The region's colleges nurture entrepreneurship and innovation, giving young businesspeople the tools they need to succeed.

by Rick A. Richards

Olga Pecanac doesn't remember a lot about Pula, Croatia, her family's home and where she was born. When she was 4 years old, her family fled the civil war there and came to Northwest Indiana, eventually settling in Westville.

Pecanac didn't know a word of English, but by 2007, her senior year at Westville High School, she was a cheerleader while managing and working alongside her mother, Esada, at the restaurant the family started. Her father, Ilija, is an electrician and helps at the restaurant when needed.

That was where she realized what it was like to be her own boss. Pecanac, now 23, will graduate from Purdue University North Central in May.

“I'm going to work hard and be successful,” Pecanac says of Olga's Place, the restaurant named for her, and the business she will take over in the not too distant future.

“You have to have that drive and this was my drive,” she says. “PNC has taught me the importance of a business plan and a marketing plan. Right now I'm busy working and I'm busy with school, but doing both helps the bigger picture come into focus for me. I'm starting to realize what it's all about.”

Pecanac has been preparing herself for the transition, spending a semester in the Disney College Program at Disney World in Florida, where she worked at Cosmic Rays, one of the busiest restaurants in the theme park.

Pecanac says she's ready to run the restaurant now, but it's important to her parents that she get a diploma. “It's important to them that I get my degree in America. To come to this country is very, very difficult. When we came here there was civil war in my country. We didn't come here to take anyone's job; we came here to better ourselves.”

The Pecanacs are now American citizens, something Olga says she doesn't take for granted. “We came to this country with two suitcases, no money, didn't speak the language and didn't know anybody. We knew what we were getting into, but isn't that what life is about?”

Cindy Roberts, interim dean of the College of Business at Purdue University North Central, says that while PNC doesn't have a standalone entrepreneurship program, the College of Business works with budding entrepreneurs.

“We're very pragmatic,” says Roberts. “We offer a fundamental business education aimed at people who want to be middle managers. For instance, Olga is a marketing major, but she has the kind of talent that drives her to succeed. She is the type of student who comes here to learn business basics because she already knows what she wants and needs to know how to move ahead.”

Pecanac's determination and hard work sends a message to other young entrepreneurs, says Keith Kirkpatrick, owner of KPM Group in Valparaiso and the former director of the Northwest Indiana Entrepreneurship Academy.

“All of the colleges in the area seem to have some kind of entrepreneurship program,” says Kirkpatrick, adding that while entrepreneurship programs are popular for some students, it's not that way for all of them.

“If you're looking for stability, maybe being an entrepreneur isn't for you,” says Kirkpatrick. “It looks exciting and it is, but it's hard work. It's really tough to succeed.”

Kirkpatrick describes entrepreneurs as “mavericks,” people who don't want to work for someone else, who want to depend on their brains and people who think they can do it – whatever ‘it' is – better than anyone else.

The biggest thing entrepreneurs need to learn, says Kirkpatrick, is what they don't know. “A lot of entrepreneurs aren't good managers. That's important to know because it's one of the biggest reasons entrepreneurs fail; while they can start a business, they don't recognize they can't run a business.”

By enrolling in business school, Kirkpatrick says entrepreneurs are forced to read the textbooks that show them how to run a business.

Once in a while, however, an entrepreneur comes along who isn't old enough to have read the textbook. Nate Biancardi, a senior at Valparaiso High School, has turned his drawing ability into a budding business called Nate “Can Do” Caricatures.

He has been drawing since he could hold a pencil and today draws at parties, business events and as a sidewalk artist. Biancardi donates a portion of what he makes to local charities.

“My parents, Andrew and Carole, are both artists so it seemed natural that I would be drawing,” says Biancardi. “A lot of kids do scribbles, but for me one line would become an eye, one line became an eyebrow; another line for the nose, and then another for the mouth and then a lot of lines for the hair and then the shape of the head.”

Biancardi is clear that he's not drawing a portrait. “A caricature is the artist's amusing perspective of another person,” he says.

He started drawing professionally after visiting The Collective Edge in downtown Valparaiso, where local art is featured and sold. His first paid job was at the 2012 Popcorn Fest where he made a few hundred dollars drawing caricatures of visitors.

As he prepares for college, Biancardi says he knows he's going to have to learn how to divide his time between business and school. “My goal is to support myself and become famous.”

Rajan Selladurai, a professor of management at Indiana University Northwest in Gary, says there is a growing interest in entrepreneurship because of the economy, but the hard work and time involved in creating and running a business holds many of them back.

“What business schools do is teach entrepreneurs about business plans and marketing plans,” says Selladurai. “It's important that entrepreneurs know their industry, completely understand their business and know what customers want. They need to know all aspects of their business.”

