Students Finish Semester as Owners of Internet Businesses

Students Finish Semester as Owners of Internet Businesses

BY DANA DURBIN
Rice News Staff
April 8, 1999

Students enrolled in an electronic commerce course at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate
School of Management finished the semester with much more than just a grade
in the elective class. They also found themselves owners of a business on the
Internet.

Taught by Professor Al Napier and lecturer Stuart Wagner, the 10-week Internet
Commerce course was a pilot designed to give the mostly second-year students
the opportunity to create a company on the Internet while at the same time integrating
the various courses they have taken at the Jones School.

Napier has taught the class for three years, but this semester was the first
time students set up actual businesses. Students were divided into three groups,
each one forming a business.

"I’m very pleased overall with how everything has gone in the course,"
Napier said. "First, it has given students the opportunity to practice
their entrepreneurship, But second, I’m really pleased with the depth they seemed
to have gone to in terms of their sites. One is a live site already, and the
other two are clearly going to go live."

The site that is up and running, http://www.bluerskies.com, is geared toward
business students, offering textbooks for sale. Other items, such as greeting
cards, videos and CDs, can be purchased through the site as well, and it also
provides resources on various subjects.

The other two sites are http://www.rmje.com, which offers online rates and
reservations for bed and breakfasts in Jamaica and will eventually include other
countries, and http://www.4mypet.com, an online resource for pet owners in the
Houston area.

The students in the three groups have taken advantage of affiliate programs,
considered by some to be the future of doing business on the Internet. Through
affiliate programs, the owners of online businesses don’t manufacture or distribute
products; instead they partner with other companies and earn a percentage of
the revenues. The programs provide the students with a relatively hands-off
way of doing business.

For example, the operators of the 4mypet.com site are affiliated with another
online site for pet owners, and the site that offers required business school
textbooks is affiliated with the online bookstore Amazon.com. The students provide
a link from their site to the sites they are affiliated with, allowing visitors
to make purchases.

The Jones School students have indicated that they plan to keep their new online
businesses going even after the course ends and they graduate.

"I never expected to go forward with this," said Harriet Rosenberg,
CEO of 4mypet.com. The company will be ready to do business over the Internet
by the end of the summer, she said. Already, some resources for pets are available
on the site.

"We have found no other sites that are specifically focused on the Houston
area, or on any other large metropolitan area. We really see this as a niche
we can fill," she said. Ultimately, Rosenberg said her group envisions
possibly selling out to another online company, such as Microsoft Sidewalk or
PetQuarters.com.

Tom Chow, responsible for marketing the bluerskies Web site, said his group
also intends to keep the business going. He and his partners hope they will
be able to earn a little "fun money," he said. They may also expand
to other cities, providing information on textbooks business students are required
to purchase and then providing the link to Amazon.com.

Brian Harry, one of the owners of the bed and breakfast site, said during a
class presentation that in 10 years or less, he hopes to be able to offer information
and reservations for bed and breakfasts in 50 countries.

The e-commerce course was valuable not just because students came out of it
with revenue sources from their businesses, but also because of the experienced
they gained.

The groups were required to set up organizational structures, including a chief
executive officer, chief financial officer and other positions. They prepared
business plans, loan proposals and learned about other entrepreneurial issues
like marketing and advertising.

"I found it to be very valuable experience," Rosenberg said. "I’ve
learned about these things in my other classes at the Jones School, but I’ve
never experienced anything before that mimicked a small company."