“This is an exciting time for entrepreneurship and innovation at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. And in particular, at the College of Business Administration. Our students have a wonderful opportunity to engage with successful entrepreneurs from the community and expand their knowledge and experience as they move forward and try to develop businesses of their own. At the end of the day, we believe that we can become important contributors in the economic development of the state and we plan to be an important partner for a long time to come.” – Dean Louis Pol
E-Toolkit
Click here for a quick 21 step action plan you can use to take an idea and put it into action. Need more help along the way? UNO has mentors available that can give you more hands on guidance when you need it and for your unique situation.
E-Awards
Get recognition and win money through a variety of elevator pitch and business plan competitions, scholarships, and other opportunities available through the UNO Center for Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Franchising.
E-Club
Want to join a community of students that share your passion of starting and running a business of your own? UNO CEO is the right club for you! Since 2006 the student ran Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization has been active on campus. Visit www.unoceo.org for more info.
Myths of Entrepreneurship
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To be successful, an entrepreneur needs a degree in business.
Although many self-employed people have business degrees, there is a stronger correlation in the sciences or engineering. According to a recent study, 34% of U.S. high tech companies held degrees in business, finance, or accounting. 47% held degrees in STEM related fields (Sciences, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics).
College dropouts make better entrepreneurs.
Silicon Valley is debating the Thiel Fellowship, which offers students $100,000 to drop out of college. The logic? That higher education is overpriced and unnecessary, and that budding entrepreneurs are better off building companies than studying irrelevant subjects.
No doubt some brilliant people may get by without a college education. But our research finds that U.S.-born founders of engineering and technology firms tend to be well educated. And on average, companies founded by college graduates have twice the sales and workforce of companies founded by people who didn’t go to college. Surprisingly, attending an elite university doesn’t provide a significant advantage in entrepreneurship. What matters is the degree; the choice of major or college doesn’t play a big role in success. The greater the education of the founder, the higher the business’s profits, sales and employment.
Entrepreneurs are like top athletes: They are born, not made.
Silicon Valley investors such as Jason Calacanis proudly proclaim that successful entrepreneurs come from entrepreneurial families and start off running lemonade stands as kids. After meeting Wharton Business School students last year, venture capitalist Fred Wilson blogged that he was shocked when a professor told him that you can teach people to be entrepreneurs. “I’ve been working with entrepreneurs for almost 25 years now,” he wrote, “and it is ingrained in my mind that someone is either born an entrepreneur or is not.”
They’re wrong. Duke University research revealed that 52 percent were the first in their immediate families to start a business – as were Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Russell Simmons. Their parents were academics, lawyers, factory workers or bureaucrats. Only about 39 percent had an entrepreneurial father, and 7 percent had an entrepreneurial mother; some had both. Only a quarter caught the entrepreneurial bug in college.
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UNO CIEF
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Email us
Dr. Dale Eesley:
deesley@unomaha.edu
Graduate Assistant:
chris.miller@deltarep.com