University of Wisconsin senior Bryon Shannon has a few dollars tacked to the small corkboard in his office. He keeps them there as a remembrance of his first sale, a token of years of tireless work and planning.
But Shannon knows the wall on which those bills are mounted is just as important a symbol of his progress. He knows without the space in which he operates, his business would be much different.
As of January, six student business owners, including Shannon, were chosen for the Student Business Incubator from a pool of hopeful applicants to move into new office spaces located in the Student Activities Center in the new University Square building.
“We have a place for our people on the team to meet up on a regular basis,” Shannon said. “We can have a schedule now and always come in at the same time and have a place to call our home base. We’ve gotten a lot more work done now that we’re in it.”
This is exactly the goal the SBI has been working towards, according to SBI project leader and UW senior Kyle Adams. An initiative under Students in Free Enterprise and the Associated Students of Madison, SBI formed in 2006 to help students with product ideas or a penchant for entrepreneurship. Making connections throughout the Madison campus area, SBI started forming a solid base of information and contacts but was still without an anchor.
“Back in the spring of 2007, talking about the Student Business Incubator was more or less an idea, and we had no idea where it would go,” Adams said.
With four office suites in the new University Square building, SBI is on a fast track toward becoming a one-stop location for business resources. As of now, SBI helps the six businesses in their offices and other hopeful projects in everything from legal consultation and finding funding to developing product ideas and purchasing a copy machine.
It is the kind of help Shannon has been grateful for in the weeks leading up to the launch of his clothing business, Wisconsin Relic, next Saturday.
The company offers designer vintage T-shirts and pullovers emblazoned with clever Wisconsin references. Tops in the first line feature a “Little Miss Cheesehead” character, a John Dillinger mug shot and the phrase “Smell Our Dairy Air,” among other selections. With most of its retail business based online, Shannon is currently working with SBI to make adjustments to the Wisconsin Relic website.
Beyond business consultation, Shannon has found other perks of working in his new office environment, side-by-side with other fledgling companies.
“We can share insights,” Shannon said. “The Incubator builds that kind of internal community around the different entrepreneurs.”
That kind of valuable interaction and experience is exactly what will help the business owners and the businesses themselves be viable after college and outside the Incubator, Adams said.
“You can learn how to market from a textbook and you can view the professor’s lecture, but until you actually go out and do marketing from your own business, there’s always a little bit of that disconnect,” he added.
With occupancy in the new space and a comprehensive plan in action, Adams said SBI is more ready than ever to help students bridge that gap.
“All of this planning, all of this hard work that we put into it — it’s more than just an idea now, it’s real,” Adams said. “There’s nothing that can hold us back.”
