We gathered around the conference table, peppering Casey Leaman with questions. We’d all been working on our respective projects for a little over two weeks. Our clients would be coming in at noon and we wanted to throw a few things at Casey, one of our coaches, before the weekly face-to-face meetings began.
During that hour long conversation, he shared with us some of the basic rules of business that he likes to follow. My fellow interns and I, all tasked with helping clients who range from Baylor professors to sophomore business majors, listened intently:
Rule #1: Do something! Don’t waste time waiting. Take what you have and follow your instincts.
On May 21, I started my internship at the LAUNCH Innovative Business Accelerator, housed in the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative. The other interns and I are basically startup consultants working with inventors and early stage businesses to help them get their ideas off the ground. Each of our clients are in completely different stages along the business life cycle. Some have working products and just need to figure out how to get them in the right hands and at the right price. Others have been planning their ventures for almost a year but need some help getting them to the next level.
And so we aren’t always able to get in touch with our clients to get answers to questions we might have. So Casey’s advice is always, “Do something!” We’re all smart people, he likes to tell us, we just need to stop thinking like students and start thinking like consultants. Go ahead and follow our best judgment, he likes to tell us. Chances are, the competitor analysis, website wireframe, or strategic partnerships research will be exactly what is needed. This brings us to Casey’s next rule:
Rule #2: Present things for people to react to.
It’s always better to be proactive and just go ahead and do something so you have something to show the client. It probably won’t be exactly what they want, he warns us, but it will help the process move forward and will lead to things that the client wants and needs to progress with the business. Even if it’s in an area where they will eventually need to speak to a professional, like a patent attorney, it’s good to give the client some frame of reference to start from.
There are more of Casey’s rules that I’ll share as the summer progresses. They are just the tip of the iceberg of what I’m learning at my internship. Everyday feels like a crash course in entrepreneurship. I’ve used things I’ve learned in many of the MBA classes I’ve taken and it’s fun having that base of knowledge to draw on to help real live businesses. It’s one thing to take a position on a case study in class, it’s another when you’re staring at someone who is pouring their heart and soul into a dream and looking to you for recommendations that will hopefully help that dream come true.
The lobby of the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative building.