Ep. 8 – Dr. Deb Ferber speaks on entrepreneurship

Dr. Deborah Ferber teaches courses on entrepreneurship as a member of Brandman University's School of Business and Professional Studies faculty. She is also an entrepreneur, an investor through Tech Coast Angels and a valued source of help for students at Brandman and other universities. Earlier episodes of Brandman Speaks can be found at brandmannews.org/podcast or on iTunes. Transcript Welcome to Brandman Speaks. I’m Cindy O’Dell, communications manager at Brandman University. Today I’m speaking with Dr. Deborah Ferber. Dr. Deb, as she likes to be called, is an assistant professor of Business and Organizational Leadership in the School of Business and Professional Studies with experience in international business as well as in building and teaching business courses. In your Brandman bio, you call yourself an entrepreneur and intrepreneur. Tell me what you mean by both of those terms. Dr. Deborah Ferber: Well this is great, we have a radio show at Brandman University. This is wonderful. The difference between an entrepreneur and intrepreneur. The intrepreneur is the individual who is very innovative in an internal environment, such as an organizational structure. An example would be Art Frye from 3M who invented the Post It Note. And the entrepreneur which everyone is very familiar with is the risk-takers who go out and forge their own way to start their own endeavors. You’re going to be talking to the Young Professionals Leadership Summit on Oct. 30 in Irvine about thinking like an entrepreneur. What does it mean to think like an entrepreneur? Ferber: I think we learned some very valuable lessons with this last economic downturn we just had and that is we constantly have to reinvent ourselves and we see that with our students here at Brandman University. We have professionals who are already business leaders but they’re constantly building their skill sets. So the presentation is really geared toward telling people that they need to reinvent themselves and be entrepreneurial in their own business environment or go out and forge their own way by starting their own organization. You help Brandman students and others prepare for presentations with Tech Coast Angels. Tell me about your relationship with Tech Coast Angels. Ferber: Oh my goodness, they’re the most wonderful group. So they’re truly the catalyst for the economy. They’re what we refer to as the 1 percent that really gives back to the economy. They invest, not just in the stock market by buying mutual funds, but they actually go out an invest in companies and build ideas and organizations so we can hire people. I’m happy to say that last year we did about $36 million in funding and we hope to double that again this year. And your role? You’re on the board? Ferber: I’m also an investor in Tech Coast Angels, so I also invest in companies and I just did one recently, one of the Chapman Alumni groups I hope we’ll talk about and then I also review business plans and bring in companies that I think might be a good investment and a great way to grow the Orange County economy. I know you help students. You mentioned Chapman students and I think you’ve helped Brandman students as well. How do you prepare them for a meeting with potential investors? Ferber: At Brandman, I’m really pleased, I’m teaching several entrepreneurial courses so students are already targeting me and looking to take courses with me to build a business plan. And then I would say out of every 20 business plans, we filter them down to ones that are really looking for funding and then I do the introductions and sometimes that can be anything from an SBA (Small Business Administration) loan to a microloan. And then the TCA (Tech Coast Angels) is usually up to a minimum of a half a million dollars, so we see a lot of small business owners, especially here at Brandman, first looking for the micro and then pursuing the TCA loan.