A couple of weeks ago I spent the bulk of a Friday night talking to a room full of engaged and involved entrepreneurs about business plans, starting up, and getting funded. They gave me a lot of good questions, thoughtful discussion and the feeling, afterward, that something very good was going on.
This was at a business boot camp. On three weekends, each about three weeks apart, they meet from 5:30 6 to 10 9:30 p.m. Friday and all day Saturday. When they’re done they’ve had almost five full days of an intense workshop setting, different speakers and different topics, all on how to start a business. They paid $250 apiece. They had readings, homework, a well-organized list of discussions and speakers, and a whole lot of quick learning.
I was impressed. If you’re serious about starting a business, and you want to get a quick head start with some expertise on lots of related topics–the planning, marketing, financing and so on–this seems like a great way to do it. I hadn’t had experience with this before, but it does offer a compromise among other learning methods, such as night school, junior college and SBDC classes, books, conferences, software, and lots of websites. This one pulls you in so you spend the time and move things forward quickly.
The group, and the interaction with group members, seemed like the best part. It’s a big time commitment for three weekends, but very intense and very focused, and they get a whole lot done.
The boot camp I spoke at was on the campus of Oregon State University, organized by John Sechrest of the Corvallis-Benton Coalition, leading up to an angel investor event this May.
This particular boot camp is out of the question now, with only one weekend remaining. If you’re curious, you can click here to see its setup and schedule. More useful, though, is to use a good Web search (here’s a Google search to get you started) to see if something like this is available somewhere near you in the future.
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