For Boston University’s artisans and hobby creators, all the challenges of starting a small business — coming up with new ideas, setting up a storefront and getting the word out — can seem daunting.
This fall, BU founded its chapter of Student-Made, a nationwide experiential program that supports and promotes student businesses through an online marketplace and various pop-ups on college campuses.
BU’s Student-Made chapter, which is run in collaboration with Innovate@BU, currently features eight student creators selling handmade wares — from paintings to jewelry to crocheted crafts.
Katie Quigley Mellor, program director for social entrepreneurship at Innovate, said the Innovate team was first introduced to Student-Made at an entrepreneurship conference last year, where they learned the platform was looking to expand to more universities.
Mellor said at the time, Innovate was “heavily venture-focused.” Having a BU chapter of the platform, she said, would address the gap of entrepreneurial students whose initiatives existed at a smaller scale.
“We realized that was an area and a group of students that we weren’t currently serving that we’d want to be serving better,” she said. “And so we really liked the unique value prop that they brought to the Innovate@BU portfolio.”
Austin Boyer, assistant director of marketing and communications at Innovate, said even if students don’t see themselves as traditional entrepreneurs, they can still benefit from learning how innovation and business work.
“[Running a business] on your own time, even if it’s a side hustle, you can make more money, support yourself better, be more time efficient by learning these other skillsets,” he said. “Those are the folks that we are excited to better reach.”
Student-Made does not take any commissions aside from an initial fee, meaning creators receive 100% of profit from their sales, Boyer said.
Innovate launched a survey before creating the program, which received an “overwhelmingly positive” response, Boyer said.
“There were strong indicators that there were a decent amount of creators … that people cared about this type of entrepreneurship, and there were strong indicators that students wanted the leadership opportunities and to join as managers and help set up events for creators,” Mellor said. “It felt like a win-win-win.”
Katya Ravie, a sophomore in the Questrom School of Business and BU Student-Made’s community engagement manager, said the program offers personalized support and networking geared toward college students, unlike other e-commerce platforms.
“Being a part of Student-Made would not only give you a cohort of like-minded individuals, but I think it would also give you the resources and connections with people at Innovate that can also help you further your idea and further what you would want to do with that idea,” she said.
Student-Made creators can also attend workshops meant to develop their business and marketing skills, Mellor said.
In addition, Ravie said creators have the opportunity to sell their products directly to consumers through pop-ups on campus.
Questrom junior Rachel Zheng runs Florify Made, a pipe cleaner crafts business, on Student-Made. She wrote in an email to The Daily Free Press that without the support she received from the platform, she would not have felt confident enough to start her business.
“I felt doubt and a lack of self-confidence that starting this business would actually work but funny enough, when I heard StudentMade was coming to BU — that was when I really started everything,” Zheng wrote.
Ravie said Student-Made gives student creators the exposure they deserve.
“There are creators out there who make really cool things that people wouldn’t really see or know about if it wasn’t for them being a part of Student-Made,” she said.
Mellor said she hopes Student-Made will make people consider shopping for student-crafted, handmade wares instead of mass-produced products coming out of large retailers — like Target or Amazon.
“I hope that people will consider that as they’re thinking about their gift giving this season,” she said. “It tells a beautiful story. How thoughtful is it to get something handmade?”
Mellor said during the pop-ups, she was already struck by how much people cared about the face behind the product.
“It wasn’t just, ‘What is this thing that you created?’ It was, ‘Why did you create it?’” she said. “Coming out of COVID … where we were so isolated and transactional, to see human connection over art and creativity is a really beautiful thing.”
In the future, Mellor said she hopes Student-Made will grow its community to hundreds of creators, host more pop-ups and become a serious source of revenue for creators.
“I see a future for Student-Made definitely blossoming here at BU … and allowing more people to connect not only with each other, but through what they create,” Ravie said.
Boyer said he hopes Student-Made becomes integrated into Innovate’s portfolio of entrepreneurship opportunities. That way, he said, people can freely apply their skills to any venture they choose, regardless of whether it is part of Student-Made or Innovate.
“Ideally, in the future, we have this vibrant community of creators who work together, who solve problems together, who come to Innovate to learn more skills,” he said. “It becomes this snowball effect.”
