When Zac Strobl was named the new director of the Northern Kentucky University Haile College of Business’ Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) in January 2023, his career had come full circle. Since graduating from NKU in 2011, Strobl’s own business efforts have helped shape the current state of the program, particularly through its INKUBATOR business accelerator, which has launched more than 35 businesses since its inception. Now, Strobl hopes to build on the program’s past successes by making sure graduates can innovate and problem-solve while working in larger companies—not just for themselves.
Though Strobl initially enrolled at NKU on a baseball scholarship in 2005, arm injuries prematurely ended the pitcher’s career on the mound, leaving him ample time to consider what paths he could pursue post-college. Inspiration tends to strike in unlikely places, and for Strobl, that happened to be the waiting room at his dentist’s office.
“I read an article about majoring in entrepreneurship at the dentist, and not long after that, I saw this banner announcing that NKU was one of the country’s top 25 colleges for entrepreneurship,” he says. “I started looking into it more, and it really interested me. After baseball ended for me, I started working at a startup—I was actually the second person hired there.”
“If you look at studies, companies want to hire problem solvers and critical thinkers—people who are innovative. That's what we're teaching our students to be."
Working at Cincinnati’s Global Medical Products gave Strobl his first experience watching a new business grow from the ground up, which motivated him to come up with successful startup ideas of his own during his undergraduate education. After receiving his bachelor’s degrees in entrepreneurship and marketing in 2010, he briefly moved to Chicago to work as a manager at Global Medical Products but returned to Northern Kentucky after his father’s passing to prepare the family business—Minuteman Press—for sale.
It was then that Strobl was offered a position at NKU developing the INKUBATOR: a 12-week business accelerator that helps students take an initial startup idea, secure funding, build a team and turn it into a business. Though the INKUBATOR concept was the brainchild of former NKU professor Rodney D’Souza, Strobl took charge of the project’s marketing and strategy.
“I actually turned down full-time work elsewhere to start developing the INKUBATOR just because I believed in it so much,” Strobl says. “Those resources just weren’t available when I was a student. You could meet with a professor, but that was it. Even in the entrepreneurship ecosystem outside of here, there were a couple of people helping entrepreneurs—nothing like what we have now.”
The INKUBATOR wasn’t just new to NKU. At the time, Strobl says there weren’t many startup accelerators in the country, period. D’Souza conceptualized the program by researching the top accelerators that were already off the ground and getting their founders on the phone, sometimes even traveling to meet them in person.
“We had instant success with companies that were launching, raising capital, and getting into other accelerators. Our first cohort was great,” Strobl says.
In 2014, D’Souza’s success with INKUBATOR earned him a spot as director of the Entrepreneurship Institute, which he rebranded as the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The program’s philosophy evolved as well, favoring a more experiential approach to education.
“You used to have to write these 30-page business plans, pitching for funding with no idea if it would work,” Strobl says. “Now, we want students to test their ideas and do more of a lean startup approach: fail fast, fail cheap and learn to come up with a hypothesis. You test your hypothesis and validate it based on what you’re learning.”
Since then, the CIE has grown to encompass many other initiatives like INKUBIZ, which pairs students with local and regional companies to produce agency-level marketing work, and JumpStart, a program for high school students to hone their entrepreneurial skills on NKU’s campus. According to Strobl, INKUBIZ has had a 100 percent job placement rate for students graduating in the program.
In the classroom, NKU’s entrepreneurship major and minor degree tracks are designed not only with starting a business in mind, but also the skills necessary to innovate and add value within an already existing organization.
“I think a big misconception with entrepreneurship education is that the only outcome is starting a business. That couldn't be farther from the truth,” Strobl says. “What’s interesting is that if you look at studies, companies want to hire problem solvers and critical thinkers—people who are innovative. That's what we teach our students to do, so we encourage them to either double major or minor in entrepreneurship. To complete the minor, all you need are six classes.”
Students start by taking an introductory course titled “The Entrepreneurial Mindset,” which aims to reframe the way its participants approach problem solving.
“Early education from kindergarten through high school isn’t the best for cultivating creativity,” Strobl says. “I think that’s pretty well known, and most teachers will tell you that. We’re trying to bring people back to the level of creativity they had when they were kids. Most younger kids are creative geniuses before they start school. The course covers topics like problem identification, critical thinking and learning that failure is OK.”
From there, students take “Opportunity Recognition,” which teaches them how to identify problems or room for growth within their prospective industry, and “Idea Validation,” which turns their findings from these initial courses into a business model. The major degree track concludes with a capstone project meant to help students transition directly into their chosen career path. For those looking for extracurricular activities, the CIE is also home to two clubs: the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization and Women in Entrepreneurship. Being successful in entrepreneurship at NKU, Strobl says, is all about getting involved.
“We’re all about learning by doing. We don’t give tests in our courses because we want our students to put what they’re learning into practice,” he says. “Students here have the ability to get to know anyone who teaches a class in entrepreneurship, and we provide them a personalized experience. We want to see them get involved, get internships and, if they’re ready, launch businesses. Ultimately, when they leave here, we want them to already have a job lined up or employ themselves full time.”
