Campus Entrepreneurship

Elizabeth Willet, an MBA student at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, is here pitching her new venture, an ISP and tech support business targeting ‘old fogeys.’

It sounds like older folks would pay a monthly fee for her firm to install and maintain computers, internet, printers, etc as well as offering training to the clients.

She is at the back of napkin stage of her venture but seems to have a nice clear idea of her market, her services, and her revenue model. We know from the Boomer Business Plan Contest that lots of people are interested in providing new and better products and services to the growing number of older Americans.

One thought that I would offer Willet, is that her sales people, instructors, and service folks (who go on site and interact with clients) all be at least 50 years old. The nice thing for her is that there are tons of older people looking for part-time work. This could be a nice feature of her business model that would limit her labor costs (both direct and in terms of benefits) and make for a nice marketing technique that may aid sales and increase customer satisfaction. Just my two cents.