Credit: Jason Koski — Cornell Marketing Group

Entrepreneurial culture on college campuses is broken. Hackathon and pitch competitions have become convenient and “sexy” ways for smart students to throw their hat in the ring for a couple of hours in the hopes of winning a bit of glory and maybe some money too. In and of itself, there is no issue with this, however, it becomes a problem when serious entrepreneurs get lost in the pile. Ideas that might be remarkable in a real-world application might not necessarily be geared towards winning competitions. This can be discouraging to those who are truly passionate about an idea rather than prizes, causing them to seriously reconsider their future in entrepreneurship. The effect of entrepreneurial competitions on college campuses should be to inspire young entrepreneurs, not discourage them, and the current system is doing the latter. We need future entrepreneurs to be inspired.

Pitch competitions have become a commonplace medium for founders to raise money, yet most startups on college campuses do not need the type of funding offered in order for their startup to succeed. Specifically, with the exception of hardware reliant startups, funding is not necessary until a user/customer base is attained. This invites the culture of starting a startup for fame, money, and power rather than for solving a problem that fulfills a need and provides meaningful value for customers. The ambition to succeed isn’t wrong; in fact, it is inherently entrepreneurial, but the current reward system encourages a disingenuous value system. It props up money as the most important metric when evaluating a start up’s success. This isn’t the lesson we should be teaching college entrepreneurs.

Instead of rewarding people with money, competitions should offer opportunities for student startups such as participating in subsequent, more lucrative competitions. Hackathons should grant winners access to facilities and resources on and off campus to help students realize their products. Pitch competitions could offer developer and engineer support. Competitions would then become part of company growth rather than monetary growth, and the metric of success becomes progress. Money should only be given to campus startups when they cannot grow without it.

One important skill that is neglected by university programs is the ability to recognize and accept failure, and then move on. This is one of the most challenging aspects of a startup, especially in college where students may attribute poor progress to distractions such as schoolwork, greek life, or other clubs. Universities might want to capitalize on the drive of students to become the next Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, but not all startups are meant to succeed. The same programs that promote creating startups should also support struggling companies with resources such as co-founder mediation or asset selloff. Perhaps the university can even assist with a dissolution of a corporate entity when necessary.

Universities are Petri-dishes of intellect where like-minded individuals can connect to create novel solutions and improvements to problems facing humanity. Even though startups are gaining a lot of traction at universities, the current culture needs to change so that good ideas don’t get swept under the rug and startups are started healthier, with room for failure.

About Me

I’m a third year student at Cornell University Studying Electrical Engineering and Psychology. I have been fortunate enough to grow up in Palo Alto, CA and have been around startups and entrepreneurs my whole life. I have collected some thoughts about campus entrepreneurship now that I have had a few years in school, tried my own hand at a few startups both on and off campus, and watched my friends go through the woes of campus startups.