Amplify Your Product or Service

  • Do you have a skill or expertise that you could turn into self-employment?
  • Is there a service that doesn’t exist yet that you want to create?
  • Would you like to learn the language of start-ups?
  • Are you interested in working with small, grass-roots organizations?

If you’ve ever considered any of these questions, then Amplify Your Product or Service is for you.

“If you are passionate about a project but aren’t quite sure how it fits into your academic resume, then Amplify Your Product or Service is for you. It offers a supporting community in which you can expand and articulate your para-academic interests and build your own unique perspective on what post-secondary can offer more generally.” – Brent Stewart, Winter 2021 participant

What Is It?

Amplify Your Product or Service is a workshop series created by the Arts Amplifier and entrepreneurship@UBC and is facilitated by e@UBC in order to make entrepreneurship and pathways to self-employment more accessible to Arts graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Over a series of workshops and one-on-one mentorship meetings, you will develop the skills to translate your interests into a profitable initiative.

At the Arts Amplifier, we think entrepreneurship offers a viable pathway after the MA or PhD. Running your own business can allow you to align your work with your personal and political values, to be compensated for your labour, and to engage in creative pursuits.

 

You are in charge. The ‘Amplify Your Product’ program is all about considering, refining, evangelizing, and implementing your ideas—so take advantage of all the resources offered—these exploration opportunities are slim after graduation!  Anonymous participant

We learned to think more clearly about who our target audience is (i.e., a narrow niche), we learned new skills for improving scripts for the course (which will also help for academic presentations), we learned that it is good to present your idea to people that are not experts in the field as their feedback is invaluable; and we learned so much more. – Amelia Cole, Winter 2021 participant

There are so many ways to put our educations to use, and Amplify Your Product or Service gives us the tools to make it a reality! – Sharon Engbrecht, Winter 2021 participant