ACADEMIC NEWS

On-The-Job Learning

IBE celebrates 10 years of student-led entrepreneurship

By Amanda Dyslin '03, '14

Katie Feind '14 describes herself as one of the guinea pigs for the United Prairie Bank Integrated Business Experience program (IBE) in the College of Business. Enrolled the first year the program was offered in 2012, she remembers not knowing what to expect while facing the daunting task that the hands-on business experience program asks of the students: to create and stand up a real-world business, secure a loan from United Prairie Bank, and generate enough revenue to both pay back what was borrowed and donate the profits to a charity of their choosing. All of this must be accomplished in one semester by students who are just learning the principles of finance, marketing and business management.

Katie Feind was among the first students to enroll in the program in 2012. Today she works with Thomson Reuters legal company in Eagan.

"It was a new program, but it was thought out, it was structured," said Feind. "It gives you an idea of how to start and operate a business in a safe setting. It's a great learning opportunity." Kristin Scott, IBE faculty chair, said the 12-credit, four-course certificate program is designed to challenge students to learn on the fly. In teams of up to 20, they must agree on a product and name, assign roles, create a full business plan, present to United Prairie Bank loan officers, and execute a full startup in one semester. "They have to do it all so quick. They're learning so much, so fast," Scott said. "We hear back from students applying for internships, and once the employers learn what IBE is, they spend the whole time talking about that during the interview because they have so many great insights and things they've learned from the process." Scott Bradley, the president/CEO of United Prairie, has been involved since the beginning of IBE, first with the bank serving to fund the projects and later also becoming the title sponsor of the program. The bank with long-standing local roots was a good fit for a program designed to give back to the community. United Prairie was founded and run by two generations of the local Sneer family, including Minnesota State University, Mankato alum Stuart Sneer. "When we originally got involved, we felt there was a deeper opportunity for us to first serve the community and the students and second to be exposed to the best and the brightest students from a recruitment standpoint," Bradley said. "(IBE) goes beyond academia to the way the real world works. It's been really positive." Scott and Shane Bowyer, who teaches an IBE management course, said there's been a lot of standout projects over the years. Bowyer remembers a team that chose to manufacture wooden coaster sets themselves through Mankato Makerspace, rather than go through a third-party vender like many teams do.

Business student Emily Fearing presenting her IBE business to fellow students of the program.

"To make a product in that time frame was incredibly challenging," Bowyer said. "It was our first and biggest manufacturing type of company." Scott said a company called Snow Problem generated one of the largest profits over the years, donating $6,940 to United Way. They sold windshield covers that came with an ice scraper that had ads from local businesses on it. While most companies dissipate at the end of the semester, Scott said one student, Max Mayleben, who took IBE in the fall of 2019 and graduated spring 2022, has kept his team's company going. The team created the apparel company Ope Outfitters (a play on Minnesotans' use of "ope" instead of "oops"). Rather than purchase products to keep on hand and sell directly to customers, they used Shopify, an e-commerce company that prints and ships to order. Mayleben said customers loved the logo, and enough sales were generated to donate $2,253. "It's honestly the best thing I did in college," he said, emphasizing the value of the real-world experience. "You can memorize a map, but if you don’t drive on the roads, you're not going to know where to go." Feind's team, MavNATION, also sold apparel, theirs with a Maverick logo that was popular with students. They sold enough to donate $2,200 to Junior Achievement. Feind enjoyed the experience so much that she served as an advisor to the next year's class. She also has applied all of her IBE skills to her career, which includes working as a senior sales executive at Thomson Reuters legal company in Eagan, investments in real estate, business consulting, and a healthy honey company she started this year called Vitality Honey. "Honestly, Mankato paved the way for all of that," Feind said. "IBE is a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something that's going to benefit you for years to come." Former IBE student Max Mayleben ’22 has kept his team's

company, Ope Outfitters, going after graduation.