Bridging the gap between campus and the local business community

A University of Nevada, Reno marketing class recently applied the knowledge they learned to help Kristen Jaskulski with her local business, Sol Kava. Jaskulski, who has opened and operated several healthy lifestyle businesses in downtown Reno, worked with the Nevada Small Business Development Center throughout the creation of her latest venture, a kava bar, located in Downtown Reno’s West Street Market.

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The Nevada SBDC asked her if she would be interested in working with the University’s College of Business marketing program, and Jaskulski was quick to express interest. She saw the potential to give students real-world experience and to provide Sol with innovative marketing ideas with a youthful perspective. The involvement of the Nevada SBDC ensured Jaskulski would receive assistance in implementing the resulting marketing strategies thought up by the students.

At the beginning of the semester, Jaskulski presented students with the opportunity to collaborate on a marketing strategy. After a few weeks of research, the class began to identify tactics to improve Sol’s brand strength. The main areas for improvement the class saw were brand cohesion, website clarity and target market growth.

The students worked with Jaskulski for several weeks, culminating in marketing strategy presentations which they gave to their fellow classmates, instructor Igor Makienko, and Jaskulski. After Jaskulski considered the presentations and implemented some select ideas, she returned to the class to present the results. With the students’ help, Jaskulski had recruited brand ambassadors, refined and updated SolKava.com, launched an e-commerce store, and bolstered her content creation with blog posts and YouTube videos. Jaskulski’s know-how and the students’ ideas had improved Sol’s branding efforts in less than a semester.

While most of the ideas worked well, some would not have worked in practice. Jaskulski’s feedback on those ideas, Makienko says, was one of the most valuable aspects of the experience for the students. The feedback gave the students insight into the financial and operational limitations of local businesses and revealed how thorough local businesses planning processes have to be. While Sol’s brand has been strengthened and its operations continue to thrive in West Street Market, the students look to find similar success in their future endeavors.

The University’s College of Business and the Nevada SBDC continue to work together to bridge the gap between the campus and the community. Collaborations like this one are just one way to simultaneously educate and spur economic growth. If you own a small business and are interested in working with the Nevada SBDC and/or University College of Business students, contact the Nevada SBDC at 775-784-1717 or online at nsbdc.org/.

Anthony Ciaramella is a public relations coordinator for the Made in Nevada program and Jake Carrico is a business development adviser at the Nevada Small Business Development Center.