Jeff Reid is a name well recognized by educators and the D.C. Tech community alike. As the Founding Director of the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Initiative, Reid took the time to engage with the local tech crowd prior to launching a brand new entrepreneurship program fostering student innovation. He recognized what invaluable assets startup founders are to education institutions, and took advantage of the resources at his fingertips. It seems like a natural connection to make – a university working side-by-side with the burgeoning startup community – but as it turns out, most schools nationwide tend to forget about how beneficial local up-and-coming businesses are to universities. Georgetown, however, certainly has not.
Reid got his start in university entrepreneurship after finishing off his MBA, combining his first love of education with his passion for startups with a job at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. What was first a four-week consulting contract turned into eight years of Reid creating, developing, and growing an entrepreneurship center on campus from scratch. Named the founding executive director of the entrepreneurship center at UNC, Reid quickly rose in the ranks not because of his expertise, but much thanks to his strong interest.
"I don't consider myself a real 'expert' in a lot of factors around entrepreneurship," he admitted over the phone. "But what I am pretty good at is bringing experts together, finding people who want to contribute to the program and getting them involved."
So that's just what he did at UNC, and he found great success after fostering the growth of a robust community and ecosystem to help promote and support entrepreneurship on campus. Reid even managed to get UNC ranked No. 1 by Forbes as America's most entrepreneurial campus in 2004, an impressive accomplishment for a school that was lacking in the innovative venture department before Reid was hired.
Now known as the founding director of the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Initiative, it didn't take long for the hardworking leader to be picked up by the prestigious D.C.-based university. After transforming UNC into the incredible institution it is today, Reid was ready for another challenge and Georgetown was his next stop. A chance meeting at a networking event with one of the associate deans at Georgetown led to Reid once again being charged with launching an entrepreneurship program that has exceeded all expectations.
A man with an impressive résumé to say the least, Reid knows what it takes to start a university entrepreneurship center, but how does he do it? What's the secret sauce to his entrepreneurship center success? Well here's the spark notes version, according to the Georgetown academic:
Define you goals - Entrepreneurship is complex. Many people think that the objective is to have a lot of students start successful companies. We measure success by helping students understand and learn entrepreneurship in ways that help them for the rest of their lives.
When they graduate they might not start a company right away. They might work at a startup company and add value there or work at a large organization and apply entrepreneurial things they've learned – those are all successful outcomes for us. Many of them don't involve our students creating companies while at school, which is important for schools to comprehend. You need to start with an understanding that student startups, they're not the ultimate goal.
Entrepreneurship doesn't fit into academia in any easy fashion - What isn't more opposite from entrepreneurship than someone with tenure? Universities are set up with a lot of structure: credit hours, academic departments, set curriculum. Entrepreneurship is a subject really spans many disciplines and follows no one formula. Which academic department should it sit in? Which courses should you be teaching? Those debates can go on forever at schools. If you're starting a new entrepreneurship program, set some realistic goals that reflect the realities at your institution. For instance, you need dedicated funding and senior level support from deans and presidents, but if you don't, well then at least set modest goals for yourself.
Foster a sustainable partnership with the business community - Every school has some alums willing to get involved, but it's the local business community that can easily be tapped into as well. Part of my job is finding ways to successfully engage with all of these different people who want to help our students, and as it turns out, it's the startups that really want to be a part of the education scene. Georgetown, more than any other university I've been involved with, attracts people who want to change the world. It's a part of the brand of this institution and that's a great recipe for entrepreneurship.
My biggest teaching advice - Don't let the academic inertia stop you. If you run into roadblocks with curriculum, spend more time on extracurricular programs. Extracurriculars breakdown boundaries across disciplines and boundaries between the students and business community.
