On Tuesdays at 6 p.m., in a typical quarter, you can expect Building 2, Room 210, to be full of Cal Poly Entrepreneurs (CPE) members ready to learn entrepreneurial lessons, hear from startup leaders and connect with their innovative peers over copious amounts of pizza. 

Now, instead of piling into the bustling room across the hall from the Hatchery, members log in to the virtual Tuesday evening meetings from their various locations — but CPE President Kalen Goo said the club’s energy is still the same.

“Most of the challenges this fall lie around how to reach out to people and re-engage them,” Goo said. “But once they come to our meetings, they’ll be welcomed in that typical CPE environment and feel like they’re back at home.” 

With a fresh board of leaders, the club’s focus this year is on re-engaging past members and expanding its reach on and off campus to strengthen the entrepreneurial community in San Luis Obispo. 

Plus, the CPE officers have plans to energize student entrepreneurs beyond the screen.

“Zoom overload is a real thing,” political science senior Sophie Hosbein, CPE’s VP of outreach and community engagement, acknowledged. “We’re putting together basically a workbook, or a toolkit,… to give people entrepreneurship resources that they can pursue [outside of meetings].” 

While they recognized that joining clubs in this virtual climate may seem strange, Goo and Hosbein said that it’s worth it because their club isn’t just another campus organization. 

To them, CPE is an inclusive and supportive community.

One of the best things about CPE, according to Goo, is that there are no requirements to join; they don’t charge membership fees and there’s no expected major, year or experience level, making it the largest interdisciplinary club on campus.

“CPE is for anyone who is interested in entrepreneurship, and I don’t mean just people who want to start a company,” the president said. “A key part of CPE is even just meeting people who are different from you and understanding their perspectives.”

For Hosbein, joining the club was paramount in her college experience, gaining her friendships with like-minded people despite not being interested in founding a startup herself.

“With every CPE meeting I go to, I leave more energized, more excited,” she said. “I’ve always admired the people that [CPE] brings together who are all very driven and ambitious go-getters, but also very ready to have a good time.”

Goo added that, as a non-business major from the College of Engineering, CPE upgraded his academic endeavors by helping him cultivate an innovative mindset to complement his programming and software studies.

However, aside from the educational perks, Goo’s reason for joining, staying in and becoming president of CPE was always the members — whether they’re bonding over slices of pizza in-person or catching up in virtual breakout rooms.

“These are the people who are passionate and really inspirational and are really different from myself who will challenge me to grow and think about the world in a different way,” he said. “These are the people that I want to surround myself with.”

If you’re looking to grow your entrepreneurial mindset, find your campus community and network beyond the classroom, Cal Poly Entrepreneurs is for you, and they’re always welcoming new members. Check them out at https://cpentrepreneurs.com/. 

Cal Poly Entrepreneurs (CPE) embodies the ideal of interdisciplinary entrepreneurship. Already heralded as the largest interdisciplinary club, the new leaders of CPE are still consistently working toward further diversification of their membership makeup.

“You need people in liberal arts, people in design, people in engineering, people in business, etcetera,” explained co-president Tal Kornfeld. “Without diversity in background, you can’t really start a successful well-rounded business.”

Sarah Shaffer, co-president alongside Kornfeld, adds to this idea in that the CPE wants to work “to include all genders, all races, all ethnicities, all backgrounds, all majors and all ages to really give everyone an opportunity to be a part of the startup world.”

Since its conception in 2009, under the guidance of the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), CPE has evolved into a multi-faceted community that inspires self-motivation, innovation and tangible entrepreneurship involvement. The leaders of CPE, currently including two co-presidents and an officer board of 12 students, foster the club’s entrepreneurial mindset through weekly meetings, guest speakers, workshops, events, and tours to see successful startups in action.

VP of Tours Jack Pawela is in charge of planning the club’s tours of various company offices to give CPE members an up-close view of what running a startup is like. He explains that he sees this part of the club experience, and CPE as a whole, “as a really amazing way to dip your toes in the water and test [entrepreneurship] out to see if it’s right for you.”

“We recognize that sometimes this club and entrepreneurship, in general, can be a little intimidating and tech-heavy and confusing,” added Sophie Rothenberg, co-vice president of Membership Experience and Recruitment. “We are really just trying to show Cal Poly that anybody with any major is welcome and… we want this to be a warm welcoming experience where you can make friends, build your network and also learn.”

While CPE stands out amongst the club-community on campus for its high level of diversity in disciplines, the club is also special for its functioning as an entirely student-run organization. Kornfeld says that he is grateful for the help that CPE receives from advisors and from the Cal Poly CIE, but he is proud of the club’s internal functioning.

Between his time as a CPE member, CPE co-president, and the CIE Hatchery program participant, Kornfeld says he has learned that one of the key skills for these roles and for entrepreneurship at large is self-motivation.

“[Self-motivation] is one of those things that can’t be taught in the classroom. I think that is definitely one skill you need for either commitment because, at the end of the day, no one is forcing you to do anything,” he says. “You need to take it all into your own hands. Even if you have to make some sacrifices, it will be worth it in the end.”

Self-motivation, diverse networking, tangible experience, and a strong internal and external supportive community are all key components in the entrepreneurial world that can be gained through joining CPE.

To learn more about Cal Poly Entrepreneurs and how to dip your toes in the entrepreneurial world, visit https://calpolyentrepreneurs.com