FOCUS on Entrepreneurship

Martin Langelo Lien

Tony Weedn

A $5 million investment from the Tom and Judy Love Foundation has helped turn the University of Oklahoma into an entrepreneurial engine for the state and region. And the most visible component of that engine is the Tom Love Innovation Hub.

The 25,000-square-foot facility opened in 2016 through a $2.5 million gift from the Loves to the OU Foundation. The I-Hub features tools that bring ideas to life for more than 5,000 people each year, including a digital fabrication laboratory with 3-D printers, virtual reality equipment and a woodworking shop.

Of equal importance are the many programs and outreach efforts stemming from the I-Hub that help entrepreneurs work toward their dreams, said Executive Director Tom Wavering.

“The Loves are invested in the idea of providing community resources and removing barriers for entrepreneurship,” Wavering said. “That spirit of collaboration and leveraging the best of Oklahoma led to everything we do.

“This building created a gateway for OU to engage the community,” he said, adding that the I-Hub has had a $300 million impact on Oklahoma’s economy and inspired similar facilities in North America and Europe.

The I-Hub cultivates and launches startups in Oklahoma and the region through a mix of programs and resources, including speakers, workshops, incubator facilities, commercialization boot camps, academic courses and competitions specifically designed for OU students, faculty, staff, alumni and the community.

While an OU student, 2018 alumnus Martin Langelo Lien attended lectures and networking opportunities at the I-Hub. Shortly before graduation, he and 2019 graduate Matt Morfopoulos won an I-Hub-hosted Techstars accelerator competition that connected them to partner and OU 2019 alum Austin Graham.

“At the I-Hub, we had the chance to work together and figure out we were a complementary team,” said Lien, a native of Norway who came to OU for the university’s nationally ranked entrepreneurship program in the Price College of Business. Between them, the three young businesspeople had undertaken 28 startup projects before graduating.

Their current venture, “Respond Flow,” is a Tulsa, Okla., based text-marketing software company with more than 200 clients and $3.7 million in private investments. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the community at the I-Hub,” Lien said.

One of the most vital community programs hosted by the I-Hub is OK Catalyst, which connects thousands of entrepreneurs to federal Small Business Innovation Research funding. The I-Hub has helped owners secure $15 million in SBIR funding to launch new products and grow their businesses, Wavering said.

Among them is Tony Weedn, an Enid, Okla., entrepreneur who turned 13 years of U.S. Air Force experience into “Base Connect,” a private social network for military members and their families. BaseConnect had attracted its first “angel investors” when the lieutenant colonel met Wavering.

“Tom mentored me to throw my name into the SBIR hat. He said, ‘The worst thing that happens is nothing, and the best thing is you get a contract.’ ”

Today, BaseConnect has more than $2 million in U.S. Department of Defense contracts and thousands of users. SBIR grants provided the company with finances to scale and grow, Weedn said. He explained that BaseConnect currently is helping the military automate tasks like troop recalls, which typically take hundreds of individual phone calls.

“I’m so grateful to Tom, because we wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for him, the OU team and the I-Hub’s resources,” Weedn said. “When people come to me for advice, I say, ‘You need to go to the OU I-Hub.’ ”

Love Family Endowed Scholarship in Entrepreneurship recipient and OU senior Nailah Egwuekwe dreams of one day starting her own e-commerce business.

Keith Brigham can remember when the University of Oklahoma offered just one course in entrepreneurship, and the idea of supporting student entrepreneurs and their businesses seemed like a pipe dream.

With the help of a $1.25 million gift from the Tom and Judy Love Foundation, those ideas have blossomed for OU students who receive financial support or venture development grants through the Love Family Endowed Scholarships in Entrepreneurship.

The gift, which was part of the Loves’ $5 million commitment to the OU Foundation, provides traditional scholarships to entrepreneurship and venture management majors and proof-of-concept grants called the Startup Innovation Fund, or SIF, for any OU student who qualifies.

“The biggest hurdle sometimes for students is funding to test the feasibility of their ideas and to get through the first stages of launch,” said Brigham, a 1990 business graduate who heads OU’s Tom Love Division of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development within the Price College of Business.

Logan Rust received a $3,500 SIF grant to test and launch his startup company, Roam Outdoors, which expands private-land hunting opportunities and creates new ways for landowners to manage hunting leases.

