners with organizations such as the South Carolina Research Authority, Department of Commerce, and Chamber of Commerce to help bring innovative technologies and inventions into the marketplace. This semester, the center has hosted several events, including its ongoing Speaker Series featuring industry professionals, the Gridlock event, and the “Scary Good Branding” workshop, all designed to inspire and equip students with entrepreneurial skills and professional insight.

Topics include:

To learn more about the Faber Entrepreneurship Center, click here.

To learn more about Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Faber Entrepreneurship Center LinkedIn

Episode Transcription

Kasie Whitener (00:03):

Good morning, welcome into Moore Impact. My name is Dr. Kasie Whitener and I'm the host of our show here at the Moore School of Business on 100.7 The Point locally, and makethepointradio.com for everybody to hear. Also the Moore Impact podcast, which airs just a couple of weeks after each episode. So we're live on the radio here in Columbia and in a couple weeks we'll be able to access this on the Moore Impact podcast. Previous episodes all there and available to you. Again, it's the Moore School of Business, the University of South Carolina. And with me today, two students from the University of South Carolina. We've got Elisha Wilson and Nishita Patel, who are helping out as fellow Faber fellows in the Faber Entrepreneurship Center. And I roped them into coming in here as one of the directors of the Faber Center, I have the right to make them do what I want them to do. And so here they are helping me out. So welcome to Elisha and Nishita.

Elisha & Nishita (00:53):

Hi.

Kasie Whitener (00:56):

I'm glad you guys are here. So we just had a couple of big events for the Moore School, so I wanna talk a little bit about that. But before we do that, how about you introduce yourselves a little bit to our listeners. We'll start with you Elisha. Tell us a little bit about your Moore School journey. How did you get here, what are you studying and what do you hope to do with your business career?

Elisha Wilson (01:11):

So I actually came here from USC Sumter, I got my associate's degree there and then I came to, well transferred to Darland Moore. And that's been like a pretty big change. I'm now starting like finance and management entrepreneurship and what I hope to do, I guess becoming like a venture capitalist. Um, some form of analyst. I don't know the field's really wide, so I'm still kind of figuring it out.

Kasie Whitener (01:33):

With that finance major.

Elisha Wilson (01:34):

Yeah.

Kasie Whitener (01:34):

You have the absolute opportunity to invest in other people's ventures and things like that and you're learning a lot in the entrepreneurship cycle. You've also been part of the Boyd Innovation Center's efforts as well. So what drew you to entrepreneurship?

Elisha Wilson (01:46):

Um, it's actually been a part of my life since, I don't know, like out the womb .

Kasie Whitener (01:52):

Well, your mom's an entrepreneur.

Elisha Wilson (01:54):

Yeah, yeah.

Kasie Whitener (01:54):

Okay. Yeah.

Elisha Wilson (01:55):

My mom's had a restaurant in Jamaica, like pretty much since I can remember. Um, restaurant bar. We also had a farm and that's kind of like how we made money. So it's always been a pretty big part of my life. So, and that's how like, my mom's earned money for us to, I guess live life. So I didn't really know anything else outside of entrepreneurship, so I was like, this is kind of like a natural path. Let me just keep going down there.

Kasie Whitener (02:17):

Um, now is your family still in Jamaica?

Elisha Wilson (02:19):

So my mom, me and my mom have been here for like about 10 years now and the majority of my family moved over with us and then the rest, they're still in Jamaica. So like my cousin and my aunt's still in Jamaica and like my extended family, but like the core part of our family for the majority is here.

Kasie Whitener (02:34):

But they just went through that big hurricane.

Elisha Wilson (02:37):

Yeah, that's, that's been a thing.

Kasie Whitener (02:39):

Yeah. I wonder, but is your family safe? Everybody's okay.

Elisha Wilson (02:42):

My family is safe, thank God. You know what I'm saying?

Kasie Whitener (02:44):

Right.

Elisha Wilson (02:44):

But we've had my community specifically, we got really hit really hard just because we're on that coastline. Like literally had a house on the beach.

Kasie Whitener (02:52):

Wow.

Elisha Wilson (02:52):

So that house is gone .

Kasie Whitener (02:54):

Yeah. Yeah.

Elisha Wilson (02:56):

And I think about three people died from my community. So it's been a tragedy, um, was a very difficult and still is a difficult time for me knowing that everybody's like suffering and has been homeless and going through a lot and I'm not able to help or be there with them. Um,

Kasie Whitener (03:11):

Yeah, that's tough stuff. I'm sorry to bring it up and to like.

Elisha Wilson (03:14):

No.

Kasie Whitener (03:14):

But I mean, it just occurred to me as soon as you said that about your mom I was like that. That's right. Your family is Jamaican. Yeah. Um, so yeah, certainly always, always thoughts and prayers with that family and, and hope and, and the whole community there in Jamaica and hopefully they'll be able to recover. This is, hurricanes are big financial events too, right? Like they absolutely destroy businesses and they destroy livelihoods. So hopefully there'll be some recovery efforts available for those folks.

Elisha Wilson (03:35):

Yeah, for sure.

Kasie Whitener (03:37):

Alright, so you're here studying finance and entrepreneurship and Nishita's here with us too. What is your path, your journey here at the Moore School?

Nishita Patel (03:45):

Um, so I'm originally from Clemson, South Carolina, and my

Kasie Whitener (03:48):

Go Tigers,

Nishita Patel (03:49):

and my sister.

Kasie Whitener (03:50):

I know I can say that even on the Moore Impact radio show.

Nishita Patel (03:56):

And my sister came to USC and I was like, she like had the greatest time ever. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna look into it and not like go to Clemson, just do what's comfortable. So I came here and now I'm at the Moore School and I'm a supply chain and entrepreneurship major. And I have a minor in HPEB, public health. And so I'm looking to do something in the healthcare industry, but also like the management entrepreneurship side.