Selladurai says that in a typical class of 25 students, only two or three will have the motivation to know what they want and the willingness to do what it takes to succeed.

Jackson Troxel grew up on a dairy farm near LaCrosse in southern LaPorte County. The senior at Purdue University in West Lafayette hasn't started a business, but the young entrepreneur knows what he wants to do.

After graduation in May, he has accepted an Orr Fellowship and will work with Slane Capital, a small venture capital company in Noblesville, where he's going to learn about the money side of entrepreneurship. Troxel says he will probably make a pitch to Slane when the time is right about his idea to open a dairy-themed restaurant.

“I guess growing up on a dairy farm has something to do with that,” says Troxel. “I want to provide fresh dairy products every day. It's like a dairy themed Cracker Barrel. I plan to call it the Blue Jack Dairy Shack.”

The name, he says, has no particular meaning, and it came to him during an agriculture class his freshman year. Troxel likes how the words roll off his tongue.

Richard A. Crosier, director of the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship at Purdue, says universities are adapting to the changing landscape of entrepreneurship. “There are lots of entrepreneurial opportunities other than college today,” says Crosier. “We do not just give entrepreneurial degrees because we think it's important to learn about all aspects of business.”

Since 2007, 4,000 students have gone through the Burton D. Morgan Center and each has one of two things vital for an entrepreneur: technical or intellectual property that can be turned into a viable business.

“We try to add value,” says Crosier. “We help them with a business plan because 99 percent of the time, young entrepreneurs don't have a handle on their market and don't have a good business plan.”

Crosier says there is a correct way to start a business, something entrepreneurs need to be taught. “It's important for them to know what they don't know and be able to find people who do know.”

And, he said, it's important that entrepreneurs know how extremely difficult running a business is and how much work it takes.

University of Notre Dame junior Peter Woo says he's had an entrepreneurial streak for as long as he can remember. Woo grew up in New Jersey, the son of Protestant missionaries. It's from his parents, Isaac and Eunice, that he combined his entrepreneurial drive and a mission to give back to others.

Woo, a philosophy major, has formed Jubilee Initiative for Financial Inclusion (JiFFi). It's a program set up to help people who don't have easy access to banks to be able to obtain small loans to help them improve their lives.

Already the program is running a trial effort through the Center for the Homeless, which is heavily supported by Notre Dame.

“There is a poverty industry in the United States and I want to try to get people to break free of it,” says Woo. He says too many people depend on payday loans and tax refund loans where interest rates are so high that borrowers seldom get out from underneath the debt.

“If you borrow $200 this week and pay it back the next paycheck, you're simply not able to do that if you're living paycheck to paycheck.”

Woo has obtained “a couple thousand dollars from friends and alumni” to get JiFFi off the ground. With the help of the university, Woo is applying for a tax-exempt status to perpetuate the program after he graduates. With the help of the university, he's also opened an office downtown where rent is only $20 a month.

“One of the biggest challenges for students when they get involved in the community is that many of them don't plan to stick around after graduation,” says Woo. That means their ideas go with them. He doesn't want that to happen with JiFFi, which is why he wants to set up a not-for-profit organization.

“Our research shows there are 7,000 payday loan borrowers in South Bend, each borrowing $500 on average,” says Woo. “That's a $3.5 million business and we want to provide them with a something to help them with their financial needs and get them out of the paycheck to paycheck status.

“It's an ambitious goal,” says Woo. “There are a lot of challenges in front of us, and it won't solve all the borrowers' problems. Our goal is to provide a loan and at the same time teach them about their finances and improve their financial literacy. We sit with clients to help them figure out what they can pay each month and work from that.”

Jeff Bernel is director of the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship at Notre Dame. He says students like Woo bring an enthusiasm to the table that opens up new kinds of social entrepreneurism that fits well with Notre Dame's mission.

“What we teach is that entrepreneurs must recognize that economically we can't grow unless someone takes a risk,” says Bernel, a former business owner in LaPorte. “We've taught entry-level managers for years at Notre Dame that it's important to find another way. We teach what is possible.”

Bernel says one of the most important skills business schools can teach is how to recognize opportunity. “That comes with business planning, market analysis and competitive analysis. When you launch your plan, how are you going to make things go? My goal is to make sure students have the tools they need to be successful.”

Like others who teach budding entrepreneurs, Bernel says it's vital for students to know what they don't know. “They need to know that so they can hire the experts they need to get the job done.

“Entrepreneurs are a bit different. They're independent. Young people today all want to be the next Jeff Zuckerberg, but that's not possible for everyone. He's an exception to the rule,” says Bernel.

“I counsel our entrepreneurs to get a job first and to watch and learn. Use that job to make your mistakes using someone else's money,” says Bernel.