Entrepreneurship Alliance

The Entrepreneurship Alliance is an intensive program for students who have a startup or business idea and want to develop it. Students are encouraged to apply to the program as a team but are not required to do so. By the end of the 8-week program, students are ready to launch their business.

The EA program is offered by the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation housed in the Trulaske College of Business. However, it is open to all undergraduate and graduate students at Mizzou. In this program, students learn by doing and benefit from the experience of others in their program cohort.

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Benefits to Students:

Receive one-on-one mentoring from founders, investors and experienced entrepreneurs.
Gain an understanding of the entrepreneurial process
Understand how to think about customer segmentation and learn how to conduct customer interviews and market research.
Learn how to develop a proof of concept, a prototype, and an MVP for your product or service.
Design experiments to test your business idea and your product/service's value and pricing.
Learn methods to determine pricing, conversion rate, and customer lifetime value.
Produce a basic financial model and Profit/Loss projections for your startup or small business.
Setup your legal structure and operating agreements.
Learn the essential elements of a good pitch, develop and practice your pitch, and then deliver your pitch to experienced founders.
Develop relationships with Entrepreneurship Alliance alumni and get plugged into the local entrepreneurship community.

Program Details:

The Entrepreneurship Alliance Program runs every Spring and is 8 weeks in duration.
Program sessions will be held in Cornell Hall every Monday evening. Students can attend face-to-face or via zoom, but are required to attend to complete the program. Students, mentors, and faculty also communicate during the week via the CEI Slack channel.
Teams will deliver their pitches in a public event at the end of the program.
Students receive no college credit for the program or grades.
All costs are covered by a generous gift from the Eisenhart Family Foundation Endowment for Entrepreneurship Alliance and the Donald E. and Trudy K. Steen Entrepreneurship Venture Fund.

Additional benefits:

Monetary awards will be made to student teams at the end of the final pitch competition.
Successful completion of the program qualifies a student to apply for additional forms of support and gain access to new opportunities as long as they are a student at Mizzou.
Alumni of the Entrepreneurship Alliance are part of Mizzou's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem.

In the meantime, please contact the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, J Scott Christianson, with any questions.

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Jese Ortiz is the funder of “deodomix”, a small, penny-sized cleaning tablet designed to deodorize and clean shaker bottles, water bottles, and other hard-to-clean containers. The baking soda-based tablet impressed judges, helping Jese earn $3,000 for his idea.

Ethan’s Journal

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