Kasie Whitener (04:19):

Okay. And what drew you to entrepreneurship?

Nishita Patel (04:21):

Um, so both of my parents were entrepreneurs as well. My mom had her own like clothing shop in India and now they both have their own businesses. So I've always like been like aware of like, things like that. And my mom, she like still to this day wants to open something else up. Like she just loves it. So then I was like, okay, I'm gonna like look into that too.

Kasie Whitener (04:40):

I love having this conversation with the two of you because both of you mentioned your moms being entrepreneurs. And of course I'm an entrepreneur and so I keep asking my daughter like, so, you know, like maybe you could start your own thing sometime. And she's like, zero interest . She's like, doesn't even wanna go to the business school. She's like, no, that is just not for me. But I just kind of like smirking at her 'cause I'm like, eventually you'll get there. Like, once you see that modeled in your life, once you see somebody who's got that kind of, uh, independence, the ambition, the desire, and then really kind of building their own path and having agency in their own life, then you think like, I absolutely wanna do that too. So you're here in school, kind of paying your dues, like learning all the foundational stuff you gotta know in finance and in supply chain. And then you kind of go, okay, but eventually I'm gonna take that experience. I'm gonna turn it into to running my own path, going my own way. All right. So we brought you into the Faber center as Faber fellows. It was a little bit of a bumpy ride because we've never done this before. So you're our first two inaugural Faber fellows. What were your expectations when you came to the favor center? Did you have any,

Elisha Wilson (05:41):

Um, chaos ,

Kasie Whitener (05:45):

Because entrepreneurs, yay.

Elisha Wilson (05:47):

That's exactly what I was expecting because it's like we had no idea what like our duties were going to be. Um, and only as it was kinda like, Hmm, we'll see as we kind of get there as we kind of go along. So I was like, okay, I can work with this.

Kasie Whitener (05:58):

Yeah.

Elisha Wilson (05:58):

You know, we, we can do this. Like, so I think it's just kind of like a go with the flow learning as we go. Um, and it's been kind of that just like a really, like learning as we go.

Kasie Whitener (06:09):

I think you're getting a chance too, to sketch it out for people who will come after you.

Elisha Wilson (06:12):

Yeah.

Kasie Whitener (06:12):

Which is like very entrepreneurial to say like, there is no path here, but I'm just gonna make the path and then I'll be able to define this role for the people who come after me. Did you have any expectations? Nishita?

Nishita Patel (06:23):

Um, I didn't, I knew that it was gonna be like a creative, um, environment. So it's like innovative and like you get to learn a lot from that. So that's just what I had in mind.

Kasie Whitener (06:32):

And there'll be t-shirts eventually we'll have T-shirts. Yeah. .

Nishita Patel (06:36):

Bonus.

Kasie Whitener (06:37):

and events and free food. There's been lots of free food.

Elisha Wilson (06:40):

Yes. Yes.

Nishita Patel (06:40):

Yes. That's a great part.

Nishita Patel (06:41):

Love of food. Yeah.

Elisha Wilson (06:42):

Love that. .

Kasie Whitener (06:44):

Every event we have, we're like, well, as long as we have food there, we can get the students there to hang out and, and have something to eat. So that's good stuff. So you've both been part of the fee, the speaker series. Um, what are your thoughts on the speaker series? We had a couple of different folks that came in. We had Van Robotics, uh, Laura from Van Robotics came. Um, so was there anybody that stood out to you or any of those speaker series events that you thought were particularly interesting?

Nishita Patel (07:06):

Um, I think, like, it's really interesting to see how like the engaged the students are when people are talking, and then the questions they have to piggyback because the speaker series are very informational, but there will always be questions. And like, there will always be something that hasn't been said that the speakers get to answer. And I like love to like hear what people have to think. 'cause then I get to think about how other people are thinking.

Kasie Whitener (07:29):

Yeah. Yeah. I like it. And I like the idea that the students are very responsive mm-hmm. To our speakers. Mm-hmm. And sometimes I worry that like, we're just hearing the same thing over and over again. When you bring community people in, like they don't know that the person who came before them was also laying down the advice.You know what I mean? That's like, take advantage of everything and sees every opportunity. And then you go, okay, we're just gonna hear this for like the fifth time because every single speaker says the same thing. But I like that when the students start to ask questions and engage, it changes the dynamics of the conversation. They're really getting something a little bit different out of it. Was there anyone that stuck out to you? Elisha?

Elisha Wilson (08:02):

I would say, uh, Laura?

Kasie Whitener (08:04):

Mm-hmm . From Van Robotics. Yes.

Elisha Wilson (08:06):

Yeah.

Kasie Whitener (08:07):

They're the ones that are making the, like desktop robots that are engaging with students and delivering a, uh, a learning experience through those educational robots, which are, it's cool. It's a little weird, but it's a little cool. . It's like the robot is responsive to how the students are engaged with what they're doing. It can read their facial expressions and their eye contact and things like that, which is like very intuitive. And so then it can tee up different learning pieces and, I don't know. It's, it's really smart. Really super advanced. Alright, we're gonna run a break on the other side. I'm going to, we're gonna start talking about some of these events that we just covered. Uh, Elisha and Nishita here joining me as our Faber fellows for the Faber Entrepreneurship Center. This is Moore Impact, don't go away.

