Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. Got a very special guest with me now because I have the new director of the Wolff Center of Entrepreneurship from the University of Houston, Ken Jones. Ken, welcome to the BusinessMakers Show.

Ken: Russ, it's a pleasure to be here.

Russ: Well, and I must add for those in our audience who don't know, the Wolff Center of Entrepreneurship at the University of Houston is ranked number one amongst undergraduate entrepreneurship programs in the whole United States by the Princeton Review and by Entrepreneur Magazine, ranked number one in 2010, but also I think in 2008 as well.

Ken: That's right. And then we were number two in 2009.

Russ: That's right. Wow! Unbelievable. I mean that's like coming in and being able to coach the Super Bowl champion. But, you played a role back in the beginning as well, right?

Ken: Oh yeah. I've been around a long time and, in a lot of cases, you get the accolades after many, many years of hard, hard work and I think that's the case now. Now we have to maintain that.

Russ: Absolutely. Well golly. Now, back in the beginning - I mean we've had Bill Sherrill on the show a couple of times. You were there at the very early stages with Bill, correct?

Ken: You bet. We started the selling program at the University of Houston and then really, under Bill's tutelage, got the entrepreneurship program off the ground and it's been a real good ride since.

Russ: Okay. Well, I'm impressed with everything I see out there, but I've made this point many times in the past. I don't know if you knew this, but I've traveled around the country and visited lots of entrepreneurship programs at USC, at MIT, at Babson, at TCU, and I am always very impressed with all of them, Ken, 'cause I'm such a champion of entrepreneurship. But to have the number one program right here I think is just incredible and says a whole, whole lot for what's going on out there.

Ken: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We've got great momentum and it's all about the students. And so, with each year, you end up getting better and better, more qualified and certainly more motivated students to really kick off their entrepreneurial efforts.

Russ: Okay. If I got this correct, in the very beginning you were actually teaching some classes out there as well, entrepreneurship classes?

Ken: Oh yeah. And I have the sales classes and essentially every entrepreneur has to learn to be a pretty good sales person.

Russ: Absolutely.

Ken: And so I think one morphed into the other.

Russ: Okay. That's real cool. Now, I also understand that, after you left the program, you headed up another entrepreneurship program at the University of Houston Downtown, right?

Ken: Yeah, that was really, really fun. They had no program whatsoever and we started first semester I think with 11 students and, in four years time, throughout the year, almost 500 plus students are involved in those programs now. And that's a certificate based program.

Russ: Okay. Well now I always heard about one thing that you did out there at the beginning of each year that I thought was real cool. It had something to do with getting the class to come together in to, to sort of figure out how much they would have to earn in order to survive. Share that with our audience.

Ken: In fact, I just did that two days ago. I'm all about relevancy. I don't think that one can ever teach or any of our instructors teach theory. You can't take theory to the grocery store and buy a thing with it. So we start with let's get a baseline of how much money you really think you're gonna need to make just to break even. And then we build the business on that so that the business has to have enough earnings and enough revenue to support the lifestyle that they really want to ascribe to. And it's fun. It's a very good exercise.

Russ: Well, and that exercise applies even if they don't go out and start their company right away. If they get a job and sort of get some experience, they kind of know, "My goodness. I have to earn this sort of money just to get by?"

Ken: Oh absolutely. And there's no pressure on anyone to have to start a business right away. I frankly don't care if they don't start it for 30 years. They get a magnificent baseline on really what I call monetizing their business ideas. I speak all over the country often and people that have a craft have a really difficult time sometimes how to monetize that craft and go find a customer. And so, when they start to do that, they've really got to start to think monetarily and they got to think about how much money they gotta make and what that's gonna take. So that's a lot of fun.

Russ: Right. How well do these students do at being realistic on this exercise?

Ken: Well, because I champion the cause, some of their unrealistic requests I kind of ratchet down a little bit. But it's interesting. In 15 years, we started doing that, and the number was gross income of about $45,000.00. And this year it was $117,000.00.

