I took 40 SMU students to Block 79. Here’s what happened.

Photo credit: Infocomm Investments

At the Singapore Management University (SMU), the island’s only educational institution served by three MRT stations and within ERP limits, it is often said that if one were to throw a pebble randomly, it has a 8 in 10 chance of striking a finance major. Would it then be hard to find students interested in startups?

The preamble

I didn’t believe so, and proposed that the only reason why students seemed disinterested was due to the distance between the campus and Block 71/79, as well as a generic knowledge gap about the startup ecosystem. In January, I tested my hypothesis with a simple survey done over Google Forms. This was what I created as a pitch to SMU’s career and entrepreneurship offices.

I decided to make good with these results and created a Facebook event, randomly inviting friends to visit Launchpad with a very, very rough agenda of office tours and a simple networking session, with no clear indication of the offices or startups we will talk to. Besides blasting the event in large WhatsApp group chats, I also reached out to school offices, student clubs, startups, and professors (to pop into classes to get people to sign up for the event).

The build-up

To be honest, I was very humbled and pleasantly surprised with the response from both the students and startups. Of course, I faced bureaucratic roadblocks when talking to parties like the SMU career center – and eventually realized that this would never be rolled off as an official school event. I proceeded to request $10 from each attendee (and that a slot is only confirmed upon payment), $5 of which will be refunded upon attendance of the event.

One very important thing that was central to the marketing of the event was to bank on each party’s pain points. The school term will end in April and the internship application season was coming soon, which explained students’ willingness to spend a Friday evening away from school. Most startups that I reached out to were also actively scaling and hiring, which explained why they readily agreed to spend some time off to network and share with the students.

I went on to charter a bus, buy coffee powder, and rent drinks dispensers for the whole event. To be honest, I actually secretly enjoyed these behind-the-scenes tasks too. Heh.

The event

The build-up went well on the students’ side and not too bad on the startups’ side. At long last, it was one day before the event! With this came the flurry of confirming the final attendance, touching up on the agenda, and making some final reminders. I specifically reminded the students to dress casually.

Screen capture of email to students

And finally, it was time for the event! While there were a few students who couldn’t make it for the event at the last minute, we were still able to set off with 38 students.

Thankfully, no one came in a suit or tailored pants. Everyone marked their attendance and boarded the bus at SMU, and in 20 minutes, we were exiting the expressway into One-north. One can only imagine that level of excitement when the students were chatting non-stop in the bus!

Some insights

Special thanks