Jim Schuman is CEO of entrepreneurial education program provider First Pivot, whose mission is to ‘inspire and educate the next generation of entrepreneurs’.
When young people are allowed to experiment, to try and fail and try again, he says, they’re not just being taught business skills, but their potential is ‘being oxygenated’.
With early investments paying the largest dividends, it is our primary schools where entrepreneurial education is catching fire, however, Schuman says too many Australian students never get the chance to “inhale these possibilities”.
Looking to be what Shuman terms ‘the Netflix for extracurricular programs’, First Pivot comprises a network of more than 800 schools where those with expertise in a plethora of areas can utilise a platform that handles all of the requirements, the security, the certifications, the insurance, the booking, rostering and more.
Drawing on the combined experience of the expat American and co-founder David Cordover’s 40 years in extracurricular programs and entrepreneurship, the pair’s vision is to be the premier provider of entrepreneurial education for Australia’s schools.
“The problem that we’re trying to solve is really just inspiring and educating the next generation of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirits,” Shuman tells EducationHQ.
“And we’ve found that some of the challenges we have is when we talk about entrepreneurship, particularly at the primary school level, it does have a bit of a negative connotation.”
Some parents, he says, think that they are trying to create the next generation of little Elon Musk’s or Bill Gates’.
Schuman, who arrived in Australia with his wife 18 years ago, says at the primary school level, students are all about the ‘we’, as opposed to the ‘me’, and so all of First Pivot’s programs focus on social impact entrepreneurship and how it helps solve some of the problems that kids are seeing and are concerned about.
“When opportunities arise for students to explore entrepreneurship through the lens of social impact and solving problems, their interest is contagious,” he explains.
“They’re connecting classroom concepts to the world outside school walls in meaningful ways.”
Schuman says from a student perspective, most of the ventures they're launching are low touch, and it's really more about having a website and being able to process some transactions in a safe and secure manner.
Schuman says entrepreneurship is very much a team sport, and when you have a group of individuals that come together around a project or a cause that solves problems and can actually deliver benefit to the world and help others, the result is deep gratitude.
“And gratitude is another example that it’s very much a low-cost, high-value type of practice that all of the science, all of the research, shows delivers tremendous benefits.”
Schuman says the programs he’s sharing with schools nationwide really approach entrepreneurship via four areas or priorities.
“The first one is around a purpose,” Schuman explains.
“When kids and adults have something that they’re working towards that they can see a tangible benefit, it delivers positive mental outcomes.
“All of our programs have a ‘business in a box’ model … you don’t learn about entrepreneurship by reading books – you learn about entrepreneurship by being an entrepreneur.”
First Pivot’s programs have a business model that’s effectively 80 per cent completed, in terms of the company having done the heavy lifting in terms of sourcing contract manufacturers for the materials or product and providing facilitation.
“It’s such that students can literally launch a T-shirt or a hoodie shop business or a keyring or a coffee-type business where they resell coffee and basically just come up with a name, slogan, logo, begin to tell the story and create a pitch, work on their communication skills so that if they do approach somebody or bump into family or a friend, they can talk about what they’re doing, why they’re doing it.”
Students then tie the business to a specific charity.
The second priority is all about problem solving.
“The interesting thing about the ‘business in a box model’ is we allow kids some of that grey space and the areas for them to experiment,” Schuman says.
“It’s all about solving problems, learning from what works and what doesn’t work, and then iterating and improvising and adapting to what the next step is.”
The third point Schumann cites is that First Pivot provides insight into the numerous examples of fabulous entrepreneurial moves happening right here in Australia – and that we don’t need to continuously look to Silicon Valley for role models.
In recent weeks Schuman has been working in schools on a project focused on Mother's Day, involving the introduction of the first hair clip (or hair claw), made from 100 per cent recycled plastic.
“At the top end of town, we’ve got Canva all the way down to Zero Plastics Australia,” Schuman says.
“Ninety-three per cent of the economy is driven by small, medium enterprises, so there’s a whole lot of great, great people and teams doing some amazing work.”
Lastly, in terms of the cost of designing a website, Schuman says these days you can get a Shopify website for $1 for 30 days.
“Customers are conditioned these days to pre-ordering things online and everyone carries a smartphone now.
“… from a student perspective, most of the ventures that we’re talking about launching are low touch and it’s really just more about having a website and being able to process some transactions in a safe and secure manner.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to be an entrepreneur - and we’ve got some really good examples of kids that are doing some amazing things.”
Schuman says when it comes to entrepreneurial education here, South Australia is blazing a trail for the rest of the nation to follow.
Two years ago the Malinauskas Government invested $40 million in five schools across four years.
“It’s a great example of taking the entrepreneurial approach to how would you build an entrepreneurship curriculum by giving five schools a bucket of money with some guidelines to say, ‘we don’t want you to take that money and just spend it on outfitting a new classroom or a new building’.
“It’s really about running five different experiments across five different schools and comparing the feedback and the notes every two terms to figure out what works.”
At present there’s also a national ’See It. Be It.’ crowdfunding campaign that is aiming to connect Australian students with relatable business role models from their own backyard.
The series’ inaugural volume will spotlight Zero Plastics Australia, showcasing how entrepreneurial thinking can address environmental challenges while building successful ventures.
First Pivot has pledged to distribute the inaugural book for free to every primary school in Australia upon reaching its crowdfunding target.
The initiative will also include a complementary YouTube video series, making the entrepreneurial stories accessible to students nationwide.
“Our programs are paid for programs, but we also believe that entrepreneurial education should be democratised and available to everybody, which is why having the book and the video series is so important.
“What we’ve observed in our programs is that entrepreneurial education creates pathways for diverse talents to shine,” Schuman notes.
“The OECD’s Education 2030 Framework specifically identifies entrepreneurial competencies as essential for students to thrive in complex, interconnected futures.”
