COVER STORY

Steve Tuttle Amy Root-Donle photo

So you say you want to be an entrepreneur?

You've got a great idea for a new widget, perfect Portsmouth boutique or the best new bistro in town. Now what?

Eighty percent of all businesses fail in their first five years. Do you have the business skills to beat those odds? You'll need people skills, selling skills, money skills and government skills, according to Steve Tuttle, associate professor of Applied Business Management at Thompson School of Applied Science at the University of New Hampshire.

"You need to be able to deal with all the governmental and public issues that come up, so people view your business favorably," Tuttle said.

Thompson School offers a two-year associate's degree in small business management. Budding entrepreneurs across the Seacoast have a choice of education, from a 12-credit Entrepreneurial Certificate program at the New Hampshire Community Technical College in Stratham and Portsmouth to an Master of Business Administration degree from UNH's Whittemore School of Business, and many in between.

Time is often of the essence when it comes to entrepreneurialism giving prospective small business owners an opportunity gain skills quickly through NHCTC's Entrepreneurial Certificate program, designed for those who have an idea and want to start their own business. Upon completion of the certificate, the student will have a marketable business plan.

"We can bring them in with an idea and have them leave with a marketable business plan," said Professor John Burtt, chairman of the Department of Business and Computer at NHCTC. "And they can also apply those 12 credits to a further college degree."

Associate degrees are also attractive for those trying to get skills quickly. Such makes schools offering two-year degrees attractive to non-traditional students. Many schools offer associate business degrees, including Thompson School, New Hampshire Community Technical College, McIntosh College and Hesser College.

The popularity of business degrees in general is strong and in New England, small- to medium-sized businesses remain one of the fastest growing segments of the region's economy.

"A business degree is one of the most practical you can get," said Jason Little, associate professor of marketing with Franklin Pierce University's Business Division. "It gives you the tools you need to be successful. It helps make your dreams come true."

Keith Moon, director of the Entrepreneurship Center at Southern New Hampshire University, said enrollment in business programs is boosted by a shaky economy.

"I'm seeing what we saw back in the 1980s, people are in transition," Moon said. "They are looking for career transitions by being able to further their skills."

Moon said SNHU has mostly traditional students in its bachelor's business degree program, but does offer an accelerated three-year program. "That has actually become a very attractive program," he said. "They can get out of here a year early and essentially save a year's worth of tuition."

Professors in the various programs get down to business when it comes to business education. All point to practical skills of a business degree like being able to develop a business plan and reading spreadsheets. They also point to the brand of hands-on learning typically found in business programs.

"You can learn from actual real-life case studies out in the field and save yourself possibly years of making the same mistakes," Moon said. "I relate it very much to a medical education. I would hope my doctor has served a residency and had some real hands-on experience before operating on me."

That hands-on approach includes interaction with business leaders in classrooms and the field. SNHU operates the state's oldest business incubator in Manchester, where students complete projects with entrepreneurs from 22 businesses.

"We call it a mixed-use incubator," Moon said. "We've got law firms, accounting firms, people in the construction industry, executive employment industry and people in high tech. We try to expose students to as many different types of business as we can."

Thompson School touts a list of alumni running small businesses throughout the region.

"There is no town in New Hampshire that I can't drive through and point to the businesses run by our graduates. It's stunning," Tuttle said. Examples include Red Shoe Barn run by Pat Murray in Dover; MacCallum's Boathouse run by Pete MacCullum in Epping; and Young's Restaurant run by Ken Young in Durham.

Kim Hebert of McIntosh College in Dover said the school is beginning a partnership with the Women's Business Center in Portsmouth to help foster mentor relationships between female students and members of that organization.

Each student in NHCTC's Entrepreneurial Certificate program is assigned a mentor to guide her through the start-up and implementation process and courses are augmented by online resources like the New Hampshire Virtual Business Incubator (www.nhvbi.org) and the Small Business Administration.

"When a small business person has a mentor or an incubator environment the success rate is remarkable and we're talking three to five years out," Burtt said.

Franklin Pierce University also uses a partnership with the N.H. Small Business Development Center.

"In my view, those relationships are the most relevant experience students can obtain," Moon said. "I think the academic side when coupled with the actual hands on work is the winning combination."

Increasingly in that combination is a degree personalized to a student's business dream. At Thompson School, Tuttle said many students in the school's other two-year programs, including Applied Animal Science and Food Service Management, now stay on for a third year to add business courses. McIntosh College offers a fashion merchandising program with business courses that help a student move toward opening a boutique, for example.

"You need to have the business skills, you need to know the business atmosphere and all the little pieces that make a business work," said Linda Bono, program chairman of Business Studies at McIntosh College.

Franklin Pierce University offers an arts management major for the nonprofit sector and a business management degree tailored for sports/recreation management as well as a self-designed studies degree related to entrepreneurialism. Little said he's in discussion with the school's environmental sciences department to develop programs that tie environmental science with business.

"What's really neat about it is that students can develop an interest in say, the arts, while getting practical skills needed to develop a career in that area," Little said.

It's all about the skills to succeed.

"In my experience you can succeed by accident without knowing anything and a lot of people do," Tuttle said. "But if you have the basic skills you're much more likely."