School is business at BYUH
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
When the dry heat began rising off the steppes of Anand Sanjaa's native Mongolia last year during his summer back home, there was nowhere for the Brigham Young University-Hawai'i business student to launder his sweaty clothes.
Though half of Mongolian households have old Russian-made washers, there wasn't a dryer in sight, said Sanjaa — and certainly none of the coin laundries he was used to in Hawai'i.
Anand Sanjaa dreams of opening coin laundries in Mongolia.
Resorting to washing by hand, Sanjaa came back to Hawai'i with inspiration for both a school project and a future business. Studying entrepreneurship, international business management and accounting on the Lai'e campus, Sanjaa has now launched plans to create a chain of Western-style laundries in his country.
"We never had this in Mongolia," the 24-year-old said.
Moreover, Sanjaa and his project partner and fiancee Namuuna Dashdorj were the big winners of the campus' Business Plan Competition this year, part of the annual Entrepreneurship Conference, winning $5,000 in startup financing.
It's all part of a heightened BYUH focus on business studies that call for students to create and run their own enterprises as part of the curriculum, an element unique in Hawai'i, officials said. Students also put together fully developed business plans for their own futures.
Thanks to the business curriculum and business lecture series created by the Center for Entrepreneurship, campus businesses are flourishing. Smoothie making, T-shirt production, hot-dog sales, window washing, marketing consulting — they've all been tried as students explore what it means to borrow money (as much as $1,500 from a special fund), offer shares, take responsibility for quality and tally earnings.
Matt Ward developed a design for a new tent, found a manufacturer in China and has contacted interested distributors.
"We've created a level of confidence that they could go out and start their own business, even though they may stumble a little," said Brent Wilson, dean of BYUH's School of Business.
Sanjaa has discovered his first stumbling block: Official licenses are needed from the Mongolian government to start a coin-operated laundry business, and he's headed back home this summer to begin that slow, undefined process.
"It's based on the old communist way," he said.
While he and Dashdorj still have more classes to complete, they are excited about their prospects. Sanjaa has been in touch with the Whirlpool outlet in Beijing, which will supply the machines; found a source for water softeners; and lined up his fiancee's parents, who want to operate the business while the couple finishes school.
"My dream is to start with four or five locations and expand to a chain," Sanjaa said.
A university class in the Mongolian capital city, Ulan Bator, has helped out by conducting a user survey that found Mongolians are astounded that laundry can be done in 1 1/2 hours, and that they would pay $4 a load for the convenience. What's more, 34 percent of the households say they could afford it.
Entrepreneurship is a complex system, said BYUH finance professor Brian Carrington, and the university tries to offer its students a sense of each step along the way.
"If business opportunities are limited, the cry is, 'What are we going to do?' '' said Carrington. "So we teach how to build a business and create jobs."
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
