by Ayla McDonald
A new business program called CobraVenture will be offered to Parkland students during the Spring 2019 semester. “CobraVenture is a student entrepreneur cohort for current Parkland College students who want to start their own business while still in enrolled in college,” the CobraVenture website says. “The cohort model provides for a close-knit group to embark on the process together, through a series of workshops on topics important to getting their businesses started.”
Organized and run by the Parkland Foundation, by Parkland College Community Education, and by the Office of the Vice President of Communication and External Affairs, the CobraVenture cohort is open to all Parkland students from any program.
“We want it to be open for as many as possible…The only requirement is that they have to be enrolled in at least three credit hours for Spring 2019. So you can be full or part-time,” said Stephanie Stuart, Vice President of Communications and External Affairs. “The concept is that, no matter what program you’re in…if you have the entrepreneurial spirit…the college can actually provide to you a structured support to help you be successful at starting that business, and then eventually…give you a platform to help launch the business, some thought process behind developing that business plan, and then connect you with community resources at the end to be able to continue on.”
Stuart says that the cohort will be selected this month by an advisory committee and that students will begin to meet for a series of workshops at the beginning of Spring semester 2019.
“In terms of selecting participants on the front end… we have established an advisory committee that will meet in early December that’s comprised of Parkland faculty, Parkland administrators, and then also outside individuals, foundation donors, and just local business leaders, as well as some individuals that are connected to the entrepreneurial community outside of Parkland,” Stuart said. “We’ll select the class in December and it’ll kick off actually in January…every other week, more or less, there will be a workshop and students that are a part of the cohort will be able to attend…[workshops will] be on different topics that are related to business, so obviously there will be sort of an orienting type workshop, a workshop about how to develop your business plan, about marketing, about financial management, and those sorts of types of topics.”
Following info sessions about CobraVenture that were held at the beginning of November, Stuart says that the program has received a lot of interest from students of all backgrounds.
“We’ve received a good number of student applicants,” Stuart said. “The applications we’ve gotten so far are from virtually every area of the college and the ideas are creative…we’re excited to establish who will be in it, and then we hope to announce that class probably in January.”
Students accepted into the CobraVenture cohort will have the opportunity to receive up to $3,000 in seed money for starting their business by pitching their business ideas to a panel at the end of Spring 2019 semester at a Pitch Showcase event.
“The ‘Pitch Showcase’… will happen in May, and it will be a capstone event…for all the CobraVenture participants,” Stuart said. “We’ll have local business leaders that will be there as part of a panel to evaluate the pitches and we’ll award some dollars… that’s part of the agreement that the donors have made with the foundation, that there would be specific funds made available to students to help start their businesses. So they’re not scholarships, they’re not loans…obviously there will be some bigger prices than others for those that do exceptionally well, but we don’t want to have any participant walk away empty handed.”
Even if an applicant is not accepted into the CobraVenture cohort, Stuart says that resources will be made available to all and encourages students who did not apply to still reach out.
“We want to help all, so regardless of whether or not students make it into the cohort we’ll have resources available to them. It may not be as in depth as CobraVenture the cohort, but… If you submit we’ll follow up with you regardless of whether or not you make it in,” Stuart said. “There is contact information on the CobraVenture website… so if you missed the deadline you won’t be able to be part of the cohort, but if you still want to just stay connected don’t hesitate to reach out and say, ‘hey I missed the deadline but is there something else that I could be doing or other ways that I can get help to start my own business?’…we’re hoping if this is successful that we can continue in future years…I would just encourage students to believe that you could do it too and that there will be people for you to learn from, you don’t have to have all the answers today. If you really do have something that you’re passionate about we want to uncover that and encourage you to think about the big possibilities because that’s why you’re at Parkland, that’s why you’re in college, you’re here to explore and then also to take a few risks in a supportive place.”
Further information about CobraVenture can be found at the Parkland College website.