Russ: [Laughs]. That's crazy. Well do you let them get that high if they want to? I mean -

Ken: Well no. But it's the perfect motivator because I say look, unless you inherit the money or you marry smart, you're gonna have to take on risk and you're either gonna be compensated or your compensation is gonna be driven by what you do or you're gonna own it. And we're in the "own it" business. So now you'll have an opportunity to maybe go make that kind of money.

Russ: Okay. Now Ken, when I talk to people about entrepreneurship educational programs, there's always this debate that comes around: can you really teach somebody to be an entrepreneur? And I've even had this discussion with Bill Sherrill, the real founder of the Wolff Center out there, and there are those that think you can and those that think you can't. What's your position on that?

Ken: Well, 60 percent plus of new businesses today are franchises. So that may ascribe to those that think that you are either born with it or not; otherwise you follow a recipe book. I think that the education makes a big, big difference for those who want to get into that being an entrepreneur and stick around within five years. So no, I don't think you're born with it; I think you can very much be educated to it.

Russ: Okay. Well one thing that I've heard has always played a huge role at the Wolff Center was the basic pluses and minuses of income and expenses and profit, how that's sort of driven in real hard in the very beginning which, in my opinion, I think is really cool at that age. I mean is that still gonna be the case?

Ken: Oh that's beyond grilled; ad nauseum. They have to know how to read the score card. Most business people I ever run into, 90 plus percent, are using QuickBooks, but yet they can't even read their own financial statements. And so, when people start to really understand - and we can, I think, articulate that in such a way that it's not intimidating - I don't care that anyone aspires to be an accountant, but they doggone be able to learn how to manage their accountant and understand the information they get.

Russ: Okay. Now one thing I've heard you speak about before, and I don't know if I'm gonna ask the question right either, but I've heard you talk and describe what is an entrepreneur. Tell our audience your definition of what that is.

Ken: Sure. And, in fact, if I brought in 25 different quote/unquote entrepreneurs, everybody might have their own definition. And so, therefore, there really isn't a right or a wrong. But my definition is one who knows the outcome is up to him or her and wants it that way. And the reason I really like that definition is that I want anyone in my organization to feel entrepreneurial. And it really gets back to accountability.

Russ: Alright. Talking with Ken Jones, the new Director of the Wolff Center of Entrepreneurship at the University of Houston. And we'll be back with more with him after this. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com.

Russ: This is The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com and continuing on with Ken Jones, the new Director of the University of Houston's Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship. Tell us a little bit about the curriculum. You know say somebody's got a son or daughter that's going to the U of H and they're watching and they're thinking, "Wow, that would be real cool." What would they be exposed to?

Ken: Well the curriculum is about 50/50 in the classroom and out of the classroom. So, if we're gonna be training a CEO, that CEO needs to not only have proper social graces, expanding their network, understanding the nuances of what goes on in the marketplace, as well as the skills that they're gonna need in the classroom. So it's a real nice kind of combination.

Russ: Okay. How many people do you take at any given time into the program?

Ken: Well, we get - and I'm certainly trying to grow this - as many applicants as we possibly can and each class has under 40. And we put 40 out every spring, out into the entrepreneurial marketplace, which is kind of fun. We're building a building so that we may be able to start to add a second battalion of 35 entrepreneurs each year, which will be kind of nice.

Russ: Okay. It's probably pretty difficult to get into then, right?

Ken: The litmus test to getting in is getting harder and harder. And - which I want it to be.

Russ: Okay. Does the program offer anything to other, perhaps members of another business school that are not an entrepreneurship program?

Ken: Yeah, I think one of the real telling qualities of the program is we offer a certificate program in entrepreneurship, which really enhances, in my view, the marketability and resume of those who attend. And that's open to students of all majors throughout the entire university.

Russ: Oh wow. So I could be an English major and go in there and take an entrepreneurship program to get a certificate?

Ken: You bet. You bet. So those that are coming from the technical, the science, the sciences possibly, the humanities - getting an exposure to entrepreneurship really helps marry what they're getting a major in with a bit of a business oversight.

Russ: Ah; which seems to be extremely important these days if one were to go into this economy and try to get a job.

