INDIANAPOLIS - Students in Wabash College’s Business Immersion Program are becoming more familiar with the scuffed side of the business world.
“Growth does not equal being rich,” Sun King Brewery co-owner Clay Robinson ’97 told the 14 program participants Tuesday on a visit to his Indianapolis production facility. Robinson’s words resonated with the students after he spoke of nights that included more scrubbing of floors than sleep. Of course, that all happened before his business’s 850 percent two-year growth.
See album from Tuesday's visit
here.
Daily lessons grounding the students in entrepreneurship reality highlight the Summer Business Immersion curriculum. “We actually have real-life examples,” program leader Roland Morin ’91 said. “We look at the businesses and the problems and issues that arise then develop our own conclusions from them.”
Morin, who sits on the Board of Directors of the Mishawaka Business Association, dropped the previously used course textbook in favor of a case-study approach to discussing business principles and skills. The case studies come from the widely circulated Harvard Business Review along with others used by Dartmouth and Yale. Llistening to alumni like Robinson’s first-hand experiences are becoming the most significant part of the curriculum.
“There’s no replacement in the educational system for going out and seeing these kinds of examples,” Morin said. “I can’t imagine the program without them.”
Before witnessing the brew process, Clay’s father Omar ‘60 shared much of the management and financial side of building and operating Sun King with the students. Students preparing to write their own business plans listened intently as Omar recalled many of the details and challenges of the brewery’s first two years.
Omar’s talk brought principles taught in Morin’s classroom into a real-world situation. “Every time we go and visit someone new and they talk about something we discussed in class, the students turn and look at me with a smile,” Morin said. “It’s as if I’ve said, ‘Yep, I actually knew what I was talking about!’”
“I’ve learned what it actually takes to be an entrepreneur,” Ray Stark ’14 said. “It’s a lot of risk-taking, and you have to be passionate with what you’re starting.”
Clay’s passion for brewing good beer showed as he took the students on a brewery tour. Clay drew upon his 15 years of professional brewing to explain how four ingredients — starch, yeast, water, and hop s— become the brews that has made Sun King very successful in Central Indiana.
After the tour, Clay and Omar answered an hour’s worth of questions. The questions covered growth, sales, and distribution as well as what drove the father and son to start the brewery.
“I quit my job in 2008, went on a two-month Alaskan retreat with my girlfriend to clear my head, then I holed myself up in my house for six weeks and wrote a business plan,” Clay said. “My girlfriend would come home from the grocery, see me in front of the computer, and say ‘You haven’t done anything all day!’ But all day I had been at the computer working on the plan for Sun King.”
The students are developing business models effective for Crawfordsville and Montgomery County. They are working with the Wabash College Cross Country team to explore the potential of a road race strengthening Wabash and Crawfordsville relations. The students are also divided into four teams to write an effective local business plan. The students are developing plans for a nonprofit consulting group, an outdoor store, a 24-hour restaurant in downtown Crawfordsville, and an entertainment center.
Students will begin presenting their business plans next week.
“What (these projects) allow us to do is actually pursue something that we are passionate about and we think would be viable within the Crawfordsville community,” Stark said. “We get to go out and talk to people in the community to get their opinion and see what they want. We actually get real-life business experience from that.”
