Want to build your skill set to launch your own product or service? Curious about what self-employment could look like for you? Keen to find a mentor who could help you advance your idea?
This new, customized training for UBC Arts majors, offered in collaboration with entrepreneurship@UBC, offers you support to conceive, research, design, and prototype a start-up, agency, venture, project, product, or service, or to kick-start running your own initiative, business or not-for-profit society. The program will be offered for the first time January – early May, 2023.
The full program includes a commitment to three workshops, individual meetings with an Arts entrepreneur-in-residence, an end-of-term presentation, and your own time working on your idea. By the end of the program, you’ll know what steps you’d need to take to launch your own venture, and you’ll have the support from a mentor to ensure you feel ready. You’ll also receive a document of completion if you finish all the required parts of the program, which you can add to your resume and portfolio.
There is no cost to participate, and registration is limited to 16 participants.
What it involves:
4 Workshops
- Workshop 1 (Jan 24, 1–4pm) is all about developing your concept, translating those ideas into reality, and discovering potential clients and customer bases. You will learn to develop and utilize a value proposition canvas, map potential stakeholders based on their roles, and develop customer discovery skills.
- Workshop 2 (Feb 14, 1–4pm) will focus on articulating your idea by creating positioning statements that clarify your innovation and value proposition. You’ll learn how to map the marketplace and distinguish your product or service from available alternatives.
- Workshop 3 (March 7, 1–4pm) will focus on fuelling your idea: exploring revenue options, considering funding models, and determining how—or if!—you’ll generate income from your work.
- Workshop 4 (choose 1 session: April 3 or 10) prepares you to speak about your product or service in the capstone presentation meeting.
Capstone Presentation
- The final, capstone presentation meeting (2 hours in early May, date TBD based on participants’ schedules) is your pitch: you’ll share your idea with Arts faculty, alumni, entrepreneurs, and members of the community, and will receive one-on-one guidance from mentors in values-based business and social-profit enterprise development.
Additional required meetings
- 3 x 15-minute meetings with the Arts alumni entrepreneur-in-residence (weeks of Jan 30, Feb 27, and Mar 20)
- 1 x 15-minute capstone presentation practice session (week of Apr 3 or Apr 10)
Entrepreneurship for Arts Majors is part of a series of events in The Compass: Arts Students Engagement Hub. Offered in collaboration with entrepreneurship@UBC, it offers Arts students support to conceive, research, design, and prototype a start-up, agency, venture, project, product, or service, or to kick-start running an initiative, business or not-for-profit society.
