A Classroom Path to Entrepreneurship

Gone is the conventional wisdom that running a small business cannot be learned by sitting in a classroom.

The college campus, it turns out, can be an ideal incubator for hatching small businesses.

Nanina’s Gourmet Sauce, a pasta sauce company based in Belleville, N.J., was started, for instance, in 2005 by students taking an entrepreneurship course at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, N.J. Nanina’s products are now sold in nearly 400 supermarkets and gourmet shops in New Jersey and Manhattan, and the company’s director of operations is 23-year-old Nick Massari, a student in that class.

The course at Monmouth is one of thousands of similar offerings on campuses across the United States. Undergraduate courses in how to start and run a small business are becoming as ubiquitous as Economics 101.

By GLENN RIFKIN

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/business/smallbusiness/01sbiz.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

***

19th Annual John Ruffatto Montana Business Plan Competition, 5/8, University Of Montana – Missoula http://matr.net/article-28731.html