California Baptist University

W hat is a business incubator, you might ask? “It is a resource for a team to able to take a business idea and turn it into a viable business venture,” Nolan Gouveia, department lead for entrepreneurship. In simpler terms, a business incubator is a place that you meet to share ideas with other people who have business ideas to start a busi ness. The professor guides the students with advice and lets them work in collaboration together. Gouveia runs the Christian Business Incuba tor at California Baptist University, which is an extra-curricular resource for students who want to start their business one day. “The meetings are held throughout the month with individual teams with myself or pro fessional subject matter experts from the com munity,” Gouveia explains. “The Christian Busi ness Incubator is going off with great starts, with many student teams that have either launched their venture or are in the launching stages of their venture.” Gouveia urges the students of CBU to con tact his email if they have an idea for a business.

In the email, they should plan out a preliminary meeting with him to find out the next steps. Several students have given feedback regard ing the Christian Business Incubator, including Brandon Villasenor, junior entrepreneurship and Christian studies double major, and Eli Beilman, senior marketing major. “The Christian Business Incubator has helped me grow as a person and to learn life lessons. It also helps further my development in thinking ahead for my business,” Beilman says. The Christian Business Incubator is mod eled after prestigious schools that have similar programs already, such as USC. However, unlike business incubators at these other universities, the business incubator at CBU is faith-based, meaning it places more emphasis on biblical principles. With this in mind, Villasenor says, “Taking these first steps will help people gain resilience and expand their mind for further business plans in the future.” This Christian Business Incubator not only brings creative minds together but also shapes people to be future leaders and men and women of God for their future family members.

WORDS Lawrence Luck

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION Elijah Hickman

DESIGN Hannah Lapos

133 Business Incubator