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V O L . X X V I I I N O. X I I I § 2 J U N E 2 7 , 2 0 2 2 10 F O C U S helping an entrepreneur's business become all it can be." Starting young: entrepreneurial classes in high school, college Cultivating entrepreneurial skills at a young age can help students think more creatively, explore new career paths and help create more resilient workers, says Rainey of Maine Center for Entrepreneurs. "ey are starting younger and younger to promote creative think- ing and promote a new generation of aspiring entrepreneurs," Rainey says. "It's an increasing trend in high schools to get teenagers to think about business and think more creatively about what their future could be." Falmouth High School, Waynflete School, and Southern Maine Community College are among the schools to offer entrepre- neurship classes. Beth Donovan, a teacher at Falmouth High School, has been teaching entrepreneurship classes for about four years and she's amazed at the diverse range of ideas and prod- ucts and services her students develop. "We ask at the beginning of the class if there are any entrepre- neurs there. And no one raises their hands, but there's always some that already have their own businesses like landscaping or photography or video editing or something and they don't realize they already are entrepre- neurs," Donovan says. e class teaches students every- thing from marketing and advertising, to product development and proto- types to business plans and customer attraction and retention. e class culminates in a "Shark Tank"-type pitch presentation where the students discuss the problem they're solving, their target market, their competition, how they will finance it and what their profit margins are. Students have created ideas such as an Uber-type program for snow removal, to a boat-type Uber service for Casco Bay, and a film editing ser- vice for local schools' sports teams. e class hosts speakers from local entrepreneur groups, local companies and individuals who have successfully launched their own businesses. e class also reads books such as Phil Knight's "Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike," and Marc Randolph's "at Will Never Work: e Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea," and listens to podcasts such as "How I Built is," which is hosted by Guy Raz. Some students have even joined some of the companies that have come in to speak, so the connections made in the class have been invalu- able, says Jennifer Bush, Falmouth High School's service learning coor- dinator, who helps with the class. "When you're involved with an entrepreneurial business, you have to be involved in every aspect of the business. is class exposes them to all aspects of starting and creating a company or product. It's a rigorous but fun class," Bush says. Pitch competitions are more than the final prize For Torey Penrod-Cambra, co- founder and chief communications officer of HighByte Inc., the best part of winning the Gorham Savings Bank's LaunchPad competition in 2021 wasn't the $50,000 prize, but the preparation and work required just to do the application for the pitch contest. "It really requires you to focus on your business and learn what makes it unique and be able to translate that to an audience that may not be involved in your industry," says Penrod- Cambra. "We had to learn to hone our message so that everyone could understand what we do, not just those involved in deep tech." Penrod Cambra says HighByte, which collects data and prepares data for industrial firms to better under- stand what their systems are doing, had applied for the LaunchPad pro- gram in 2019 but didn't make the cut. "Don't be discouraged by a previ- ous rejection. at's actually a good lesson and good education to have," Penrod-Cambra says. Steve DeCastro, president and CEO of Gorham Savings Bank, says Maine's entrepreneurial sector has made great strides in the past five to 10 years. S TA R T U P S — E N T R E P R E N E U R S H I P / P RO G R A M I N G S U P P O R T P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E Chris Wolfel, director of entrepreneurship at the Roux Institute, works with the entrepreneurship team at the institute.

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