Ken: Oh, you bet. It's very, very fun. I always aspire that the students should run from their car or their dorm to the classroom because the classes are so worth it. And that's what we try to aspire to.

Russ: Alright. Does that actually happen?

Ken: Uh, I'll let you interview the students to be the judge, but I certainly hope so.

Russ: [Laughs]. That's great. Now you mentioned, Ken, you know the interaction with the community. Tell me a little bit more about that. What's that mean?

Ken: We are gonna be kicking off a program just this spring with the Prison Entrepreneurship Program.

Russ: We're very familiar. We've had them on the show a couple of times.

Ken: You bet. So with PEP, you learn so much more by teaching sometimes than you do by listening. So I'm gonna throw all these students into working with and mentoring a lot of the folks within the PEP program. And so there will be kind of a nice give and take there and I think they'll learn as much in return.

Russ: Okay. But I thought maybe that meant also that there's like mentor programs and stuff with business people.

Ken: Well of course I met with 45 mentors two nights ago. And this was wonderful. We have the students essentially sign a contract of commitment and then they meet with their mentors twice a month, both at the school as well as at the mentor's business or location. And so - and they stay with the mentor past graduation.

Russ: Oh wow; oh wow; cool.

Ken: And so it kind of gives, to me, what we really have to provide and that is perspective. These students need as much perspective and exposure to as many people's opinions and backgrounds so that they can formulate their own

Russ: I'm just sitting here imagining there could be a person listening or watching right now that's already out in the business world thinking, "Man, I wish they had like an executive level entrepreneurship program where I could come in and pick up some of these courses."

Ken: Well we do. And, in fact, we're working on an extension now. We're gonna be calling Mind Your Own Business that will allow those who really aspire to kind of entrepreneurial thinking. And really this is attractive to a lot of the, what I would call middle aged or older aspiring entrepreneurs who maybe want to get back into the business world. They want to work out of their house. And they need to kind of polish up their skill sets so that they can formulate a marketing plan and get started. It's very fun.

Russ: Well now Mind Your Own Business is a program that you personally put together and authored and have been doing as an independent consultant, correct?

Ken: That's right. I try to offer, and our team tries to put together these Friday, day long, both half day and full day. A lot of fun. We do entrepreneurship at the Improv. So someone can bring their own business idea, sit in the middle, and we really go get after it as far as trying to help them get their business off the ground.

Russ: And if I heard you correctly, you're gonna integrate that into the Wolff Center for activity here in Houston.

Ken: That's right. For, in Houston, it makes all the sense in the world for us to start to include a lot of students as part of that process.

Russ: Wow; that is really cool. So there must be a lot of excitement. You know it seems to me that the Wolff Center must be even playing a role in this endeavor out there to bring the University of Houston up to the tier one level as well.

Ken: Well we have all the backing in the world. Everyone's very, very excited. Programs continue to grow. I'm changing up, I hope, some of the curriculum that we offer at the school presently, which will not only enhance the caliber of the curriculum in my view, but even bring more relevancy and start to include so many folks from the outside who really have a craft that they may want to offer up that they can now participate at the school.

Russ: Real cool. The University of Houston has always impressed me of the ethnic diversity. And, when I had been out there and seen the program too, those that are in the 35 to 40 range, it is about as broad as you can get. And I assume that you're proud of that.

Ken: Oh, you bet. We average anywhere from 10 to 14 nationalities in a class of 35.

Russ: Wow!

Ken: And so it's wonderful for everyone to bring their customs and their issues from their countries because nowadays entrepreneurship knows no borders and certainly the internet is a purveyor of said situations.

Russ: Absolutely. Absolutely. Talking with Ken Jones, the new Director of the Wolff Center of Entrepreneurship at the University of Houston. And we'll be back with more with Ken after this. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com.

Russ: This is The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. And continuing on with Ken Jones, who now has the new, exciting role of Director of the Wolff Center of Entrepreneurship at the University of Houston, a center that he played a key role in the very beginning. I'm real curious. I mean I know you've sort of had your personality and ideas integrated in the program since the beginning. But now that you're driving the bus, is there some more significant curriculum changing that you're gonna bring to the program?

