What Makes a Good Entrepreneurship Club Activity?
Most clubs lose members for the same reason: meetings turn into talks that people could have watched online. The activities that keep a club alive are the ones where members do something — decide, build, sell or pitch — and leave with a story.
Use three tests when you plan a meeting: does everyone participate, does it finish inside the session, and is there a moment of comparison or feedback at the end? The ten formats below pass all three.
10 Activity Formats That Work
• 1. Startup simulation tournament. Everyone plays the same setup in Founder Runway for one 20-turn run, then the room compares outcomes and the decisions that caused them. 45–60 minutes.
• 2. Customer interview sprint. Pairs get 30 minutes to interview five people on campus about a problem, then report what surprised them.
• 3. One-page business model. Teams fill a single page — customer, problem, solution, how it makes money — for a random problem card. 40 minutes.
• 4. Pitch night. Three-minute pitches, two minutes of questions, with the audience voting on "would you try this?" rather than "is this a good idea?".
• 5. Small-budget challenge. Teams get a tiny budget (or none) and one week to create the most value. Report back at the next meeting.
• 6. Founder fireside. Invite a local founder, but replace the talk with three hard decisions they faced; members vote on each before hearing what really happened.
• 7. Failure post-mortem. Pick a well-known failed company and reconstruct the decisions that led there.
• 8. Pricing workshop. Teams price the same product for three different customers and defend their numbers.
• 9. Mini hackathon. One afternoon, one problem, one working prototype (a form or landing page counts).
• 10. Mentor speed rounds. Members rotate through ten-minute sessions with alumni or teachers, each bringing one specific question.
How to Run a Startup Simulation Tournament
This is the easiest format to run and the one members talk about afterwards. Fix the starting conditions so the comparison is fair: same business model, same stage and same difficulty for everyone. Members play solo or in pairs.
Run it in three blocks: five minutes of framing, 25–30 minutes of play, and 15 minutes of comparison. In the comparison, don't just rank final results — ask the best and worst runs to explain the turn that decided their game. The contrast between two paths from the same start is what people remember.
Repeat it each term with a different difficulty, such as low cash or a competitive market, and you have a recurring club event with almost no preparation.
45–60 min
One full meeting, including comparison
20 turns
One complete run per player or pair
0 cost
Browser-based, nothing to install
Planning a Full Term of Meetings
Mix formats so members cycle through thinking, doing and presenting. A simple term plan for eight meetings works for both high school and university clubs.
| Activity | Skill practised | |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Simulation tournament | Decisions under uncertainty |
| Week 2 | Customer interview sprint | Problem validation |
| Week 3 | One-page business model | Structuring an idea |
| Week 4 | Pricing workshop | Revenue thinking |
| Week 5 | Founder fireside (decision vote) | Learning from real cases |
| Week 6 | Mini hackathon | Building a minimum version |
| Week 7 | Simulation tournament, harder difficulty | Applying lessons |
| Week 8 | Pitch night | Communicating and persuading |
Growing Participation Without a Budget
Short, game-like formats are your best recruiting tool. A simulation tournament or pitch night is easy to invite friends to, because it doesn't require any background knowledge.
Keep a simple scoreboard across the term — not of who won, but of who presented, who interviewed customers and who shipped a prototype. Recognising effort over results keeps beginners coming back, and beginners are where every club's future members come from.
Frequently asked questions
What activities can an entrepreneurship club do?
Formats where members actively decide, build or present work best: startup simulation tournaments, customer interview sprints, one-page business models, pitch nights, small-budget challenges, mini hackathons, pricing workshops and mentor speed rounds.
How do you run a startup game tournament for a club?
Give everyone the same starting setup, let members play one full run solo or in pairs for 25–30 minutes, then spend 15 minutes comparing outcomes and asking the best and worst runs to explain the turn that decided their game.
How long should a club activity take?
Aim for 45–60 minutes so the activity finishes inside one meeting, including a few minutes of comparison or feedback at the end.
Do club activities need a budget?
No. Most of these formats are free: interviews, business model pages, pitch nights and browser-based simulations need only time and devices. The small-budget challenge works even with zero money.
Are these activities suitable for high school clubs?
Yes. Keep the vocabulary simple, use pairs instead of solo play and focus on the comparison moment at the end. University clubs can add harder simulation difficulties and written reflections.
Test this decision in the game.
Apply the same assumption across one run and see which metric weakened three turns later.