Developing Leaders

It is true that in many ways, leaders are born rather than made, but natural-born leadership can be dramatically refined with education and training and this nonprofit organization, Bizdom, is proving that with its work to help revitalize Detroit.

An excerpt from the New York Times article.

“James Smith Moore, the son of a single mother on Detroit’s east side, knows how to hustle.

“He started a lizard-breeding business at age 15 and sold more than 500 hatchlings online for $15 to $80 apiece.

“At 16, after local stores ran out of a certain popular Nike sneaker, he hired a manufacturer in China to supply him with knock-offs, which he sold for $80 to $200 a pair on his own Web site as well as eBay and other auction sites. Four months later, he received a cease-and-desist letter, but he had made a $14,000 profit, enough to buy his first car.

“This bootstrapping spirit got Mr. Moore, now 21, accepted into Bizdom U, an intense boot camp for aspiring entrepreneurs who aim to start high-growth businesses in Detroit. Bizdom U is the brainchild of Dan Gilbert, a Motor City native who is founder and chairman of the online mortgage lender Quicken Loans. He also hopes to help revitalize his hometown.

“Mr. Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, is hardly the first wealthy businessman to promote entrepreneurship. Among others, he joins self-made businessmen like Clayton Mathile, the former owner of Iams who also founded Aileron, an academy in Dayton, Ohio, that helps small-business owners with strategic planning; Adeo Ressi, who after a series of lucrative start-ups began the Founder Institute to mentor promising entrepreneurs; and Jeff Sandefer, the energy mogul behind the Acton School of Business in Austin, Tex.

“Bizdom U, however, is unique in its focus on a single city. “Detroit is completely missing an entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said Bo Fishback, who is vice president for entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which gave Bizdom U a $500,000 grant in 2008.

“Bizdom isn’t catalyzing an existing system; it’s trying to create something almost from scratch,” he said. “It’s an experiment, and we probably won’t know the result for another five years, but if they can build three scalable companies, it could change the landscape of an entire city.”

“Founded in 2006, Bizdom U operates on the principle that entrepreneurs are born, not made. Its program leaders do not necessarily believe entrepreneurship can be taught. “Instead, an essential part of Bizdom U’s job is to unearth candidates with a distinct combination of vision, ambition, drive and risk tolerance, and then mold them into business owners.”