Ken: Absolutely. We're gonna introduce a course called Entrepreneurial Perspectives, or I sometimes, for short, call it Entre Perspectives. And one of the things that I find in curriculum around the country, we always teach from the CEO's point of view out. And I think it much more effective to start to understand what outsiders' points of view about your company or companies might be.

So, for example, your banker looks at you much, much differently than you look at your banker. So why not bring in an array of bankers for a week and let's talk about topics and see how they view your business so, therefore, you can mold what you need to have and understand what's important to them.

And we've put together almost 22 weekly perspectives. So everything from human resources, your family, the bank, an attorney, CPA, your customer, etc., and have that point of view every week brought to the students. Oh, it goes really, really well.

Russ: Wow; that sounds really interesting. Cool. That could be very valuable too. [Laughs]. I mean it would be valuable for an existing operating company to experience that any day.

Ken: You bet. And we've had a lot of outside interest to try to be involved and certainly are looking for more; but really to kind of bring those kinds of points of view to the table. The second one, we're gonna be teaching a course called Failure.

Russ: Alright.

Ken: Okay. So the entire semester, I hope, will be all about how to fail because we learn, in my view, so much more from people who have failed and what failure has been caused by than we do listening to everyone who talks about how they won.

Russ: [Laughs]. Well in entrepreneurship world, we all know that that failure thing happens a lot more often than the success things. So I think that's really a good lesson.

Ken: You've got litmus tests on where you see failure marks coming about. It will be fun.

Russ: Okay. Now moving on the other side of the spectrum from failure, you've been doing this, Ken, in this university based undergrad programs, two of them, for quite some time. Do you have any particular success stories that you're proud of?

Ken: Oh, well, we've almost done 200. But I'll give you a couple of highlights. There are 10,300 restaurants in Houston and so a lot of people aspire to open up a restaurant and there's a lot of failures there. We recently opened up a restaurant that is open four nights a week until 4:00 in the morning. In its first year, it did a million three in gross revenue out of 1,100 square feet, including the kitchen.

Russ: Wow!

Ken: And that's really understanding the customer.

Russ: And this is a student through the program, wow.

Ken: This is a student through our program. And it's called BB's Café and it's at Westheimer and Montrose.

Russ: Alright. Cool.

Ken: Example number two. One student got into law school but yet he said, "I really love to fish." To make a long story short, he is now the number one provider of fishing lures to Academy for Saltwater Fish.

Russ: Oh, my goodness.

Ken: And he'll do almost a million dollars in revenue. And we've gone to China. We've gone all over the world. He has built great web centric tools that provide his retailer's information and the fishing guides.

Example number three. Out off the Katy Freeway, west of the Katy Mills Mall, there's 13 acres that you'll see pile after pile after pile of rock. Apex Stone was started and borne out of our program. And he just bought his third 18 wheeler. And he is - probably got the most significant market share in the providing of rock such as flagstone, etc., to the building community and homeowners in Houston.

Russ: Wow! Okay, I'm gonna have to stop you there 'cause I get the feeling you could keep going.

Ken: Oh, it was awesome.

Russ: Going on. That is so cool. But, before we end this, I have to ask you our standard guest question here. Let's imagine that there's an aspiring entrepreneur that's tuned in listening or watching you right now and they're all jazzed up about this. Maybe they can, maybe they cannot even try to get into the Wolff Center program. What general advice would you give them to prepare themselves for this venture?

Ken: Probably number one is knowing who their customer is. Almost every entrepreneur I ever deal with or aspiring entrepreneur has a really, really difficult time really telling me who their customer is and narrowly, narrowly, narrowly focusing it to where you can own your niche. And that's probably the biggest challenge most folks have.

Russ: That's really interesting. I thank you for sharing that with us. And I really thank you for giving us some of your time. And I wish you good luck out there.

Ken: It's been a pleasure. Thanks Russ.

Russ: Alright, you bet. That's Ken Jones, the new Director of the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Houston. And you're listening to the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com.