Almost all college students graduate looking for jobs. At JP Catholic, we are preparing our students to graduate as employers.

The senior business plan idea becomes a reality within the on-campus business Launch Pad, a place that nurtures and mentors student created start-up firms.

Freshmen begin with simple business ideas and proceed to establishing an “e-commerce” business - selling goods and services, for example on eBay. Juniors and seniors develop more complex businesses, based on creating entertainment content or applications, other products or services.

The on-campus launch pad will serve as the bridge for student ideas to become a sustainable business. The launch pad will help start-ups grow, achieve their goals, and expedite the maturation of the young companies by providing critical services. These services include experienced mentoring, collaboration, funding strategies and introductions, external technical resources and low-cost infrastructure including office space, conference facilities, and more. Businesses that participate in the proven mentoring and coaching process used in the Launch Pad are many times more likely to succeed compared to the average business starting today without mentoring.

The JP Catholic entrepreneurship process will:

1. help student teams incubate ideas
2. build the core content, application, or service
3. validate that the product can be delivered and that a customer will buy
4. launch a product and get customers before actually graduating and before going corporate
5. prepare student businesses for funding.

JP Catholic encourages business leaders, locally and nationally to volunteer as mentors for student business teams. Mentors will provide critical and timely technical and strategic leadership guidance, input on appropriate business models and strategies, as well as introducing students to various sources of funding, potential partners, distribution and sales channels etc.

If you are interested in being a mentor for student teams please send an email to diocco@jpcatholic.com expressing your interest and areas of expertise.