JumpStart is a portion of Simon Fraser’s SEY program
By Graham Cook
Students from the group Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) at Simon Fraser University, the local branch of the international not-for-profit organization, have decided to launch a new component to the SFU Entrepreneur of the Year program. JumpStart — The SEY Accelerator allows student entrepreneurs to fast track and get information about how to forward their ideas.
Sessions have been held every Saturday since Sept. 15, and tackle topics that are important to startups. These include product and customer development, marketing, metrics, and how to find funding. Each project team will be assigned their own mentor from the local entrepreneur community to help them develop their ideas. In addition, SIFE Simon Fraser will bring in two or three speakers each week, and hold occasional speed-mentoring sessions that will see another four or five mentors spend 20–30 minutes with each venture team. Lunches will also be held in order to build up the social aspect of the group.
Chantelle Buffe, SEY’s project manager and a student with an entrepreneurship focus at the Beedie School of Business spoke to The Peak about the new JumpStart program, saying, “In the past years, the SEY has been really focused on competition and bringing out entrepreneurs who already have established businesses or are already on their way to building up their ventures.“ She added that, “JumpStart is kind of my way of giving back to people who were once in my position . . . it’s really helping the people who just have an idea or are just starting up but don’t know the next step, they really have no idea which direction to go in in terms of where to take their idea or who to talk to.”
“The JumpStart program began on Sept. 15, we’re actually right in the middle of it right now,” said Buffe of the program. “My whole goal is to kind of launch these people and their ideas.” Though Chantelle Buffe said that the Business Faculty has been the most active in terms of support, student participation in the program has been widespread. She said that students with academic backgrounds in areas such as communication and computer science have shown interest in the program, among many others.
Buffe stated that “the program is going quite good. Initially we only expected to get like 10 applicants, but by the end we got 25.” The program will be wrapped up with a competition in which teams will pitch their ideas to a panel of judges from local businesses, in order to turn their ideas into reality.
The competition will be held at the Coast Coal Harbour Hotel on Saturday, November 24 from around 1–6 p.m.