Kasie Whitener (09:02):

Welcome back. It's Moore Impact. My name is Kasie Whitener and I'm the host of the Moore Impact show where we like to bring our Darla Moore School of Business scholars and practitioners into the studio here at Millwood Avenue on 100.7, The Point, and makethepointradio.com and talk a little bit about what's happening in the Moore School and how that is impacting our community, our state, and even our, uh, our nation, um, at the, at the international level even. So we've had scholars in here before, talking a little bit about the connection. Last week we had Phil Chritton from the Folk Center. Um, and this week we've got two young scholars with us. We have our, uh, Elisha and Nishita who are our Faber Fellows from the Faber Entrepreneurship Center. And we were talking before we went to break a little bit about the, your entrepreneurial journey, the vision of entrepreneurship that you have, both your moms being entrepreneurs, um, and Elijah, you've been participating in the Boyd Innovation Center programming. And so tell us a little bit about Startup Sprint and then, um, about the, there was a, the second program that you were part of as well and COLA Starts or something like that. Anyway, yes. I'll let you give the names here for the Boyd Innovation Center. Um, and tell us about your concept that you've been working on.

Elisha Wilson (10:04):

Okay. So initially I went to the Boyd Innovation Center just for like a coffee and chat. That was it, . And then I met Caroline Crowder. Um, and she posed me with a question like if I could be doing anything right now, just like on a beach, anywhere. And so I told her about the, my business plan, which was I am very passionate about like financial literacy, financial education, and bringing that to an underserved market. Um, kind of like where I'm from in Jamaica, you know, like financial education isn't really a big thing there. So like bringing that to like an underdeveloped market and improving like the wealth within that society. Um, so and so when I spoke to Caroline about that, she kind of told me about Startup Sprint and that was like the next day . Yeah. So I was like, okay, um, I can do this. Sure. And it was a 24 hour kind of like run about creating like an MVP with two brand, just like random strangers. You're in a room with these people Right, right. And you present your idea to them and people are like, okay, I wanna work with you. So I had, I believe Lauren Tiller was working with me and then Ryan Menner, um, he was a software engineer and Lauren is a UX designer. So I was like, wow, okay, great people on my team.

Kasie Whitener (11:20):

Right.

Elisha Wilson (11:20):

We literally had a website up in the 24 hours, um, about the financial literacy. And I was like, this is pretty much like the coolest thing I've ever done.

Kasie Whitener (11:29):

Yeah.

Elisha Wilson (11:29):

And then directly after that, I think maybe a week, two week later, they had like Cola Starts, which was a six week accelerator. And I was like, sure, I'll sign up for that. Literally last minute, I think the day of, I signed up to Cola Starts and got accepted and I was working on my business, which I named that sound like Finn Whiz.

Kasie Whitener (11:48):

Okay.

Elisha Wilson (11:48):

So that was the name that we kind of came up with. Um, so did that. And then I was doing market research and trying to reach out to people and get their ideas on financial literacy, how I could present it to people to make it engaging and fun. 'cause like numbers isn't really that fun. , nobody really wants to like learn about finance. So I reached out to I think about like 30 students I got involved with like my professors and had one of my professors like give out a survey to his students, which was about like 50 students. And got some feedback there that was super fun. Finished the program, presented, did a pitch. It was like a pitch in front of like 250 people.

Kasie Whitener (12:30):

Oh my goodness.

Elisha Wilson (12:32):

Yeah, it was.

Kasie Whitener (12:32):

That's a huge crowd.

Elisha Wilson (12:33):

It was a lot. It was, it was, it was a lot. . I was definitely nervous, but like, I think I did a pretty good job. Nobody noticed me sweating in my boots. So ,

Kasie Whitener (12:43):

That's good stuff.

Elisha Wilson (12:44):

Funny experience.

Kasie Whitener (12:44):

So you do that pitch, um, at the end of the six week experience. And this is a Fin Whiz as far as it being a website or a program or a business, is it off the ground? Are you taking in customers? Are you really working the business or have you kind of put it on the shelf for a little bit?

Elisha Wilson (12:58):

Kind of put it on the shelf a little bit? Yeah. 'cause directly after that, it wasn't like my spring semester. And then I started my internship not too long after during the summer and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm helping my mom's business. I'm doing this internship and I'm also trying to work on schoolwork. Like, ah, it's too, it's too much .

Kasie Whitener (13:14):

It's too much. Yeah, I could see that.

Elisha Wilson (13:15):

So I was kind of like, I was just stretching myself thin and if I'm gonna give something, I'm gonna give it like a good a hundred percent of myself or like where I'm good, I'm happy with the results that I'm producing. So I kind of put it on the shelf for a little bit. Um, and I was working on the coding for it, like trying to code with AI and do that myself. I am not a coder.

Kasie Whitener (13:34):

Elisha Wilson (13:35):

I am not a tech person.

Kasie Whitener (13:38):

There's a trend now, I can't remember what it's called, but it's a, there's a trend of like people going to AI and, and getting it to code for them.

Elisha Wilson (13:44):

Yeah.

Nishita Patel (13:44):

And then they take this, like this thing that they've kind of done with AI generated code and they're like here and they give it to their developers. They're like, you can start with this. And then the developers are like, uh, no, this is not, this is not well coded. This is not the thing you wanna start with, but at least it creates what we call a minimum viable product. Right? So that MVP gives people a vision of this is what I expect it to look like or this is how I expect it to function. And then you can give it to somebody to like kind of build it out and make it a little bit more functional. But if you've got that and it's kind of sitting on the shelf waiting, then that when you do get a chance to kind of pick it up and run with it, you have that understanding of like, here's my next steps and this is what I have to do to, to build this out. Fin Wiz is, I think going into a crowded marketplace, because I hear a lot of people talking about financial literacy, like that's a real challenge for folks. People really wanting to understand how do you learn about money at whatever age and stage you're in, right? Yeah. Um, and I think a lot of times people aren't as excited to learn about money if they don't have any money. It's like, why should I bother learning about money I'm broke? You know what I mean?

Elisha Wilson (14:45):

Literally.

Kasie Whitener (14:45):

But that's, but that's the case is like what, that's exactly when you should be learning about money is like how to make the little bit of money that you have stretch how to find a way to save, how to find a way to invest. Like you can do that even when you don't have a lot of money, but you gotta have the tools and you gotta kind of know how to do that.

