New program helps students launch businesses

Are you passionate about solving a problem? Do you have a great idea? Do you have the perseverance to give it a go?

A new student accelerator program, 77IdeaLab, is designed to help Grand Valley undergraduate or graduate students build and launch a company in one semester.

77IdeaLab, offered through Grand Valley's Richard M. and Helen DeVos Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), provides students with a road map for innovation, coupled with resources, mentoring and funding.

Matt Gira, entrepreneur-in-residence at CEI, is leading the program, which begins in the winter semester with 10 teams. Each team will receive a $1,000 grant and help finding local and national pitch competitions for additional funding.

"77IdeaLab is like training wheels for starting a business," said Gira. "We will do weekly workshops with students, give them one-on-one mentoring and have them meet with mentors from the entrepreneurial community."

Students will also receive help with customer development, creating an elevator pitch and branding and designing.

Gira said the entrepreneurial process isn't always about the idea itself. 

"We are looking for students who are actually passionate about what they want to do, who won't want to quit when problems arise," he said. "Ideas will pivot and move, and we're looking for those who will persevere through the unexpected."

Gira, who majored in chemistry at Hope College, said he has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. He, along with two college friends, started Fathom Drones, securing venture capital to develop an underwater drone. Gira said the market wasn't there for the product, so he switched gears and started FounderCo, which helps founders become more impactful through education, mentorship and community.

Before he graduated from college in 2016, he took part in a 10-week entrepreneurial program at Yale. Shorouq Almallah, director of CEI, was familiar with Gira's work and asked him to come to Grand Valley to lead 77IdeaLab.

Almallah said while the program is new, the spirit of innovation and enterprise is not new to Grand Valley.  

"We chose the number 77 as a reference to the year 1977, when the first entrepreneurship class was offered at Grand Valley," Almallah said. "We found memos dating back to the '70s from then-President Arend D. Lubbers and the late Dean Marvin G. DeVries, in which they discussed venture creation and supporting entrepreneurial research. It was remarkable to find these memos at a time when only a handful of universities in the U.S. offered entrepreneurship education."

Fore more information, visit gvsu.edu/cei/77-idealab-196.htm