This is Small Business Next Generation follows the journey of four college teams during the Rice University Business Plan Competition as they prepare to pitch their business in front of potential investors and win up to $3M in prizes. We get to hear their ups and downs as they scramble to get ready in the weeks leading up to the competition, the tension and high stakes during 3 days of competition, and check in with them weeks after to see how the results of the competition influenced their next steps.
The podcast seeks to tell the story of rising business stars who are trying to not only become successful entrepreneurs but also change the world with their businesses. From heated outdoor furniture, to solar panels that can be used on any surface, to at-home healthcare solutions, these students are stepping into the business world with big dreams. The podcast takes a step back and explores how they got here, what they plan to do next, what it’s like to handle high amounts of pressure, and what happens if they don’t succeed.
The show is hosted by Andrea Marquez, an aspiring entrepreneur herself, and Mitch Gilbert a business owner and former winner of the Rice Business Plan Competition as they speak to students, judges, investors, experts, and take an introspective journey themselves into what it means to be an entrepreneur today.
To bring this project to life, we partnered with the organizers of the Rice University Business Plan Competition to select four teams who would like to be part of the podcast journey. We then sent teams equipment so that they could record audio diaries and checked in with them often to see how they were doing leading up to the competition. During the competition we followed them through every part of the journey, from being in rooms with them when they pitched, to then going back to the drawing boards and regrouping before they had to do it all over again within hours. The production schedule of the podcast team mirrored a similar schedule to that of competing teams to get a full breadth of what they were experiencing. The podcast itself takes listeners through all these stressful moments that illustrate the challenges of starting and running a business, especially those trying to tackle global problems. Following these teams through their unique journeys required sensitivity to understanding when they were ready to speak or when to simply observe and follow, especially after losses.
We told a true entrepreneurial story. Being a business owner is not easy, and oftentimes we only get to hear successful entrepreneurs talk about their journeys through the lens of success rather than live and in the thick of it. Though it is inspiring to hear stories of success, they aren’t always relatable, and the teams we followed for the podcast provided the opportunity to understand how successful entrepreneurs are made and if they do stay on the entrepreneurial path. Our goal was to explore the tension that exists right before an entrepreneur or a business “takes off,” and we consider the podcast to have done that. It is a success because we were able to tell authentic, inspiring, and important stories that any aspiring entrepreneur would benefit from hearing.