Don’t delay: registration for creative entrepreneurs course ends soon!
(Ed. note: This is a repost of an earlier story updated to include faculty information.)
Announcing a new FastTrac® class geared especially for creatives!
This spring, you can learn how to evaluate your ideas, position your businesses around target customers, refine your venture based on personal and professional goals and ultimately, launch your business. Attend all sessions, write a business plan, and pitch it – you could win up to $500!
Through an immersive online course, participants have access to planning tips and exercises, including lessons on how to:
- Discover how your business concept matches your personal vision.
- Align your business concept with a real market opportunity.
- Find your target market and discover your competitive advantage.
- Determine the unique features and benefits of your product/ service.
- Set realistic financial goals for your business.
- Define your company’s brand and marketing.
- Manage business functions and develop an organizational culture.
- Determine the steps to profitability.
- Identify potential sources of funding for your business.
- Launch your business.
The course faculty are themselves artists of various disciplines, educators, and professionals representing law, finance, higher education, and business leaders who have hands-on expertise to share. FastTrac® is facilitated by seasoned facilitator Tom Ledbetter, associate vice president, Center for Entrepreneurial Success and Community Engagement at Midlands Technical College.
- WHEN: Every Monday from April 16-June 23, 2018, 6-9 p.m.
- WHERE: Anywhere you can connect via web and video teleconference
- WHO:
- Visual artist and entrepreneur Mary Gilkerson
- Graphic designer, photographer, and entrepreneur Dalvin Spann
- Performing artist, author, and entrepreneur David Cutler of USC
- Performing artist and entrepreneur Armen Shaomian of USC
- COST: $75.00 (this is a significantly discounted rate from $150, and you can earn 3 CEU’s).
- REGISTER: Click here to register with Midlands Technical College
The SCAC is partnering with Midlands Technical College Corporate and Continuing Education to host this class. Applicants must sign a commitment letter. Two face-to-face gatherings are tentatively planned for April 16 and May 14 from 6-9 p.m. Graduation will take place Saturday June 23, 2018 from 10 a.m. to noon. Face-to-face gatherings take place in Columbia at the Midlands Technical College Northeast Campus. Contact Joy Young, jyoung@arts.sc.gov to learn more.
COURSE OVERVIEW
Creative skills can be developed into a viable business. Working for yourself, either as your only job or as a second source of income, requires planning and preparation. You can do this if you are willing to learn, put in the time, and commit to a track of entrepreneurship.
Section 1: IDEATE
Assess your entrepreneurial traits and personal priorities to better understand how your business goals might be affected by your strengths or weaknesses and your personal vision.
Section 2: POSITION
Any good idea will remain just that — an idea — unless it finds a place in the market and earns customers. In this section, you’ll figure out just who your customers (and competitors) are and where to find them. You’ll design your business model and think about the key factors that will help you transform your idea into a business. You will learn about legal structures that are best suited to your business, and you’ll start to think about how you’ll exit your business when the time comes.
Section 3: COMMIT
A business isn’t real unless it is reaching paying customers and generating revenue. In this step, you’ll focus on your brand, your distribution and your sales strategy. Finally, you’ll learn how to protect your intellectual property, your business and protect yourself from legal risks.
Section 4: REFINE
Now that you’ve sold and distributed your product/service, you have valuable information about the assumptions you made about your customer and your market. Now is the time to refine your business before you publicly launch. In this section, you’ll measure and analyze your financial results against your previous predictions. You’ll consider what people might be needed, and you’ll think about how to protect the assets of your business.
You’ll learn what advisors and boards might do to help you as you work to launch. You will think about how you might fund your business. Finally, you’ll learn how to build and communicate the plan for your business with potential funders and others.
Section 5: LAUNCH
You’re ready to launch your business. In this section, you’ll learn strategies for launching, leading and developing processes that will allow your business to grow. You’ll learn how to draw attention to your new business. You’ll think about your leadership style, your company’s culture and how to manage the exciting challenges of growing a business. You’ll learn about best practices in process management and identify the success metrics that make sense for your business. You’ll forecast the financial future for your company and think about how to set yourself up for success.
A professional faculty includes representatives from:
- Accounting – Bauknight Pietras & Stormer, PA
- Sales and Marketing – McKay Consulting Group, LLC
- Law – McNair Law Firm
About Kauffman FastTrac®
Kauffman FastTrac® aims to lower the barriers to entrepreneurship by providing practical learning materials, delivered online and via teaching partners, to entrepreneurs. In doing so, FastTrac® encourages and equips more people to start businesses, contributing to increased startup activity nationwide.
About Midlands Technical College
Midlands Technical College (MTC) is a non-profit, six-campus, two-year public college serving Richland, Lexington, and Fairfield counties in South Carolina. MTC enrolls approximately 15,000 credit students annually making it the fifth-largest provider of higher education in South Carolina and one of the largest providers of transfer students to the University of South Carolina. The Corporate and Continuing Education (CCE) program is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the Southeast, with approximately 15,000 students and provides training to hundreds of area businesses each year. Visit MidlandsTech.edu for more information.