Wanna-be entrepreneurs get hands-on experience
Monmouth U class sets up and runs a small business each semester
BY GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer

PHOTOS BY GLORIA STRAVELLI Monmouth University adjunct professor John Buzza speaks to students Gina Sidney, of Tinton Falls, Ravi Singh, of Neptune City, and Rosaly Rivera of Long Branch about the upcoming doo-wop concert they are organizing as part of a business class being taught by Buzza.

WEST LONG BRANCH — Most start-ups are begun for the long term, but business majors at Monmouth University get a dizzying, hands-on experience as entrepreneurs within the brief time frame of a semester.

“We start and end a business in one semester. It’s not so easy to do,” explained adjunct professor John Buzza. “We’re going out of business in one semester.”

“We all kind of band together and become one big happy family. Everybody pitches in. I really feel there’s 100 percent participation. I wish every business could work like this.” — John Buzza

The short-lived business ventures Buzza mentors are the focus of an entrepreneurship class he has instituted within the university’s School of Business Administration that is popular with marketing and management majors.

In the three years since he began teaching the course, his students have started, run and made a profit at several different ventures.

“The aim of the class is to give students a link with the real-world experience of running a business and being an entrepreneur,” Buzza explained last week. “We’re probably the only ones in the country doing anything like this.

“The challenge is to come up with a start up that can be run successfully in three and a half months.”

When the final note sounds at the Rock ’n’ Roll’s No. 1 Revue doo-wop concert tomorrow night in Pollak Auditorium, it will mark the completion of this semester’s business venture.

The 28 juniors and seniors in the class, which meets twice a week, are hoping to net up to $20,000 on the oldies concert, which they plan to donate to a university scholarship fund.

Buzza, who had a career as a restaurateur, initially ran the entrepreneurship class as a standard lecture format.

“I ran it the first semester without going into business,” he said. “I just did a lecture. When I analyzed it, I realized this could be a lot better if we did it another way. Now, the class is half lecture, half business meeting.”

By the second semester, Buzza helped students start up, promote and run Monmouth Boxes, a gift box shipping service, using his own money to finance the venture.

“I felt secure we would make a profit,” he said.

He was right. The gift box service netted $1,500 by the semester’s end.

“We produced three boxes: a holiday box, a get-well box and a feel-good box for a parent who just misses a son or daughter. We had orders from all over the country.”

The following semester, entrepreneurship students marketed a discount card, the Monmouth University Smart Card.

“We solicited 20 local businesses that gave a discount on their services — for example, 10 percent off a nail appointment, 25 percent off dinner.

“The business paid to be on the card, and then we sold the cards campus- and community-wide,” Buzza explained. “Businesses were extremely receptive.”

That kind of community- and campus-based support is a cornerstone of Buzza’s approach to teaching the fledgling entrepreneurs.

“Creating a business partnership idea is what we always try to do whenever we start a business,” he said. “We like to get the community involved to let them know what we’re trying to do. It’s a win-win situation.”

The venture was another success story, grossing about $7,000.

“We made about $4,200 clear profit after expenses,” said Buzza, a Farmingdale resident.

That was enough to provide seed money for this year’s concert, which Buzza estimates will net $15,000-$20,000.

“We decided on an oldies concert collectively. We wanted to make a real impact this semester, and we have the potential to make $20,000,” he said.

“We bantered around ideas and came up with a concert, and decided the biggest age group for an audience was baby-boomers who would attend an oldies concert”

Buzza drew on contacts in the entertainment industry to line up talent for the concert.

“They’re doing it as a favor to me, donating their services,” he said of the golden oldies revue put on by Joey Dee and the Starlighters; Larry Chance and The Earls; Bobby Valli, brother of Frankie Valli of Four Seasons fame; and David Brigati of The Young Rascals.

Use of the theater is being provided gratis, as are the sound and light systems.

The class is projecting expenditures to run about $6,000-$7,000 for items like advertising, publicity.

All of the work necessary to stage the concert was divided up among students including ticket sales, accounting, Web site design, advertising, marketing, on-campus publicity, and production.

Gina Sidney, Tinton Falls, a junior and business management major, was responsible for advertising, getting ads for the ad journal and placing print ads.

“I’ve learned that entrepreneurship is something I would be interested in,” Sidney said. “I learned it’s so fun, building a business from scratch.”

“We all kind of band together and become one big happy family,” Buzza said. “Everybody pitches in. I really feel there’s 100 percent participation. I wish every business could work like this.”

A week before the concert, a little over 250 tickets had been sold. Buzza was expecting to sell 500 of the 600 seats, many through alumni and local businesses.

Importantly, profits aren’t the sole aim of Buzza’s approach to teaching students what it takes to be a successful small business owner; inculcating ethical values has equal weight.

“There’s a term we use in class, “corporate social responsibility.” Basically, it means when you have a product, business, service, idea, you’ve got to have an attachment not only to your customer, but to the community you sell your product in. That’s the big thing about ethics.”

Buzza got his own entrepreneurial training as the proprietor of several successful restaurants in New York and New Jersey. While operating the restaurants, he began a 17-year teaching career, taking an adjunct post at Monmouth University three years ago.

According to Buzza, each semester’s crop of aspiring entrepreneurs decides collectively on a business concept.

“We establish the business in the first two meetings,” he said,

To jump-start the process, Buzza e-mails students before classes begin.

“When they come into class, they already know they have to come up with some type of business idea, a project that will be able to open and close within a three-and-a-half-month period.

“I teach how to run a business at a profit, of course, but also the pitfalls. What a real business has to go through to achieve profitability,” Buzz continued. “It’s not as easy as just designing it, coming up with a business plan and implementing it. We do that. But then we actually carry out the business plan.

“Students run into all the trials and tribulations of running a business on a daily basis. They find that what you put into something is what you’re going to get out of it. It’s real-world experience of dealing with the outside world, not just with academia.”

Rosaly Rivera, Long Branch, a junior and business major, was responsible for purchasing and negotiated a donation of 13 cases of bottled water from BJ’s in Ocean Township.

“I came in thinking it was going to be just a class, and it was totally different,” she said. “You get a lecture, but you get hands-on experience of owning a business.”

“I just want them to learn that,” Buzza said. “Our mission for the course is to let the students be aware of what businesses face in the real world.”

Last Friday’s class was a full-blown business meeting devoted to last minute details of staging the concert.

“The night of the concert, everything you’ve done is all coming to fruition,” Buzza told the class. “When you have the experience of opening your own business, you have no idea of the euphoria. I think we will feel that tomorrow night. The trick is to keep that.

“A lot of people don’t do that. They’re successful right away and they lose it. You can’t fall into that trap. The more you put into something, the more you get out. It’s just that simple.”