Entrepreneurs’ Day: turning an idea into a moneyspinner with help from the OU

Posted on 15 November 2021 • Business, Business and law

The Open University is celebrating Entrepreneurs’ Day by highlighting the achievements of others and showing how, with OU support, wishful thinking could turn into reality.

Plenty of individuals with brilliant ideas, or a hobby, harbour a desire to turn them into a business. In fact according to an OU-commissioned survey, three in ten young women and one in ten young men want to do just that. Read more about the so-called Generation Hustle revealed among young students.

Entrepreneurs’ Day on 16 November is designed to honour those who have built businesses from nothing, people like Sam, who forged ahead to create a sustainable textiles business and online shop while studying for her OU Psychology degree.

“Set your aspirations high and fight for them…”

After many hurdles, including dealing with her mother’s serious illness, Sam’s advice to other budding entrepreneurs is this:

“Set your aspirations high, fight for them, and no matter what the outcome is, even failure, you’ll have the greatest opportunity to learn and for change. It’s the changes we make in ourselves that are our most profound accomplishments.”

There’s lots of support on offer to students at the OU on the OU’s Entrepreneur’s Hub  with tips, hints and signposts to many course modules from business management and design or more in-depth postgraduate courses.

Dr Carolin Decker-Lange, Senior Lecturer in Management at the OU’s Business School, said:

“Entrepreneurship encompasses more than setting up a venture, it includes skills ranging from problem solving to teamwork, taking initiative to communication and risk taking, which can be useful in diverse contexts, such as the workplace.

“In the Business School we support students in developing their entrepreneurial skills because ‘jobs for life’ have become rare.”

There’s also more free learning available with the OU’s OpenLearn Entrepreneurship short course where you can take part in 24 hours of learning, which you can follow at your own pace to make your dreams turn into a reality.

The course content takes you from the germ of an idea, monetising it, to running that business and sustaining the on-going trade. It has many video clips of inspiring people who have done just that.

These young entrepreneurs, who’ve started up their own businesses and want to share their experience, also offer their best tips and ideas. Today could be just the beginning.