ESSAY BY KATHERINE COTA
I returned to Iowa for a job at Buena Vista University and a lovely home in Storm Lake in June of 2024 after having worked in California and South Dakota for several years. As I sit on the shores of Storm Lake to write this, I reflect on how my life has come full circle.
I was born in Des Moines, grew up at Rock Creek State Park and attended school in Grinnell. I received degrees from the University of Northern Iowa and St. Ambrose University and was fortunate to work for UNI for more than 20 years at the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center. This position is where I developed my skills to help coach people in opportunity recognition and innovation.
While growing up at Rock Creek, where everyone knew everyone and all of the adults kept an eye on all of the kids, I started my first businesses. It began simply enough: babysitting, then dog-sitting, then house-sitting, housecleaning, elder companionship and other personal services neighbors might need. This is when I learned how to be open to and aware of opportunities. So, after I had graduated, Peter Goulet called to ask me to come back to UNI to help him start an entrepreneurial center with a new gift from John Pappajohn.
Over 30 years, Goulet, Randy Pilkington, an incredible team of people and I developed programs to help entrepreneurs and innovators. Many of the companies in Iowa started and being run by entrepreneurs across the state in the last three decades have had the help of one of the five Pappajohn centers. After leaving Iowa I did similar work developing programs to help and grow innovators and entrepreneurs in other states. I’m now creating programs at Buena Vista University to help entrepreneurs and innovators. In nearly 30 years of doing this work, I have always had a focus on students first. The programs have always been open to all entrepreneurs, but working with students to create the entrepreneurs and innovators of the future has always been my passion. I’ve learned some lessons that I try to apply and to teach.
Many people, more brilliant than I, have taught these lessons, but I proudly continue to share them with my students and clients. The first lesson is to get out of your own way. Entrepreneurship and innovation are hard work; if they weren’t, everyone would do it. So, getting out of your own way means to not sabotage yourself with self-doubt or procrastination. The second lesson is your business is not about you. Entrepreneurs and innovators need to understand the business or invention is about satisfying the needs, wants or problems of customers. The third lesson is you don’t build a great company alone. This one is from the African proverb stating, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” There are many other lessons to be taught, but these three are the foundation for the work I do and the businesses we help clients build.
The idea, in 1996, of teaching students to be entrepreneurs and building programs and centers to do that was unusual. Most of the incubators at that time did not accept or house student entrepreneurs, and students did not think about being entrepreneurs. I’m pleased that in 30 years of this work, I and colleagues across the country have created centers and programs where students consider entrepreneurship as an option just like any other major for their present and future.
The work of entrepreneurship and innovation requires constant refinement. Centers and programs need to be adjusted based on technology, market conditions, politics, laws, societal priorities and more. I remind myself, if this work were easy, everyone would do it.
I finish writing this essay with the sun glistening off the water and a light breeze blowing. I’m lucky to have done this work for 30 years and to continue to do this work. I guess it’s time to head back to the office to help more innovators and entrepreneurs.
Katherine Cota is currently the director of the Lamberti Center for Rural Entrepreneurship at Buena Vista University and an instructor in the Harold Walter Siebens School of Business at BVU. Previously she worked at the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center at the University of Northern Iowa, the Carlsen Center at California State University Sacramento and the Paulson Center at Dakota State University (South Dakota). She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UNI and a Master of Business Administration from St. Ambrose University.