Bennett Sayre ’20 LABB Intern– What if I told you we had three weeks to come up with an innovative app solution to an everyday problem, create a business plan for it, and pitch it to an extremely successful panel of investors – all in three weeks. Sounds impossible, right?
Well, with the power of the LABB program and the Liberal Arts, it was anything but impossible.
We started off the program with a rundown of financials; balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, estimating three and five-year projections, and everything in between. We moved onto the importance of marketing, product positioning, social media, and brand awareness. We looked at Harvard Business School Cases on funding your own company; from 
bootstrapping, to angel investors to venture capitalists. We heard from Wabash Alumni about the importance of conducting market research and establishing a competitive advantage in a world filled with unique ideas and innovative solutions. We learned a lot about business and entrepreneurship, but more importantly, we immersed ourselves into something we weren’t too familiar with. Sounds a lot like the liberal arts, and sounds even more like Wabash.
Don’t get me wrong, completing our final business plan of this seven-week internship was undoubtedly demanding. However, the power of the liberal arts was evident throughout this process and the duration of the internship. Business is just as much about creative thinking, researching an unfamiliar topic, building relationships, and speaking in front of an audience as it is about financial projections and marketing. In this seven weeks, we had the pleasure of learning about “all-things business,” but we also had the pleasure of practicing everything we have been taught thus far at Wabash. Our final business plan was a perfect representation of the strength of a liberal arts education, the LABB program, and the beauty of Wabash College.
