Studying entrepreneurship isn’t always about starting your own business. It’s as much about the skills and opportunities you gain throughout the experience that will help accelerate your career, no matter the direction you end up taking.
Robbie and Kaea were two students at the Wellington School of Business and Government. They completed the new Business Accelerator course, MGMT 351 – Advanced Entrepreneurship, and found it had wider applications than just entrepreneurship, giving them confidence and credibility in job interviews and the feeling of ‘runs on the board’ as collaborators.
The pair believe MGMT 351 was like no other course they had experienced. A fully hands-on ‘business accelerator’, they had to design, iterate, prototype, and pitch a real product to a panel of experienced entrepreneurs. They both ended up in jobs very different from the product that they created together in MGMT 351, which was a smart collar for pets called Collar Companion.
Collar Companion offers matching pendants for a pet’s collar and the owner’s keychain. Through their initial ideation, they considered the number of students that move hundreds of kilometres to come to Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. They can FaceTime their family, but they can’t really connect with their pets back home. Their product served as a physical connection between the customer’s bond and their pet. They wanted to differentiate their collar from those made by other businesses, so incorporated modern features like QR codes, customised design, and 3D printing to create their prototypes.
“It was interesting how when I was looking for my first career role the interviewers were fascinated by what I had to say about developing a product as part of the entrepreneurship course. I reckon it played a big part in me landing my job as a marketing coordinator with LottoNZ,” says Robbie.
“I already had a job lined up with KPMG as a management consultant in their Advisory division here in Wellington,” says Kaea. “But my experience on the Business Accelerator course really improved my credibility because it added a level of depth to my knowledge about the business models and frameworks I now use at work. It also helped me to refine my collaborative skills and taught me how to work effectively with others under time pressure—which is such a big part of my job as a consultant.
They ended up in full-time roles working for companies, not as entrepreneurs but the journey to creating the collar prototypes, the learning along the way, and the collaboration process was crucial for giving them the confidence and credibility to be successful in their new careers.