Elisha Wilson (15:01):

Yeah. That's cool. It's kind of working on like figuring out how to give people an intellectual property and a way that they'll like able to receive it well.

Kasie Whitener (15:09):

Sure.

Elisha Wilson (15:10):

So it's like, I was doing a lot of research and like, what age is best to learn this at? Because at some point, you know, people are like, Ugh.

Kasie Whitener (15:18):

Can't teach an old dog new tricks? I mean, I know I'm only 19, but you can't teach me new tricks. . No, I think you're right. Like at some point people go, I just don't get it. Or I've tried multiple times and it's just hasn't worked for me. I think it's the same with foreign languages or like trying to learn a musical instrument or something like that. If you've had a few failed attempts at this, then you're gonna be skeptical over whether or not this program can really get you where you need to go. Okay. So you start this, uh, experience with the Boyd Innovation Center. I think that's where we found you. I think that's where Dr. Graybeal found you. But Nishita, you were in one of Dr. Graybeal's classes, is that right?

Nishita Patel (15:49):

Yes. I am, currently.

Kasie Whitener (15:49):

Yeah. So that's kind of how we found you to become part of the Faber Entrepreneurship Center. And we, uh, roped you into helping us with a lot of things. Um, and we're not very clear about the directions we plan to give you or the expectations we have for you. Um, but we're grateful to both of you for being Faber Fellows . And, uh, I I just wanted to add that, uh, in our gridlock event, we could not have done it without you. Can I just, I wanna be very clear about that. We absolutely could not have made gridlock work without you because there's only two of us in Dr. Graybeal and me and being able to move the chairs around, check people in, make sure everybody knew what was going on, advertising it, putting up on LinkedIn, like all the things that had to go to build this event, it's bigger than a speaker series. The speaker series events are 45 minutes to an hour, they take place on campus. We have on campus catering, like all of that's pretty easy. It's kind of plug and play. But Gridlock was off campus. We had a different catering, we had, uh, there was just a lot of moving parts there. And the two of you were able to pick those things up and run with them. We're so grateful to you. I mean, even just going down and getting the coffee on Thursday on, uh, Friday morning and, and carrying the coffee down, ,

Nishita Patel (16:51):

It was a lot of coffee.

Kasie Whitener (16:53):

It was a lot of coffee. Um, tell me just a little bit about your impressions of the Gridlock event, uh, in terms of like how long it, it was, uh, the, the number of students that were there, the topic, like what are some of your thoughts, just kind of off the top of your head.

Nishita Patel (17:06):

Um, um, there were a good amount of students and I saw a lot of repeat students. They came the first day and then they also came the second day. So that shows that they were engaged and like the information was like actually viable to them.

Kasie Whitener (17:19):

Sure.

Nishita Patel (17:20):

And

Kasie Whitener (17:21):

Well, they were engaged and also they were also bribed to be there because they were , They got class credit for being there. So there were quite a few of them that were mine. And, uh, Dr. Braybeal's students, they get class credit for being there. So, but you're right. If they absolutely hated the idea, they wouldn't have come. Right. Even no matter how badly they needed the class credit.

Nishita Patel (17:40):

But I also saw like a lot of the students asking the speakers questions so they were actually engaged, not just there because they had to be.

Kasie Whitener (17:47):

Sure.

Nishita Patel (17:47):

And when they did like their interactive problem solving and like, the students were like really active and like, they came up with a lot of ideas and it wasn't just like they were there to be there.

Kasie Whitener (17:57):

Yeah. I appreciate that. And I think that's the, the unstructured part of it was that we had these three companies that were presenting, um, just who they were as companies. And then they had these kinds of, like, I have, we have this problem, it looks like this. And then the student's job was to ideate, like, how can we solve these problems for these companies with very little information? I mean, they, they, they have access obviously to being able to Google or to, you know, ChatGBT and try to get, generate some ideas in that way. But I mean, it's not like they were out there talking to customers. They weren't out there watching how the business operates. They were just sort of operating on like the limited knowledge that they had about the companies. And so then they, I thought it would give them a chance to be really super creative and just let their imaginations kind of go wild. But I think in the beginning that very first iteration, there was a lot of, like, we don't even know the answer. It's almost like there's just not enough information to answer the question. Not enough information to answer the question. I was like, yeah, well you're not gonna get anymore. So I'm gonna need you to push past that initial resistance.

Nishita Patel (18:57):

Yeah.

Kasie Whitener (18:57):

And continue. And to try like, just, so I'm not sure if that unstructured, uh, design was as effective as we wanted it to be, but it was some, certainly something, um, unusual and something that they hadn't experienced before.

Nishita Patel (19:10):

I did have a couple groups ask me, they were like, wait, like what do we do with this? And like, they didn't have enough information. And I was like, you just, you guys just have to like, use like what knowledge you have and like come up with something creative.

Kasie Whitener (19:22):

Yeah. They do. And how did they respond to that?

Nishita Patel (19:26):

Um, they were just like, they didn't know what to do.

All (19:29):

Nishita Patel (19:30):

And then, but like, there was always like one person in the group who like had that creative flow, so then they would like bounce like ideas off of each other and it like ended up working out.

Elisha Wilson (19:40):

Yeah.That's kind of like what entrepreneurship is. It's just like working with what you have and just like bouncing ideas off each other.

Nishita Patel (19:45):

Yeah, exactly.

Elisha Wilson (19:47):

Yeah. It's like a, it's a creative flow.

