The Entrepreneur Club

The Entrepreneur Club was founded out of desire for an outlet to talk about business at Waynflete. Jacob and I, the co-founders enjoyed talking to each other about the latest episode of Shark Tank and legendary entrepreneurs like Elon Musk. After starting the club in the second semester of our sophomore year, we found we were not alone in our enjoyment of business. In our first semester we recruited Head of School, Geoff Wagg, a budding businessman himself, to advise our club and soon we had five members going to Geoff’s office every Monday. With more success than we suspected, Jacob and I decided that in the first semester as a group we would come up with an idea, write a business plan, and pitch it to a panel of three local investors. However, we quickly realized as we tried to start this process that none of us knew what we were doing. So, as an entrepreneur might say, we pivoted.

Instead of coming up with a product, we learned all about what it takes to be an entrepreneur. About once a month, we would have an entrepreneur, accountant, or investor come in and talk to us about their experiences in the business world. Towards the end of the year, we met with the founder of a local seafood distributor, Bristol Seafoods, who, after retiring from his old company was in the process of starting a new company. He invited us to be his apprentices in his journey and we excitedly accepted. That has been the focus of this most recent year of Entrepreneurs Club. After almost doubling in size, we meet with him once a month as he talked us through his company, while giving us research assignments to do outside of the club. In the days that he was not there, we met with other people, who taught us such skills as writing a balance sheet or finding investors. We also read articles about companies that have either failed or succeeded, discussing why we think that happened, and what we would have done differently. Every so often, we’ll even watch an episode of Shark Tank. As the year comes to a close, we will be starting a long term project as a culmination of all we have learned in the past year in Entrepreneurs Club.