Situated in the Benjamin Franklin Hotel in San Mateo, the Draper University of Heroes is quite a stretch from the average university. Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper purchased the building and decided to develop the hotel into a boarding school for entrepreneurs. The Draper University recently completed its four-week pilot program and is currently undergoing renovations in preparation for opening in February.
Tim Draper, founder of the global venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, comes from a line of venture capitalists. Venture capitalists invest in early-stage startup companies that offer high return but potential risk. Draper’s success is a product of his various investments in companies like Hotmail, Skype, and Tesla. Judging by the success of the pilot program, the Draper University appears to be another by-product of the innovative powerhouse that is Silicon Valley.
To label the university unconventional is an understatement. Though the students learn the various elements of a business curriculum, the goal of the Draper experience is extremely different from that of a traditional business school. Students also participate in a variety of other activities, including a survival course at Tim Draper’s home in northern San Francisco.
For Stephan Korner, an undergraduate studying economics and international finance at the University of Southern California, the survival training was one of the highlights of the program. He compares it to his university classes and says, “In business school, you sit down and take notes, and you go the next day, and you sit down and take notes. There’s not that much interaction. Draper University is a completely different experience. It’s hands-on. You have some of the top executives, some of the top venture capitalists, some of the top CEOs of companies who tell us what we should do to get into their position. The process is more personalized.”
Furthermore, instead of a traditional faculty, Draper pools from his vast network of connections and provides guest speakers to instruct the students. Students were instructed in various business fields, including merchandising from the likes of Ron Johnson, the CEO of JC Penney and Andy Chase, the top wealth manager at Morgan Stanley. Draper says, “They were all speakers of experience. We were focused on people who had done it before.”
Daniel Kraft, a physician-scientist and innovator, was the first speaker of the pilot program. He is the inventor of the Marrow Miner, a device that harvests bone marrow in a manner less painful than the original method of entering and retrieving small amounts of bone marrow hundreds of times.
Kraft discussed the relationship between entrepreneurism and innovation, as well as the importance of technology in the future of health and medicine, saying, “Any time there are unmet needs, there are opportunities for entrepreneurship and existing or new business ideas and inventions to have an impact.”
Kai Kuspa, a rising junior at Stanford, also feels that the program taught more than just business skills: “I think it’s really inspired a lot of people to want to do something more entrepreneurial than something more on the beaten path. For some, just the option of a startup wasn’t high on their list of priorities and they saw how cool and effective and how much fun it could be. For me personally, I always knew I wanted to go into this sort of stuff, so it sort of supercharged me further.”
This idea of a “supercharged” student is further reflected in the university’s superhero theme. Draper teaches the concept of “future” instead of history in order to push the students in different ways. He says, “A hero is someone who’s done an extraordinary thing. When you start thinking about superheroes, it’s like your imagination starts to fly and you allow yourself to think beyond what’s there today.”
The program finished with each student conducting a short, informal pitch to a pair of venture capitalists and a longer, formal pitch to a panel of venture capitalists. Surbhi Sarna, a 2007 UC Berkeley graduate and founder of the startup business nVision Medical, pitched her proposal for a better way to diagnose infertility in women and won both competitions to receive seed funding for her company. Draper, now an investor in nVision Medical, says, “They really came through for me. They were just terrific and they came up with some very clever, creative business models that might in some form or another end up being enormous new businesses, and that was the goal.”
Draper based the pilot group off of an 18 to 24 age range. He says, “They’re starting to think about how they can make a big impact on the real world. Maybe they have a vision for the future, maybe they don’t. It’s that kind of thing.”
Applications are currently available for the next session. Carol Lo, Chief Operating Officer, says, “We’re not looking for . . . any kind of standardized testing because it really doesn’t tell you if you’ll be a good entrepreneur or if you have the passion to do it. A lot of people want to be entrepreneurs, but I don’t think they necessarily understand what it means to be an entrepreneur, to give up everything, to continue to want to work through failure and people telling you ‘no’ constantly.”
Next year, the university will offer six-, eight- and ten-week programs. The tuition for the ten-week program is currently at $15,000, but financial aid will be offered to students.
In addition to the hotel, Draper purchased several other buildings in the area to hold offices and an entrepreneurial center. The hotel has a maximum capacity of about 160 students and much potential for growth, but Draper says, “We plan to walk before we run.”
Accordingly, Draper is increasing the program size gradually and maintains high hopes for the school as an entrepreneurial school and an incubator for a new generation of superheroes. Sarna, too, has plans for her future and the future of women’s health. She concludes, “I think, leaving Draper University, I’m even more optimistic about my entrepreneurial future and the entrepreneurial future of Silicon Valley.”
