Entrepreneurship with Alliance for Iowa State

Learning by doing is one of the best teachers for students in the Agricultural Entrepreneurship Initiative in Iowa State's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Each summer up to 20 student interns experience what it's like to be an entrepreneurial business owner.

The internship program is so successful that graduates from the program have started 18 businesses, four of which offer internships to Iowa State students: ScoutPro, Mairet's Gardening Center, Smart Ag LLC, and AccuGrain.

Michael Koenig started ScoutPro as an agricultural and life sciences education student in 2012. ScoutPro is a business that helps farmers identify crop pests, create reports, and make management decisions using mobile technology.

"I wanted to change a cumbersome process that had not changed in years, but I needed the valuable experience my internship offered to gather more information and gain a better understanding of the process," Koenig said. "Iowa State helped me learn and develop the skills needed to have a successful internship and an amazing career."

Now he's offering the chance to students to learn about his business through internships.

"Our internship program is an opportunity for students to help us with researching and developing new market opportunities, creating marketing material, software design, along with many other tasks," Koenig said. "We are very lucky to have a strong pool of candidates provided by the Agricultural Entrepreneurship Initiative."

"I had no idea what went into marketing, and I didn't know how important social media was in promoting a business," Hanner said. "I'm really enjoying what I'm doing."

Dominic Snyder, a senior in agricultural business, is inter ning this summer at Mairet's Gardening Center in Muscatine. Shane Mairet, a 2009 horticulture graduate, owns the business.

Snyder said he's learning much about owning a business, including the financial and social aspects of management and how to handle adversity as an entrepreneur.

"I'm grateful that I've had the opportunity to work with Shane and his hard-working family," Snyder said. "You can't put a price tag on the experience I've gained this summer."