Students Can Get Paid To Launch A Business

Thanks to a new program, Texas A&M students can land a summer job like no other: getting paid to start their own business.

Texas A&M and Mississippi State University (MSU) have jointly launched the MaroonX Accelerator Program, funded by a $200,000 grant from the Blackstone Charitable Foundation, in an effort to foster entrepreneurship on the two campuses. The name of the program is inspired by the fact both universities use maroon as their school color.

“MaroonX is a novel business accelerator program for students interested in launching and growing a technology-based venture,” says Blake Petty, director of Mays Business School’s Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship, and MaroonX co-program manager. “It’s truly unique in that student entrepreneurs will actually be paid a cash stipend from MaroonX to work on their startup idea.”

A summertime program, MaroonX will run its inaugural round June 1 – Aug. 15 and is open to Texas A&M student teams consisting of two to three members, in good standing, and enrolled in the spring 2015 semester.

Once accepted by the program, each team member will receive a $3,000 personal stipend ($1,000/mo.), plus $5,000 per team for product development, office and collaboration space at Startup Aggieland, the university’s business accelerator facility in Research Park, business travel and marketing budgets, and dedicated mentorship.

“We have so many Aggies desperate to work on their startup concept over the summer,” Petty notes. “MaroonX effectively allows these students to work on their new venture as their summer job. Who wouldn’t want to get paid to build their own company?”

Sharing the MaroonX venture with MSU is a natural fit, says Blake; both are land-grant universities, located in non-urban areas. “We both recognize our student ventures are less likely than others to attract attention from the professional investment or business acceleration programs in larger cities,” he explains. “We want to develop a network of entrepreneurial programs at universities like ours designed to leverage our collective and collaborative resources to attract more attention and broader engagement of these professional programs.”

Petty says MaroonX will be a collaborative project aiming to leverage existing entrepreneurial support resources across different geographies. “Blackstone funding will allow us to experiment with online mentorship, where Texas A&M mentors can video-chat with MSU student teams, and vice-versa.”

The MaroonX Program will train teams through a 10-week “Lean Launch” customer discovery and product innovation process, currently being taught at Texas A&M in a blended course offered by faculty from Mays, and the colleges of engineering and architecture. “There will be some classroom learning modules, but the majority of the MaroonX Program will focus on experiential learning through customer interviews and collaborative mentoring sessions, both in-person and online with the concurrent cohort at MSU,” Petty says.

The summer program will culminate with a collaborative Demo Day event in which each MaroonX team will showcase their venture to a live audience of investors and professional accelerator programs, while being live-streamed to a similar audience at the partner university.

Blackstone Charitable Foundation awards innovation grants from its Entrepreneurship Initiative, targeting novel efforts to strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems worldwide. Out of over 550 universities and non-profit applicants this year, the MaroonX proposal was one of only 20 selected for award.

Petty says he hopes to expand the program to other universities. “The funding provided for MaroonX is designed to facilitate a pilot program, one that can be successfully expanded to other universities facing similar challenges,” he notes. “I hope to recruit another two or three SEC universities to participate in Cohort 2. Why should we let NCAA have all the competitive fun?”

Texas A&M students can apply for the MaroonX program online at http://tx.ag/MaroonX. Applications must be submitted before the closing date of April 20.

To learn more about entrepreneurship opportunities at Texas A&M, visit CNVE and Startup Aggieland.