Entrepreneur [ˌɒntɹəpɹəˈnɜː] n., a person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit. Such says the Oxford Dictionary, but what exactly are these people? And are they only in it for the money? More in general, an entrepreneur is somebody who takes advantage of a gap in the market. These gaps occur because of imperfections of the market (e.g. slow integration of a new technology, a limited number of producers, government intervention,…).
Or an unmet need of students. Because entrepreneurship in a broader sense includes identifying and acting on an opportunity by setting up a non-profit organisation or project. Two of such young entrepreneurs are Wessel Reijers (AEGEE-Enschede) and Rafael Pires (Porto). They both realised students and young people in their city were not offered enough opportunities to gather practical experience with entrepreneurship and decided to do something about this.
Hey guys, you are both involved in projects supporting young people acquire entrepreneurial skills and experience. Wessel, you just created a local branch of Enactus at your university in Enschede. Rafael, you represented Startup Pirates at the EBM in Valletta. For those who have never heard of Enactus or Startup Pirates, can you introduce them in 3 sentences?
Wessel Reijers:
Enactus is a student platform for social entrepreneurship. At the local level, each Enactus board facilitates different project teams that are working on separate enterprises, aimed at empowering people in their community. Eventually, all teams participate in a national and a global competition on the best social student entrepreneurial project.
Rafael Pires:
Startup Pirates is a one-week community-driven acceleration programme for entrepreneurs-in-the-making. Through a combination of training, mentoring, and idea development we help participants structure and develop their ideas. At the end of the week we give them the opportunity to pitch their ideas to investors and successful business leaders.
How did you come up with the idea to launch these initiatives?
Wessel: I was working at a local incubator last year and together with a friend and colleague of mine I decided to bring Enactus to Enschede — pretty much the only Dutch university city without a local branch yet. Additionally, the University of Twente is very much engaged with student entrepreneurship, which made founding Enactus Twente an almost logical next step.
Rafael: The five founders were of the opinion that universities are not dealing very well with the topic of entrepreneurship. We thought that we had to do something about this and we started working on a concept which later on evolved into Startup Pirates.
Startup Pirates organises entrepreneurship events for young people around Europe. Who are they for, and what exactly happens during these meetings?
Rafael: We started to promote our initiative to college students and recent graduates, but we actually have a diverse mix of participants, including unemployed people and participants with several years of experience. The average age is around 26, though we already had participants from 16 to 40. What happens during these events? First the participants have the opportunity to get to know each other, interact, and share experiences. Then they have to form teams to work on different business ideas. During the week they attend several workshop on useful topics to develop the ideas, like the Business Model Canvas or how to pitch your idea. We also include a session with experienced mentors who help the participants to move forward with their idea. At the end of the week, the result is pitched to a panel of judges.
What was the most difficult step in the process so far? How did you overcome it?
Wessel: Until now one of the most challenging steps was forming a good team. But by being persistent we managed to arrive to the point where we are today.
Rafael: Hmm… tough question. I would say the very first event. For our first event we didn’t have anything to show for; it was the first edition so it was harder to prove to everyone that what we were doing had value. After the first edition and with the first results, things became easier as we also got more experienced.
Wessel, in your plans for Enactus Twente you mentioned bringing students closer to the local community and giving courses in social entrepreneurship. Are these strategic priorities of the Enactus network as a whole, or is each local free to work out its own ideas?
Wessel: Each local has quite some freedom, but the core of the work is indeed focussed on social entrepreneurship. Since the nature of universities often differs — i.e. being more focused on technology or humanities — social entrepreneurships as such can take different shapes as well.
Looking at the global map of Enactus they are only present in a couple of countries in Europe. Why do you think this is?
Wessel: First of all, both Enactus and social entrepreneurship have quite an Anglo-Saxon connotation and therefore they are predominantly present in the Anglo-Saxon world. In addition, I think that the presence of Enactus depends on the entrepreneurial environment of a country.
Also for Startup Pirates, activities have been clustered in a couple of countries so far. How are you planning your expansion?
Rafael: We make an effort to be present at several events and conferences to pitch Startup Pirates and find potential organizers. We never push our program; we always explain it and the first contact always comes from the potential local organizers. We are always looking for partners to help us spread the word to reach more potential organizers. We are also coming to a point where we receive applications from potential organizers that just found us online and loved the concept.
Like AEGEE, Enactus has an international network of locals. There are Startup Pirates events in various cities around Europe. In what ways do these groups interact with each other?
Wessel: The different locals compete with each other for the best project, but they also cooperate by sharing knowledge and skills between the different Enactus locals.
Rafael: Startup Pirates events are more short-term activities, so there is not a lot of interaction between them. Though it has happened that participants from one event become the organisers of another.
What possible cooperation do you see between your initiatives and AEGEE?
Wessel: I would encourage all AEGEE and Enactus members that are reading this article to try to find ways in which to cooperate. Perhaps joining each others’ conferences might be a great starting point.
Rafael: I think AEGEE can be a great partner, connecting us with potential local organizers in several cities. AEGEE has a lot of antennas all over Europe that could be interested in applying our concept in their local communities.
What are the top 3 tips you would give future Enactus creators or Startup Pirates organisers?
Wessel: First you need to find a great and competent team. You cannot found an Enactus local on your own.
Rafael: I would also say, make sure you build a great team to organise a Startup Pirates event. Second, get involved with the local entrepreneurial community. Finally, only do it if you mean it; don’t do it just for the sake of doing it.
Any other comments you would like to add?
Wessel: I sincerely hope that more AEGEE members will get involved in social entrepreneurship.
Written by By Mathieu Soete, Policy Officer on Sustainability
Pictures credit of:
Black & white picture: “M. van der Wal”
Group picture (non-pirates): “M&C Janneke van den Elshout”