To different people, being an entrepreneur might mean different things. Whether for profit or not, entrepreneurship is about enterprising individuals pursuing new startup opportunities to create businesses that grow and provide value.

Laurie Stach is an experienced entrepreneurship educator who founded LaunchX, an entrepreneurship education program that brings together students from around the US and world each summer to launch real startups.  The program leverages top speakers, staff, and course materials to help them start their businesses. During the program’s early years, this was accomplished by bringing students together at top universities, which took advantage of the unique combination of environment, people, and technology at these institutions. In recent years, the program evolved to run in an online format, providing more accessibility and new learning possibilities.

Her major goal is to leverage entrepreneurship to grow student problem-solving, resourcefulness, and other real-world skills, while “prototyping” their jobs and beginning to making a difference early in their lives.

High school students start real companies at LaunchX, which also allows them to build real-world skills such as problem solving, resourcefulness, and adaptability for their futures regardless of their future careers. Laurie asserts, “We provide the hands-on education and top resources and community that equips students with the skills and innovative thinking to create successful businesses.” She further adds, “Students are challenged to create a real startup in a team of action-oriented peers, going from idea to execution and impact.”

Entrepreneurial Resources and Goals

LaunchX is a leader in the field of entrepreneurial education. Laurie and her team have put together top-notch resources including the leading course materials, renowned guest speakers, seasoned personnel with a proven track record, and dedicated mentors for more personalized support. LaunchX also boasts an unrivalled network of the LaunchX community of young entrepreneurs who join the program from around the world to start their companies, become cofounders, learn from one another, and support one another.

All LaunchX startup teams are expected to come together and gain market validation by the conclusion of the program. This includes the following:

• Teaming: students are expected to foster collaboration, respect, and mutually support.
• Testing: teams explore a startup opportunity through market research and the development of a Minimum Viable Product (an “MVP”).
• Selling: startups are expected to launch their offering into the marketplace with the goal of producing sales, pre-sales, or other revenues of no less than $250.

Through this experiential learning of starting real companies, students grow significantly in their entrepreneurial skills and mindset.  They grow as entrepreneurs in addition to launching real startups.

The Founder of LaunchX

Laurie holds a mechanical engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an MBA from Harvard Business School.  She worked in a variety of fields prior to founding LaunchX including commercial management at General Electric, mechanical design at BMW’s design studio, and consulting at The Boston Consulting Group.

Laurie worked for a few years at MIT’s entrepreneurship center after founding LaunchX, where she created a maker space and created and taught their ‘Intro to Making’ course. Additionally, she offers an entrepreneurship workbook on Amazon and has a highly praised EdX course on entrepreneurship.

Laurie has experience across a variety of fields, so she benefits from bringing together the perspective of engineering problem-solving, design thinking, and business strategy. Her strategic and business side can think through the top line (revenue), while her operations and engineering side knows how to keep the bottom line in balance (cost).

Even with this balance, every business requires a diverse set of talents and viewpoints. This is why most excellent organizations have a great team that comes together to make it successful.  Laurie has had great mentors and staff who have allowed additional perspective to ensure focus.

She claims that every organization must balance their concentration among these several abilities, and that each company must choose what balance is best for their success. There is no such thing as a perfect solution, just as there is no such thing as a perfect company concept, perfect moment to launch, or perfect team. She says, “The key is to just get started, adapt, and lead with integrity.”

Tech-Based Leadership

As Laurie sees it, leadership is all about empowering a team to execute their duties well, and technology helps team members work more efficiently while also giving leaders a better view of how team members are performing across the business.

Technology is revolutionizing leadership by increasing communication efficiency and delivering insights into organizational processes. Many more things can be done remotely, and basic chores may be automated, allowing team members to concentrate on the most important aspects of their jobs. Simple dashboards may bring together the most important corporate performance dashboards, bringing the entire team together, while project management tools help keep team members on track.

Impact of LaunchX

LaunchX holds high school students to rigorous standards in order for them to build genuine businesses. Other schools may place a greater emphasis on the idea, business plan, or other research aspects of a startup, but LaunchX places a significant distinction on creating real traction. The LaunchX summer program urges student startup teams to start selling as soon as possible to test whether customers care about the service and to discover where there is value. Laurie believes that the learning and value of a company comes from genuine traction in the marketplace.

The summer program has impacted over 1,600 high school students, with a ripple effect throughout the world as these students reach out to many more and inspire further action in their areas. More than 350 companies were formed during the program, with many students maintaining their enterprises or starting new ones as a result of LaunchX.

The success of the program is more than just the startups of these young entrepreneurs, though, since these high school students go on to so many amazing things.  While many startups continue to great success including alumni pitching on Shark Tank, raising investment, and selling their companies, there are other stories as well.  Alumni have created hackathons, volunteer networks, become venture capitalists, written books on entrepreneurship, mentor other entrepreneurs, and found many other ways to support the entrepreneurial network.

Growth of Youth Entrepreneurial Education

Online learning, project-based learning, and experiential learning are three trends in education that are becoming increasingly popular. The former was created out of necessity, whereas the latter was created to promote involvement and real-world learning.

According to Laurie, there has also been a big surge in entrepreneurial education. She considers herself lucky to be a part of and manage a group of young entrepreneurs. She adds, “This trend will continue with more inclusion and diversity, while also including a broader student base interested in intrapreneurship (entrepreneurship in an existing organization).”

LaunchX, Laurie believes, has a lot of room for development in the short and long future. The company has already seen significant growth in recent years by expanding to additional universities, then going to an online setting. Each of these two things subsequently meant an increase in students, then a vast increase in the LaunchX support network due to the remote staffing structure.  This has set us up for huge growth in the near and long term.

In the near future, the program will expand to include a larger number of high school students by:

• Holding campus programs starting again in 2023
• Expanding the online program

Laurie adds that the organization will be pleased to announce new growth prospects in programs that further foster entrepreneurship and creativity among aspiring young entrepreneurs in the future years.

A Message for Future Entrepreneurs

The most essential lesson and piece of advice Laurie has for the future generation of entrepreneurs is to get started. She explains that every entrepreneur has obstacles when they first start out, whether it’s finding time, mentors, clients, or anything else. She says, “You will need to be resourceful and adaptable, and start interviewing, prototyping, and trying to get sales early.”  She also adds, “Be open to feedback and learning as you interview customers and test your offering—the ‘idea’ that you start with will rarely be the one that you end with. You won’t know if something is working until customers are willing to give you real money for your concept.”

Website: www.launchx.com