Kasie Whitener (19:49):

It 100% models your typical entrepreneurial experience. And if you're not somebody that has been in those conversations before, it can be very awkward. And especially I think a lot of our students have their, uh, the restrictions of the rubric, right. Like they have, the expectations are very, are made very clear for them on like 90% of their assignments. So when they get into, like mine and Dr. Graybeal's classes where we're like, we just, we don't rubric at all. Like, that's just not a thing. We're like, I need for you to just like, run as far as you can, as hard as you can, and then just show me what you got. And, uh, I think there are some students that are a little intimidated by that. Like they feel like I don't, if if I don't know the clear expectations, I don't even know where to begin.

Elisha Wilson (20:31):

Yeah. Especially on like, the finance side that's like complete opposite .

Kasie Whitener (20:34):

Oh yeah. Those finance classes pretty clearly mapped out.

Elisha Wilson (20:37):

Yes. Mapped out word for word bar for bar. You have to hit everything in the rubric.

Kasie Whitener (20:42):

Yeah. Yeah.

Nishita Patel (20:43):

I think I kind of see that in Dr. Graybeal's class because his, it's like a very creative class. And then our group was like, oh, are we even like doing this? Right. But he's like, you just have to like, use like the flow of what you have. And then we're always like, oh, is this like enough? Like, are we doing like the right thing? , we just, we just go with the flow.

Kasie Whitener (21:01):

It's a hundred percent in my class too, right? Where my and my students will go, well can you take a look at this before I turn it in just to make sure I got it right. I'm like, no, turn it in. If you think you got it right, then turn it in. If you're worried, then do more if you're worried, give it a little bit more effort. Yeah. We, uh, we definitely have the, I think Dr. Braybeal and I are on the same page as far as that conversation is concerned. Um, the creativity is what matters to us on the entrepreneurship side. This is Moore Impact. You're listening to Kasie talking to Elisha and Nishita about our experience in entrepreneurship over at the Moore School of Business. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

Kasie Whitener (21:41):

Welcome back to Moore Impact. My name is Kasie Whitener. I am the host of our show. We'd like to bring our Darla Moore School of Business practitioners and scholars in from Green Street over to Millwood Avenue. And talk a little bit about what's going on at the Moore School and the impact that we're having. And today I've got two recipients of Said Impact, which is our two students, Elisha and Nishita, who are both, uh, Faber fellows with the Faber Entrepreneurship Center and have participated in our most recent events, which were gridlock and scary. Good branding. So first I wanna talk about Gridlock because we talked a little bit about it last segment, but I wanna tee it up for our listeners so they know exactly what it was. Gridlock was in partnership with the South Carolina Research Authority and with the SC Nexus program, which is the, uh, department of South Carolina Department of Commerce program focused on energy grid resilience. And the idea was to bring forward some entrepreneurs who are working in that energy space, renewable energy, battery technology, that space that's really, uh, gotten a lot of focus lately from the Department of Commerce and have those entrepreneurs share challenges that their companies were facing with our students. And then get our students to ideate, uh, some solutions to those challenges and to give some insight and some perspective on what they thought those companies could do. So we had three companies. One of them was SOSE Charging. They are a truck that's got a gigantic magnet in it that generates power, electricity for electric vehicles. And so what SOSE charging will do is go out and service electric vehicles that get stuck on the side of the road. If for whatever reason your vehicle ran out of inter ran out of power, this happens less often than we think it would. Um, but it is still a need or a, a niche market for an opportunity there. And so our, uh, entrepreneur who's in that space wanted to understand a little bit more about his go-to market strategy and how he should be selling his services. He's currently on a subscription model. So our students started thinking about who might be a better sale. So they started looking at selling to the insurance companies or selling to hotels, things like that. Um, it was kind of interesting. It was. And, and that company is also being a project in my, uh, 473 class. Um, and then the second, uh, company with Sun Energy Systems, they build, uh, solar panel designed, uh, or they design, I should say solar panel and other efficient energy, um, systems, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, they're con uh, a consulting company. And then the third company was Fenecon who is actually a battery, uh, manufacturer. And they were here as well. They had these, these gigantic batteries that they sell. They wanted to understand how to get into more of a B2B sale. So all that to say , we have all these students that rotated. And I think total we ended up with about 160 students, um, as like some of them came and they stayed for the whole time. Some of them came in and out because of class. Um, some of them were there for half the day, part of the day. Um, in any case, the energy in the room seemed to shift a little bit as we were moving in and outta these problems. Um, and then this last Friday event, it was similar. It was, uh, Scary Good Branding where we brought in six entrepreneurs who were all working in that marketing and branding space. And we sat them down with the students and we had the students ask them questions. So we're pushing a lot of the, uh, the intellectual work onto the students. And what I mean by that is like, we're trying to get the students to ask the questions and get the students to drive the conversation. And I'm not sure how receptive they are to that. Discuss.

All (25:00):

.

Elisha Wilson (25:03):

I think that a lot of the students were like curious. Some of them were just like kind of in and out for class, obviously. Um, but I think for the majority they were definitely like interested in asking like deeper questions like customer segmentation, um, where the companies are, where the brands expect to be, like, is the next five years, what's the next step? What's the next plan? Um, and the entrepreneurs, like they gave a pretty good response to the students. So I remember for Creative Plus she had said that, you know, she wanted to expand her. I think creative plus .

Kasie Whitener (25:37):

Cameron. Yes.

Elisha Wilson (25:39):

Yeah. Yes. Cameron Creative. Um, just kind of like getting her, her branding out there. She does like software engineering. Um, and she has a customer like archetype, no Marketing archetype quiz.

Kasie Whitener (25:49):

Yes, yes. Yeah. The marketing archetype quiz.

Elisha Wilson (25:52):

Yes. Which I think is like really great. Um, so she wanted to like just get her customer segmentation together. And I think that was like really interesting. Um, but I think a lot of the students are really engaged and ask like really deep questions.

Kasie Whitener (26:05):

You think, uh, and this is on Friday?

Elisha Wilson (26:07):

Yes.

Kasie Whitener (26:07):

At the Opportunity workshop? Yeah.

