Entrepreneurs on wheels
Students’ bike courier service gets up and rolling
When senior Brady Beckham tucks his Mohawk under a helmet and zips through Columbia traffic on a bike, he’s not just seeking thrills or getting in shape for a Mizzou Cycling team competition. On a good day, he’s also making money.
In February, Beckham, December graduate Stephen Tinsley and junior Jason Key opened Columbia Couriers, a bike delivery service. The business hatched from Beckham’s experience in an Entrepreneurial Innovation Management class and in Mizzou’s New Venture Idea Competition, sponsored by the Flegel-Source Interlink Academy for Aspiring Entrepreneurs in the College of Business.
Beckham’s short business plan for the courier service won the undergraduate for-profit division of the competition. But even on the day he presented his plan, the business was strictly hypothetical. Positive reaction from the judges — prominent local business leaders — made him reconsider. He left the competition thinking, “Hey, this could work.”
Alan Skouby, who teaches the entrepreneurship class, says the class and the competition encourage that kind of thinking. “Taking something from an idea to implementation is a chore, and it’s quite a learning experience,” Skouby says. “That’s the kind of thing we teach in the entrepreneurship class, and Brady did it.”
Beckham’s classroom experience also made the next steps in forming an LLC relatively easy. “What I learned in the class gave me enough of a basis to get through things quickly,” he says. “In less than three weeks, we went from a page-and-a-half business plan to an operating business.”
Teammates become business partners
With his prize money — $200 for first place in the for-profit division, plus $200 for first place for another idea in the not-for-profit category — Beckham had enough money to start such a low-risk, low-overhead venture. “I figured, ‘I could go buy a bunch of new bike clothes, or I can start this business,’ ” he says.
What he needed was partners. Beckham, Tinsley and Key had all ridden together on the Mizzou Cycling club team, and Beckham knew each of his friends to have business and leadership potential — plus the required love of riding. Once they had pitched the idea to local businesses and received positive responses, they were all on board.
Beyond the $400 prize money, Tinsley figures it will cost about $150 from each partner to get things moving, including advertising, business cards and fliers, and other such costs. “Really, our only overhead is a cell phone,” Tinsley says of the team’s portable dispatch center. “We pass it off to whoever’s working, so wherever it goes, that’s where we are.”
Ripe for business
Now all they need is customers. Being brand-new, Columbia Couriers has had sparse business so far — including delivering flowers on Valentine’s Day and some nasal spray to a suffering client during the cold of winter.
However, the partners see the city as ripe and suited for such a business. “For one thing, you’ve got bike lanes,” Tinsley says. “You’ve got the MKT, which cuts right through the city. You’ve got alleyways throughout town. And people don’t run you off the road; they just honk at you occasionally.”
Additionally, services are cheap. The base rate is $5 per delivery, with increased costs for extra weight, distance or urgency. Beckham hopes this will appeal to small and large businesses alike.
As much as anything else, the partners are in it for experience. If you want a crash course in entrepreneurship, what better way than to start a business? Beckham has said that, after graduating, he’d like to leave behind a functioning business that can help fund the Mizzou Cycling team, or maybe fund his winning not-for-profit idea of taking junked bikes and rebuilding them as hand-cycles for the disabled.
“For me, it’s important to leave a mark on Columbia and on the cycling team,” Beckham says. “At the same time, if we’re all driving Corvettes in nine months, I’m sticking around.” — Chris Blose
Senior Brady Beckham uses his bike and business skills, acquired in a Mizzou class and entrepreneurship contest, in the newly formed Columbia Couriers. Photos by James Yates.