Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/646725
w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m M a r c h 2 0 1 6 • I NSIGH T | 15 AT T H E S B D C , W E W O R K with any company under 500 employees. Our office is lean, very lean. We probably see about 170 clients a year and there are fewer than two full-time people in the office. We've taken companies from bankruptcy to being profitable. We've started many companies. We are the no-cost business consultants and we rock it. Because of that role with SBDC, I started speaking in the classroom at the university, which led to the Alta Resources Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. We are just coming into our third academic year and we've launched more than 20 student companies, including one company acquiring another one for $10 million, a cra brewery that is a $1.2 million project and someone who came up with a smart pillow — the ideas are absolutely phenomenal. Finding those great ideas is one of the reasons we started our "Shark Tank" competition. For the last competition, we had about 50 students apply and we narrowed it down to 10. ese students come in completely unprepared and they learn so much — we make them do this in two weeks. People Colleen Merrill on sparking a startup generation U P F R O N T FACE T I M E P H O T O G R A P H B Y B I L L K A P I N S K I / I M A G E S T U D I O S , F O R I N S I G H T Colleen Merrill is the director of the Small Business Development Center at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and the executive director of the Alta Resources Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She explained to Insight Senior Editor Sean P. Johnson the importance of supporting young entrepreneurs before they move away and take their ideas with them. [continued ] »