What's Brewing at FSC?

As the AACSB-accredited Barney Barnett School of Business and Free Enterprise continues to thrive, producing highly qualified graduates and earning top rankings and awards, the Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship is making significant strides in advancing the school’s mission through real-world, hands-on business learning experiences.

In a recent interview with Justin Heacock, Director of the Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (CFEE) and Entrepreneur-in-Residence, he shared that the the CFEE 's mission is to reinforce free enterprise principles and to instill an entrepreneurial mindset for the Florida Southern and Central Florida communities that result in innovation for new and existing ventures. The Center’s “Why” is foundationally focused on Free Enterprise Principles and the benefits those create in our society. And its “How” is about translating those principles into an experientialopportunity for students through entrepreneurship.

Can you describe the seed to scale structure that you have implemented?

The Seed to Scale program is a reposition of a traditional business incubation approach focusing on scaling entrepreneurial education and venture creation across ecosystems. What makes us different is our approach is allabout authenticity and altruism, which to us means be genuine with students and help them change the world. We do that through three stages, Seed Stage, which is how we help students frame out an idea, Build Stage, which is how we help students validate innovative ideas, and Scale Stage, which is how students launch and grow their business. This structure allows us to identify serious students and triage their ideas into the stage that is relevant for what they need now. This allows us to build a very efficient ecosystem and to connect with organizations like Catapult and CoHatch to take our entrepreneurial students to the next level.

What experiences do the external partnerships with Catapult and CoHatch give FSC Students?

Catapult and CoHatch have allowed us a small entrepreneurship center to operate at the level of an entrepreneurship center with 10 times the number of resources. We can send students to Catapult where they can get access to a world class maker space and kitchen space without having to build one ourselves. CoHatch allows us to send students to a professional facility and community of entrepreneurs where students can experience being a professional business owner before they graduate. Together both organizations allow us to reach a higher level of professionalism and entrepreneurial development than we could have by ourselves.

Please tell us about some of the accolades and accomplishments of the CFEE.

In the three and a half years of the CFEE we were able to award over $150,000 to student entrepreneurs and provide over $50,000 of in-kind services through Catapult and CoHatch. This has resulted in us producing over 100 startups that have gone on to produce over $4,000,000 in revenue and produce 23 jobs. One of our student entrepreneurs, Happyson Kaunda Jr. COO of Tafika Tickets, was able to win the 2024 Governor's Cup, which is the preeminent statewide shark tank competition, where he beat out a dozen other universities across the state.

What are learning labs and how do you foster these labs through the work of the CFEE?

Learning labs are experiential programs for students to operate real businesses in a sandbox type of environment. At the CFEE we create these entrepreneurial sandboxes to help students reach career readiness outcomes beyond what can be taught in the classroom. Students are empowered to execute on opportunities they see in the business and then experience the success or failure of their ideas without risking financial capital. We foster these learning labs at the CFEE by being entrepreneurial ourselves. We are building businesses inside an academic organization which speaks to the institutional agility of Florida Southern College to react to what students need. We created our first learning lab called Morning Grind in January 2024. It's a coffee cart learning lab which was made possible by alumni TJ Zimmerman, owner of Concord Coffee, who helped bring the industry expertise to the program.

Can you share the importance of the Morning Grind Coffee Cart and its future?

Morning Grind has been instrumental in creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem and fostering a community at Florida Southern College. The first thing current students and prospective students see when they come in our doors is a student-run business. My personal favorite impact of the program is on job placement for our students. This past semester we had our first students graduate out of the program. Each student said the Morning Grind is the #1 thing that employers want to talk about on their resume. As we look to expand Morning Grind in 2025, we will be growing our product and services, introducing catered drip coffee for meetings, coffee deliveries across campus, and an additional mobile cart for pop up events. Together these will help make Morning Grind more successful.

As we look to expand Morning Grind in 2025, we will be growing our product and services that we provide to the Florida Southern College community. We will be introducing catered drip coffee for meetings, coffee deliveries across campus, and an additional more mobile cart for pop up events. Together these will help make Morning Grind more successful as a business and provide more opportunities for students to be employed in learning labs.

What are some of the businesses that have been developed from the CFEE?

Over the three and a half years of the CFEE we have developed some outstanding businesses. Here are a few that come to mind, first is business created by Brooke Lierman '23 called OverTheShoulder, which is a runner alert safety device to monitor what's behind you when you run alone. Another is a social entrepreneurial venture created by Happyson Kaunda Jr. '24 called Tafika Tickets, which is the first online bus ticketing platform in Zambia. Finally, we have a taco business called Taqueria Del Angel , which was created by Jacqueline Martinez '25. Taqueria Del Angel is an authentic taqueria bringing Mexico City cuisine here to Polk County.

Can you share a little bit about the Impact of starting the CFEE Advisory Board in 2025?

In January 2025 the CFEE started its first Advisory Board and it's going to be crucial for the success of the program in the long term. Research shows that for a center to become successful they need three things, space, resources, and an advisory board. Currently we have a great space, with access to a high number of students, and we're growing in resources. But by adding the advisory board they become advocates for us within the FSC and central Florida communities which will help attract more resources and support for our entrepreneurial ecosystem. Our board is designed to be an active board as well. They will be mentoring our entrepreneurial students and serving as judges for project-based classes and pitch competitions across campus.

What are your goals for the 2025 calendar year?

In 2025, we plan to start scaling the Seed to Scale Program across campus to help identify the full potential of entrepreneurship at innovation at Florida Southern College. To do this we will be rolling out a campuswide support tool that allows any student to get started in the incubation process. If they have an idea, then they can start receiving education and support immediately. We believe by doing this novel approach there is potentially for FSC to be the top startup producer in the state of Florida. We will also plan in 2025 to start laying the groundwork for the next learning labs here at Florida Southern College. We believe there are opportunities to do multiple learnings labs spanning retail, food, and service businesses. We hope one day that these labs will become a part of the campus-wide culture of Florida Southern College with every student major represented in the programs.

Learn more about the Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship here.