First graduates receive ‘start-up’ degree

The first cohort of students to embark on a pioneering degree course which has produced a flurry of new ventures and start-up companies have graduated in a ceremony at Bristol Cathedral. 

The Team Entrepreneurship programme at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) is one of only a handful of its type in the UK dedicated to giving undergraduates the practical experience to launch and run their own ventures. It is structured to feed undergraduates’ creativity and strengthen their self-reliance. 

An alternative to a traditional degree, students on the course work to a tailored programme to equip themselves with entrepreneurial and teamwork skills ready to launch their own businesses or become effective team players within dynamic and changing organisations. On graduating, many of the 35 third year students will go on to run their companies on a full-time basis.

Crowdfunding company Crowdreach; healthy food delivery service Pelico; sophisticated analytical software Unique Insights; and BMW restoration business Classic Bahnstormers are among the fledgling firms launched by Team Entrepreneurship students.

Up to 60 students a year are now joining the ground-breaking BA (Hons) Team Entrepreneurship course which was inspired by successful methods pioneered in Finland and tested in Spain and Hungary. The programme’s undergraduates – known as Team Entrepreneurs – develop skills in everything from event and budget management to marketing, PR and graphic design.

Course lead Adrian Rivers hailed the course a major success: “Those that join the course come here because our Team Entrepreneurship is a radical programme suited to those that want to develop and practice entrepreneurial skills.

“Students put into practice the topics that they would learn about on a traditional business degree and their learning is embedded as they reflect on their experience with the support of a Team Coach and other University academics. When students are learning about marketing, they are actually doing it and when they are learning about finance, they are actually doing it.

“The Coaches and other staff on the programme give huge amounts of support to the students, but we don’t spoon feed them. They have to spot the opportunities and make the best of the programme. That’s what entrepreneurs do – make the best of the opportunities around them.”

“I had always bought and sold cars as a hobby, making a few hundred pounds here and there, but I wanted to make it scalable,” says former music teacher Steve Curtis, 31, founder of car restoration start-up Classic Bahnstormers. “This course has shown me just that – how to build a brand, develop a reputation and have people coveting your work.”

Following the success of the degree programme, a master’s course in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship will be launched at UWE Bristol from September. The one-year programme is suited to people who have a business idea they want to develop. 

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