Some of the world's most prominent entrepreneurs – including Walt Disney, Levi Strauss, P.T. Barnum and the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy – stopped by Humanities recently to pitch their groundbreaking ideas to a discerning audience featuring two area business pioneers.
These business titans were masquerading as Union students in the final class of “The Mind of the Entrepreneur,” which culminated with an “elevator speech” competition.
The competition comes from the idea of an entrepreneur encountering a prospective backer in an elevator and making a pitch before the elevator doors open. The students had exactly two minutes to pitch their ideas to raise capital for their proposal.
They tried to sell their ideas to the judges, Brian Epstein '88, founder and president of WiFiFee, a wireless internet provider, and Harry Apkarian, founder, director, chairman and CEO of TransTech Systems Inc., a manufacturer of high-tech equipment for the road construction industry. Apkarian is the College's first “Entrepreneur in Residence.”
Manuel Ulloa '08, posing as Steve Jobs, took first place for pitching the idea of Apple Computer; Jonathan Hoffman '06 was second, as GM founder William C. Durant; and Jonathan Wilcon '08, impersonating media mogul Ted Turner, finished third.
Despite the emphasis on entrepreneurs, Economics Professor Dr. Harold O. Fried stressed the class “is not a business course.
“The course examines and investigates the academic research to problems and issues faced by an entrepreneur,” Fried said, noting that students had a module of cognitive psychology to help them learn about techniques of persuasion.
Psychology Professor Kenneth G. DeBono met several times with the class to discuss psychological research and theory underlying a host of “compliance” strategies.
“These are essentially techniques that make it more likely that someone will agree with a request than if the request was asked outright,'' DeBono said. “I hope the students got a little insight into social influence processes and learned something about human nature. It was my expectation that students, at least as potential entrepreneurs, learned something about how to better frame a request and communicate more convincingly an idea or proposal.”
When it came time to put into practice what they had learned for the elevator pitch, a number of students used props, costumes and sweets to woo the audience. At stake: gift certificates to the College Bookstore.
Before judges Apkarian and Epstein announced the winners, they passed along some of their sage advice, encouraging students to be focused and direct when trying to get people on board with an idea.
“This is probably the best class I've seen,'' said Epstein, who has judged similar contests.