Elisha Wilson (26:08):

Yes.

Kasie Whitener (26:08):

And the Opportunity Workshop, the design of that, like I said, having the students sit at the table with the entrepreneurs, it's meant to be that small group discussion. So they should have a little bit more confidence 'cause they're not having to ask the questions in front of a big group. Um, ideally the students then can lead that conversation because they feel comfortable with the people that are at the table with them. And I think that works very well. Our entrepr, the entrepreneurs are always very impressed with the questions that the students ask and the engagement that the students give in that small group environment. Yeah. Um, Nishita when you think about the Gridlock, the kind of the vibe in the room with Gridlock and the way people were engaging with one another and also with our entrepreneurs, do you have any feedback like whether or not we should have done things differently? Should we have given more structure? Should there have been worksheets? Like, um, any thoughts on like how that could have been maybe a little bit more productive?

Nishita Patel (26:54):

Um, I don't think that there should have been worksheets per se, but maybe like a little bit more like structure just so that the students know exactly like what they are doing. 'cause I know, like my group, they texted me, they were like, I don't even know like what we're supposed to be doing. And I was like, I can't help you like . So maybe like a little more information, but definitely not a worksheet because I would like not let their creative juices flow, but a little something more maybe.

Kasie Whitener (27:18):

Yeah. We ended up hanging up the pages. Uh, we had given them these long, um, the gigantic Post-it notes basically. But they're flip charts. Right. And we'd given them these long pages to be able to, um, put all their ideas on them and to jot down all their notes on them. And then, uh, we hung them up all around the room and you could see some of the groups that had drawn pictures and they'd drawn diagrams and they had gotten like way more creative. And then others, like with the bullet points that these were the con and at the end, in the one 10 group, we had that, uh, that class come in and try to synthesize everything they were seeing. And they're all kind of overwhelmed by all the work that had been done before they got there. And I was like, just start with the things that you're seeing a lot. Right? So like if you see on these, you know, seven or eight pages that we have for SOSE charging, you see the same idea on all eight pages. Then that's, you know, idea number one is the thing that showed up in every single group, right. Idea number two is the one that showed up in like six of the seven groups. Idea number three is the one that showed up in like five of the seven groups. So like, bring emer, let those things that showed up a lot emerge and hold onto those. And then the ones that are just sort of one-offs, can you build them out a little bit more? Can you develop those concepts a little bit more to make them more viable? And so that, I think that direction in that 110 class kind of ended up creating these little, uh, slide decks that we built for our actual um, entrepreneurs that said, this is what the students were able to come up with for you.

Nishita Patel (28:43):

I think you can definitely tell which students like want to be there and they like actually have the entrepreneurship background and then what students are like forced to be there by their class. 'cause then their post-it note was like completely empty. Like they had like a sun on it or something. And then other groups, I was walking around and I saw like a lot of, like, they had a lot of like interactive things on their PO posters. Mm-hmm . So they would have like pictures, but they would have words to go with their pictures and they would like, have descriptions and all that. And then I went around to some groups and it was like, they had like nothing on there and it was just like the question written on and like, yeah.

Kasie Whitener (29:20):

Yeah. And they get, and sometimes they think too, 'cause we left them very unsupervised. Like we weren't, it's not as if there were faculty members wandering around, prodding them and pushing them and things like that. We left them like completely alone. And so though it's interesting to me too, like the ones that really jumped in, dug in. Like, I don't wanna waste my time here. I wanna learn something. I really wanna work on this. And the others that were just like, when is class over? When can I go? You know? Um, which there's just a spectrum of like level of engagement as far as the topic is concerned. And it was a very niche topic too, because we're thinking about the energy sector and these renewable, it's, it's not like there was something for everyone, right? Like we didn't have, you know, here's something in the entertainment field and here's something in the sports field and here's something. And that it was like, we're all focused on renewable energy for this period of time. And so some people really into that. Other people not so much. Right? Alright. So as you guys are organizing things for us, uh, as Faber fellows, what are some of the hurdles or challenges you see in like, the organizational side of things? Um, building an event like this? Was that the first time you've built an event like these two?

Elisha Wilson (30:25):

Not necessarily, because I've worked at, like, as a work study for USC Sumter, um, and we've done like similar things. So like it's, and I've also for my mom too, so like if I had, we had to do like catering, it's like pretty similar, um, in a way. Like we've helped to like set up as well as like, you know, take some pictures and content creating.

Nishita Patel (30:44):

Sure.

Elisha Wilson (30:45):

Um, put together some stuff on like the backend. So like we had to take down the, what was it, like check in students and all that stuff and then gather all that information and then send it back out. Um, so I would, personally for me, it's not my first time.

Kasie Whitener (30:58):

Yeah.

Nishita Patel (30:59):

I would agree with that. I'm also like, I'm like the public relations chair for like a couple clubs, so I'm like really familiar in the social media background.

Kasie Whitener (31:05):

Sure.

Nishita Patel (31:07):

And helping setting up, I'm like on executive board. So like that's like kind of what we have to do. So it's not particularly my first time.

Kasie Whitener (31:14):

These are experiential learning opportunities for y'all. Right. Because then you go out into the workforce, you get that job in finance or in supply chain or in healthcare, like as you're leaning toward, right? And then you go, oh, well I've done things like this before. They might have been on a, on a smaller scale, but the processes are the same, right? Like, let's sit down, let's organize, let's put together our to-do list. Let's, you know, our checklist of things that have to get done. Let's put some dates on them, like when these things need to be done by. And then let's work through that list and, and make sure things are getting completed. And then holding each other res you know, accountable for it too. Like, Hey, you said you were gonna do this, did it get done? Um, and if not, how can I help? Like those kinds of things. So it's that experiential learning that like academics like to be really academicy about, you know, and going, okay, well this is what it should look like. But then we go, well we just built it and then we just did it. And then later on you go, wow, I actually learned something and I I definitely got my like, do this, don't do that kind of stuff from it. So go ahead.

