Oklahoma entrepreneurs hope to make the grade

BY JENNIFER PALMER

Between homework and lecture hall, some college students are finding the time to start their own businesses.

These entrepreneurial students are taking on the demands of owning a small business while continuing their education.
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While many of her peers are spending the summer relaxing or working for someone else as an intern, film major Katie Clark, 19, is busy readying Chimaera Massage to open for business. The combination of a massage studio and art gallery is under construction at 514 N Porter Ave. in Norman, with plans to open later this month.

Building permits, construction set-backs, advertising and hiring employees is not the way most students spend their summer break. But Clark didn’t want to waste the opportunity.

"Why wait?” she said.

She said she’s scaling back her fall class load and expects to do homework between clients.

"I see it more or less as the equivalent of taking on a full-time job while attending school — potentially difficult but doable and worthwhile,” she said.

Taking a chance
College life often inspires entrepreneurs because of the need to make a few extra bucks, said Vince Orza, dean of the Meinders School of Business at Oklahoma City University.

Students also make better risk takers because they often don’t have obligations such as children or a mortgage, he said.

"If it does crash and burn on you, the damage doesn’t affect very many people other than you,” Orza said.

While getting his business, Brickshaw Buggy, off the ground, marketing major Rocky Chavez learned that good help is invaluable.

"(At first) I thought I was going to be able to do it all on my own. I was naive,” he said.

Chavez started the company as a sophomore, with Orza as one of his mentors.

Now in its third year, Brickshaw Buggy, a pedicab service in Bricktown, has doubled its rickshaws and grown to have a roster of up to 40 drivers.

Chavez, 25, will have to manage the company from afar this summer while he’s in Washington, D.C. on an internship for the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute.

He plans to finish his degree this fall and is considering graduate school. After that, who knows? "I’ve really grown into the business world,” Chavez said.