Q&A: Investing in UCLA entrepreneurial education and experience for students

UCLA alumnus Barry Eggers loves discovering a new idea or company and seeing it take flight. As co-founder and partner of Lightspeed Venture Partners, this experience has long inspired him, including leading the charge for Lightspeed to become the first investor in Snapchat.

And he's committed to paying his professional experience forward. Eggers, who majored in economics and business at UCLA, has long been an advocate and champion of Bruin entrepreneurship - and Bruin entrepreneurs.

For more than a decade, he and his wife, Meredith, have actively encouraged and empowered UCLA students to explore this field. In addition to making a gift to establish a seed funding prize through Startup UCLA, the couple hosts an annual barbecue for UCLA students to pitch their startup ideas to potential investors. Most recently, they made a pledge that will enable the UCLA College to create entrepreneurship-themed Cluster and Fiat Lux courses.

Why did you choose these types of courses to further empower aspiring Bruin entrepreneurs?

If you think about the journey of a student at UCLA as it relates to entrepreneurship and innovation, typically, they don't get exposed to it until their junior, maybe senior year. There are some classes here and there; there's an entrepreneurship minor. But again, that is mostly geared toward people who have already fulfilled many of their major requirements. A lot of these students go on to do really cool things with Startup UCLA or the UCLA Anderson Venture Accelerator. They start their own companies; some even try their hand at raising capital. You see them start to develop their entrepreneurial spirit at UCLA - the problem is they don't have a lot of time to do it.

So the thought was: What if we took a large group of freshmen and gave them a deep exposure to entrepreneurship, innovation and theory as well as practice and skills in a year-long class? What would happen? How would their journey through UCLA - and beyond - change?

That's really the experiment. These students come in and are super smart and capable - much more, certainly, than I was when I was a freshman. So why not give them the opportunity to develop the curiosity and skill set, and see where it takes them? That's what I'm most excited about here, to see hundreds of students per year and what journeys they decide to take through UCLA and beyond.

What about entrepreneurship inspires you the most?

I'm a builder at heart. I didn't realize that when I was at UCLA. I think a lot of people are builders, but they may or may not know it until they experience that joy despite - or because of - all the hurdles you have to go through. Being a builder is really a fantastic thing, and we're hoping this new curriculum will help students develop their own curiosity about whether or not they are builders.

My own entrepreneurship beginning probably stems from growing up in the Bay Area when the Silicon Valley was just starting to emerge.

What's your best advice for UCLA students who want to be entrepreneurs?

You don't have to enter UCLA knowing you want to become an entrepreneur. Taking these courses will help you understand more about what it's like to be an entrepreneur and develop some skills to help you be entrepreneurial in whatever field you pursue.

The nice thing about being an entrepreneur is that it doesn't have to directly translate into building a technical product and starting a company. It's broadly defined, it's high-tech, it's low-tech, it's social impact. There are opportunities to be entrepreneurial in any career and in your personal life; it's a mindset you can apply broadly. That's why this is such a great opportunity to get students thinking with that mindset really early, develop that curiosity and just see where it takes them.

Starting as a student, you were very active at UCLA and remain so to this day. What did your own Bruin undergraduate experience mean to you?

Across athletics, academics and social, for me it was really an opportunity to experience new things, to meet a wide variety of interesting people and to develop some independence away from home. It was also a chance to make some mistakes, test the boundaries and try to develop a well-rounded self. It was a special, formative time in my life.

What does UCLA mean to you?

UCLA has such a fantastic community; it's obviously one of the best public institutions in the United States, and it's a university that isn't afraid to be entrepreneurial itself and try new things. You see that all over the university since its founding; this is just another example of the Bruin spirit in action.

I'm hoping that we're going to run this experiment for five years at least and that we will get more alumni involved in supporting the effort over time, so we can broaden the platform to reach more students and provide more curriculum. The students play a key role in helping the university understand what additional content and resources they need to continue their entrepreneurial journey. It's a cycle that hopefully can lead UCLA to the forefront of innovation and entrepreneurial education.