Elisha Wilson (32:09):

And I think what was like really unique about us being like F fellows is that we're kind of like doing it on the fly.

Kasie Whitener (32:14):

Yes.

Elisha Wilson (32:15):

. So when we're having to like check in students, we come in and we're like, okay, how are we gonna do this? Um, and I pulled out my laptop and I'm like, okay, we can do this on Excel. You can maybe highlight some stuff on the sheet and we kind of like collaborate. A lot of the times. So I'm like, past hammers off. Sometimes she's taking pictures, um, and I'm taking videos or like vice versa. So we're pretty much like working off of each other. Um, designing this role and like figuring out how we can do a Great job at being a Faber fellow.

Nishita Patel (32:40):

We, yeah. We like piggyback off of each other. So she had the computer so she would be like typing in the names that weren't on the spreadsheet.

Elisha Wilson (32:46):

Yeah.

Nishita Patel (32:47):

And I would do the people that were on the spreadsheet 'cause it was like I just had to highlight them. And then I'm sitting at the front and she's taking pictures or like vice versa.

Kasie Whitener (32:55):

Right. And this the spreadsheet that you guys are referring to, we had some people who registered for the event. We had asked students to register ahead time because we wanted to know what their account for lunch was gonna have to be to let the caterers know.That's really the only reason we're looking for registration. So we know how many people we have to have sandwiches for and, um, what you guys are doing for us is providing us data which says, this is how many people registered, this is how many people actually showed up. These are the people who stayed the whole time. These are the people who left early. Like, and that data helps us to figure out, okay, what kind of space do we need to, uh, provide for the next time? And what can we expect our turnout to be? And when we're trying to get sponsors for those events, we can let them know, hey, we expect to turn out to be about 160. We expect the turnout to be like 45. And that's data that helps us to grow the Faber Entrepreneurship center. So it's really valuable to us for the two of y'all to be there and be able to collect that data. You have other obligations because you're students. So I'm gonna let you guys go and I'm gonna spend this last segment, um, on my own. So thank you very much Nishita and Elisha for being here. We'll see you next time.

Kasie Whitener (34:20):

Welcome back to Moore Impact. My name is Kasie Whitener. This is our Moore School podcast and our live radio program here on 100.7. The Point every Tuesday morning at 9:00 AM We're grateful to the Moore School for support of this program and giving us a chance to talk about what the school is doing and the impact that we're having on our students and on our community, and really the state and the world, quite frankly, as the number one international business school, uh, the Darla Moore School of Business is glad to be participating, um, with a lot of really cool stuff. And so you got to hear in the first three segments from two of our students, Eisha Wilson and Nishita Patel, who are both Faber Fellows with our Faber entrepreneurship center under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Graybeal and myself. And we have had some, uh, pretty cool events that we've been doing lately.

Kasie Whitener (35:06):

What we try to do at the Faber Center is to supplement what the students are learning in the classroom with extracurricular events. So we have our favorite speaker series where we bring entrepreneurs in. Typically they're more school alumni that will come in and sit and tell their story. Uh, the most recent one was, uh, Elena Arecco Bridgmon from Lumo. She came in and talked a little bit about how she got into professional coaching, career coaching and how they've built out their consultancy associated with that. We also heard from Laura of Van Robotics. Uh, we mentioned that Elisha mentioned that as we were talking in the first few segments. And Van Robotics grew up here in, uh, the Columbia area and has, uh, really made a name for themselves in the education space by building robots that help students to work through problems, work through, uh, academic curricula, um, and free teachers up to give extra help to, to students while the the small little desktop robots are leading the students through.

Kasie Whitener (36:01):

They're also fun, right? So, um, and they can keep track of student behavior. They can see how the students are responding and engaging with the material as the, the program is going on. So, Van Robotics and other, um, great influential, uh, local entrepreneur here, um, uh, Laura being a real contributor there at the Faber center as well. So then this past week we had Scary Good Branding and scary good branding because it was on Halloween , we called it Scary Good branding. Um, and we're glad to participate with that. We had a bunch of entrepreneurs come in and talk to us about marketing and branding and getting their name out there and, and how they were building their consulting businesses, um, related to that. And then, uh, the week before that, we did Gridlock that was focused on the energy sector, and that was technically called a hackathon where companies came forward with problems and ask our students to find answers to the, to the challenges that they were having, to the problems they were having.

Kasie Whitener (36:53):

Um, and so those two events are, are were our big events. They were, you know, the Scary Good Branding was a three hour event. The hackathon was a two day event. We did a Thursday night kickoff, and then we did all day Friday. So those, uh, require a bit more commitment from the students to come and be there for multiple hours and participate in a number, in a variety of activities while they're there. The open ended pedagogy style of these events is something that, uh, from an entrepreneurship perspective, Dr. Graybeal and I feel gives students a chance to be creative, uh, really tries to push them to think past the, you know, those first five questions. And we have, uh, structures like the why, uh, the why, why, why structure, where every time you say something they answer, the question is why. And then you're supposed to go deeper and deeper and deeper.

Kasie Whitener (37:38):

So, um, you know, I have this company that makes robots for the education space. Why? Well, because teachers have a lot of students, but can't always give students one-on-one personal attention. And then, okay, why? Well, the robot can actually read the student's feedback, their face facial expressions, and can tailor its responses to how the student is behaving. Why? Right? Well, because if you can keep the student engaged, you can get the student to actually learn the material. Why? Right? And so, and anyway, in this methodology, this why, why, why methodology, the idea is to try to get our, uh, thinking through sort of the full concept of either the solution that we've created as an entrepreneur or even the business that we're building as an entrepreneur. And in our Gridlock event, this, uh, I, I feel like that that structure helped our students who are working specifically with the SOSE charging company to be asking, you know, why, why, why, why, why?