“Leasing is a tough go for many landowners,” said Rust, who graduated in May. “They are oftentimes the ones who get left out or hurt in the equation.”

Already, the SIF funding has tripled his travel to meet potential customers and purchase supplies to secure hunting leases. “It has given me—a recently broke college kid—opportunities to do things on a larger scale.”

Such opportunities have attracted attention. OU’s undergraduate entrepreneurship program ranks in the top 25 and its graduate certificate program is ranked in the top 10 by The Princeton Review. “A big part of that is thanks to the support of the Love family,” Brigham said.

“Students coming into the program are top-notch,” he added. There are fewer than 260 undergraduates and 20 graduate students in entrepreneurship, with 20 students receiving the Love Family Scholarship this year.

One is Nailah Egwuekwe, a Plano, Texas, senior double majoring in marketing and entrepreneurship and venture management. She has already landed a marketing job in Austin, Texas, but hopes to someday create an e-commerce business in personal health and beauty.

“Our students learn to think and act entrepreneurially,” Brigham said. “They will bring those skills and mindset to any organization they work for and add value.”

Egwuekwe said the entrepreneurship program has taught her product ideation, business feasibility research, industry analysis, and how to create a great business plan.

Receiving the Love Scholarship means time she previously spent at a job can be devoted to professional student groups like the Delta Sigma Pi business fraternity and the Women in Business Association.

“I have been able to diversify my experiences,” Egwuekwe said. “I’m grateful to people like the Loves who have invested their time and money into OU students.”

University of Oklahoma students seeking a role model in successful business startups need look no farther than across the classroom if they’re taking a course in the Tom Love Division of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development.

The Love Family Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program was established in 2015 with $1.25 million in support from the Tom and Judy Love Foundation’s $5 million gift to the OU Foundation. The fund was created to bring experts with years of entrepreneurial mettle together with students.

Currently, seven Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, or EIRs, collaborate with OU through New Venture Development, a three-course series required of all entrepreneurship majors and minors in the Price College of Business. Students design business plans that can be employed to launch a venture immediately or in the future, said division director Keith Brigham.

“The EIRs are successful entrepreneurs with tremendous, applied knowledge and serve as essential mentors to our students,” said Brigham, who is OU’s C.S. Trosper Chair. “They’re almost like free-agent coaches.”

“Entrepreneurship is a field that requires self-belief,” explained EIR Mike Beckham, co-founder and CEO of Simple Modern, one of the world’s largest drinkware manufacturers. The six-year-old company’s products are sold by Target, Walmart and Amazon.

“Everyone has their doubts about whether or not they can be an entrepreneur,” Beckham said. “Encouragement, affirmation and coaching from those who’ve gone before is so important for students.”

Beckham, a 2003 OU finance graduate, dove into entrepreneurship while helping his brother start an online auction company. He formed several additional businesses before pioneering Simple Modern.

“We give students a vision,” Beckham said. “What does it look like to start a business? What are the tradeoffs, and what do you need to be prepared for? It’s about helping students step out of the conceptual and into the practical. I hope to offer them a roadmap and encouragement.”

Fellow EIR Dr. Craig Shimasaki is co-founder and CEO of Moleculera Labs, an Oklahoma City-based biotechnology company originating from research at the OU Health Sciences Center. Shimasaki started his career with Genentech, one of the nation’s first biotech corporations, and forged his own way to co-found nine companies. Five have gone public on stock exchanges.

“I realized how important mentorship was,” he said. “I didn’t experience that. You can have the greatest breakthrough in research, but if you don’t develop the entrepreneurial abilities to get things approved and into commercial production, it doesn’t help patients.”

Shimasaki focuses on teaching OU students how to build teams and be unintimidated by technologies. He frequently coaches students who take their New Venture Development course business plans to the next level by competing in the Love’s Cup, which helps OU students build their business concepts and attracts outside investors.

Calla Hamlin, a 2020 OU entrepreneurship and marketing graduate, competed in the Love’s Cup with a business model called “Bridal Wave,” a tech platform connecting couples who can’t afford wedding planners directly to vendors. Her team won $6,000 in investor funding, and she has adapted parts of the concept into a wedding-planner business.

“Craig had so many new insights and fresh perspectives,” Hamlin said of working with Shimasaki. “I remember being in awe of him every single time we met.

“He was always encouraging and inspiring, and we were lucky to have such an excellent, kind-hearted mentor.”