Organization mentors student start-up founders


WorkBench SC President Bhav Singh (left) and Director of Marketing Andrew Brilliant said their organization connects student start-up founders by providing initial funding and introducing them to CEOs and other executives who serve as mentors.
(Edison Liu | Daily Trojan)

When Andrew Brilliant stepped onto campus for the first time, he had no idea that he wanted to help student entrepreneurs. So when Brilliant, a sophomore majoring in business administration, met Bhav Singh, the two decided to create a venture club called WorkBenchSC.

“WorkBenchSC is an environment and an opportunity for students with ideas for companies to grow and gain resources, as well as have a few leadership opportunities and expand their network,” said Brilliant, the club’s director of marketing. 

Singh, a junior majoring in computer science, had always wanted to find a way to support student entrepreneurs. Growing up, he had fond memories of his family’s business and wanted to help foster that same spirit in others.

“General members” of the club have opportunities to attend networking events and speaker events, where the club invites venture capitalists and CEOs to give career advice and discuss the industry. Members with start-up ideas receive mentorships, connections and attention to help them facilitate their proposals from mere ideas to concrete kickstarters. 

While there are many student-run organizations on campus dedicated to the entrepreneurship and business fields, Brilliant said WorkBenchSC stands out because of its organizational values and focus on membership. 

Brilliant said the venture studio prioritizes its members with a persona-based framework that focuses on factors such as soft skills and tenacity rather than GPA and work experience. He said WorkBench allows passionate students with no business experience to kickstart their own ideas.

“There’s an old resume-based process that doesn’t focus on persona and the personality of a person, so we’re implementing that and we’re creating a solution to that,” said Singh, the club’s president. “So that we can create this environment that actually fosters new ideas.” 

The club hopes to provide professional and academic resources that are often hard to obtain and are often dependent on maintaining a certain GPA or having certain accomplishments. 

However, the founders believe that WorkBenchSC is only a start. The club finds people with business ideas and connects them with others with experience to guide them. 

“Our club wants to have these people who only have ideas and probably don’t have the monetary or the financial ability to just get their initial funding and to be able to kickstart their own company,” said Ruiqi Li, a sophomore majoring in business and cinematic arts. 

As the director of company relations, Li focuses on networking and reaches out to executives to have them serve as mentors for club members, as their industry knowledge on topics such as    funding, branding and manufacturing is invaluable. 

WorkBenchSC will hold mentoring workshops to teach students networking skills and helps them find initial funding for their businesses.