Kasie Whitener (38:33):

As far as like, what is the market opportunity here? How are we going to recognize or, or realize the revenue that we need to be able to support what this company is trying to do? Is there, are there enough customers out there to be able to generate enough revenue to really make this a profitable business? They had a, a chance to really dig, uh, pretty deep on that. We started the gridlock event with the South Carolina Research Authority. Oh, about a year ago, we had this idea that we wanted to do something like this and, um, organizing it and building it out. It took a while for us to figure out who did we want to engage and how do we wanna engage them. In my Management 473 class, which is a developing and launching new ventures class, we decided, I decided to focus the curriculum on the energy sector and give these students in this semester a chance to do a deep dive in things like, um, the energy, renewable energy space, uh, all the different companies and opportunities that are working in this space to handle things like grid resilience.

Kasie Whitener (39:35):

Um, it's a big topic politically, but it's also a big topic for our society really, is how are we going to handle what seems to be an ever increasing need for electricity generation, uh, electricity storage, electricity usage, specifically as we think about these data centers being built out and the impact that those data centers are going to have on our overall electric grid. We also have, uh, infrastructure in the electric grid space that is, um, aging and, uh, in some cases poorly maintained and could use some updates, could use some investment. And so a lot of the conversation that we have in the class this semester is around where are there entrepreneurial opportunities in that energy space? Is it around maintenance of existing grid infrastructure? Is it around creating new devices or building new, uh, systems that can do a better job with our existing infrastructure?

Kasie Whitener (40:32):

Or do we need to upgrade to be able to take advantage of software and security measures that are available for us? Um, the, the energy grid is a, a big vulnerability for the United States, and I think that's a topic that a lot of people are already, um, aware of or already talking about. And so when we think of this federal government investment in South Carolina directed at Grid Resilience, which is under the Department of Commerce's, SC Nexus program, if you're curious about that, you can just go Google Department of Commerce, St. Nexus, or you can go to South Carolina Department of Commerce, St. Nexus, and, uh, you'll learn more about what that investment looks like. But they're basically, uh, receiving federal grant money to be able to build out really, really incredible, um, grid infrastructure programs. There's one down in Charleston that's associated with Clemson University, that they basically have, uh, the ability to replicate any grid in the world and then test that grid for whether or not it can sustain new uses or, or, or new infrastructure.

Kasie Whitener (41:42):

And what I mean by that is they can simulate if it is, um, well, we'll see Boise, Idaho, right? Do we wanna put a data center in Boise, Idaho? What would that look like? We'll come to this Clemson Center down in Charleston, and we will recreate that Boise Idaho grid. We'll, we'll be able to show it in sort of a testing model. Then we will add that data center and see what it will do to the Boise Idaho grid, right? And so before we even build out these things before we, you know, green light them before, uh, you know, state legislatures agree to have them before county governments start to, you know, lure them here or whatever it is, all the sort of political infrastructure that would like to grow, you know, in, in one way or the other, you can use that grid test testing center to see if the electricity grid is able to sustain that investment.

Kasie Whitener (42:34):

Um, that's a big deal when we think about here in the Columbia area, Scout Motors being built up in Blythewood as they are considering what is the, what are the needs of Scout Motors? What, what is that plant going to require? Everything from the stoplights to get in and out of the facility to the energy that the facility will actually use, um, and, and need. They could use that grid testing facility down in Clemson before they ever break ground on Scout Motors to determine whether or not this is a, a good investment and what is it actually gonna cost and what kind of energy, um, investments are we gonna have to make to be able to support the Scout Motors plant if it comes to Blythewood. So those are questions we can get answered ahead of time because of this testing facility down in Charleston.

Kasie Whitener (43:19):

And that's just one of the things that is being funded through the SC Nexus program. Um, there's also, uh, interest in new, um, restarting our, our nuclear power programs. There's also, um, interest in, uh, battery in energy storage. Um, one of the companies that worked with us in Gridlock, Fenecon, they have energy storage capabilities. So I'm not sure how much people know our, our friends here at the point, broker solar, broker solar, uh, has solar panel arrays that they will put on homes and on commercial buildings. And that solar power, it doesn't, it's not solar power that goes like directly into your lamps and your televisions and your air conditioning to power things. It's not like you're using the solar power right away. Solar power gets stored. And, uh, so part of what you get with your broker solar array is this battery that, that you store the power, right?

Kasie Whitener (44:12):

Um, and so the same thing happens with these large solar farms. They, they generate this tremendous amount of energy. They, that energy needs to be stored somewhere before it can be usable in our devices and at the levels that we want to be able to distribute it through our house or through our office and things like that. So Fenecon does that. They create these huge battery, uh, storage capabilities. They look a little bit like the big tractor trailer trucks that go on the back of semis in, um, on, on the interstate. And they have batteries in them and they can store, they can absorb and store that solar energy or wind energy. Um, any kind of alternative energy can be stored in those battery arrays, and then they can be, you can access the battery to be able to, to power whatever it is you're trying to power.

Kasie Whitener (44:56):

Okay. So, , if I haven't lost you yet, , if you're, if you're listening and you haven't and you haven't completely checked out of this energy grid conversation, there's a lot of really interesting things happening in this space. And so why is this important to our Moore School students? Well, Moore school students don't necessarily have a lot of exposure to the energy space except as consumers. And so with partners like Dominion Energy with partners like Fenecon, um, Sun Energy Systems, SOSE Charging, um, Phenogy, uh, sc um, Sustain SC, all these groups that are participating in my 473 class, we're helping to educate at the very least, these 44 students that are in this class as to what all the opportunities are available to them in that space. Thank you for listening. This has been Moore Impact. When you learn more, you know more, when you know more, you do more. Thanks for listening.