So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur?

Heidi L. Fisher,Wisconsin Council of Nonprofits
Heidi L. Fisher may not want to start a business, but she’s embraced the idea of social entrepreneurship. She’s co-leader of a feasibility study that analyzed the needs of Wisconsin’s nonprofit organizations and recommended that there be a state association to help all nonprofits reach their fullest capacity.

Fisher saw the need for the study while enrolled in Hamline University’s master of arts in nonprofit management, which the Minneapolis school offers via a regular or accelerated track through its Graduate School of Management. The Wisconsin native signed up as a full-time student and, after accepting a job as director of annual giving and major gifts officer at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Foundation, completed her degree by 2004 as a part-time student.

“I had never had accounting, and I had to write spreadsheets and do statistics and analyses,” she says. “In those particular classes, Hamline pushed me…it prepared me very well for working in the foundation.”

While in school, Fisher learned about an organization called the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits. “I realized that Wisconsin didn’t have such an entity,” she says. “I spent my whole last year in essence creating a business plan to begin a state association of nonprofits.”

That business plan was her final project for her degree, but Fisher pursued it even after graduation. “I never would have been able to do it without working on my master’s,” she admits. “Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have been motivated to work on it. I never would have thought I could do it.”

Sean Manley, Electronic Data Recovery
“I come from a long line of entrepreneurs,” says Sean Manley, account manager with On-Demand Services Group, an IT staffing firm based in Burnsville. “My father basically has done staffing of one sense or another since I could say my own name.”

It’s no surprise, then, that when his father and older brother started a new division of the company, they asked Manley to get involved with the intrapreneurial endeavor: Electronic Data Recovery, a business that focuses on tape-based data backup systems.

It’s a far cry from Manley’s previous career in rehabilitation psychology and work in the health care field. In fact, when he went back to school for an MBA at Argosy University in Minneapolis, Manley focused on a degree with a concentration in healthcare administration. (The school offers six other MBA concentrations.)

Manley enrolled as a full-time student while also working full-time at  Art Institutes International Minnesota, running their facilities department and housing program. “I don’t recommend that,” he cautions. “There were a lot of early mornings and late nights and weekends.”

In 2005, near the end of his coursework, his father approached him about working with the newly formed company. Though IT wasn’t his field of expertise, he says the lessons he learned in his MBA studies have translated well to his current role. “We’re looking at becoming a global business, outsourcing partnerships with firms in India, becoming web-based,” he says. “There are lots of things I don’t think I would have ever thought of without that MBA background. I wouldn’t have known where to look. Having that has really given me a leg up.”

Lawrence Esso, JL Esso
Lawrence Esso is a prime example of the entrepreneurial personality: a self-starter eager to move ahead with his business plans. So eager, in fact, that he couldn’t wait to complete his MBA before opening JL Esso, his men’s and women’s shoe store in Edina’s Southdale Center last October.

In 2003 Esso signed up for part-time classes at Metropolitan State University, which offers both a general MBA and six other concentrations in addition to its Center for Women Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship Education. “I knew [an MBA] was going to help me understand more about my business and managing and running the business,” he says.

While researching the school’s MBA program, Esso heard about how supportive the professors were. “That was something I experienced firsthand,” he says. “The professors went out of their way to help you.”

Their help extended outside of class as Esso developed the business plan for his store. In fact, he can still rely on them to answer questions and address issues he encounters in his fledgling business.

Esso intends to one day finish the five classes he needs to receive his degree, but for the time being he’s putting everything he’s learned about promotions and ad campaigns and how to price items into his store.

“I’m using a lot of stuff like that right now,” he says. “I actually have some of my textbooks at the store to brush up on things.”