PRIDE STAFF WRITER

If you enroll in the College of Business Administration’s new Entrepreneurship 320 class, don’t expect a lot of traditional coursework from professor Scott Landow.

He’s teaching his students to become dreamers.

The first-time professor at Cal State San Marcos doesn’t have a syllabus and his unorthodox grading criteria includes awarding points to students who effectively challenge his ideas, regardless of whether they’re right or wrong.

Landow says he pushes his student to ask “why not?” because out-of-the-box thinking is the hallmark of all successful entrepreneurs.

He should know. Landow is the co-founder and CEO of Solana Beach-based Bridgetech Holdings International, an environment and renewables investment firm. Before that, he was chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Bond Laboratories, where he oversaw the development of new consumer products such as Fusion Premium Energy Gum and the hangover prevention drink Resurrection.

Landow said all successful entrepreneurs have four characteristic traits: “(The) ability to listen, ability to feel, ability to envision or see what’s not there yet and the ability to sell.”

To teach his students these traits, Landow’s first project this semester was to have them form teams to create lemonade stands, the foundation for all young entrepreneurs.

In his loose but engaging lecture style, Landow talked to his students about how to name their drink stands.

“Understand a lemon,” he said. “The first priority to naming a product or business is like naming your first child.”

And when telling students how to choose partners for their stands, he said, “Go toward people that express the unexpected, not those that give predictable answers you prefer to hear.”

Students in Entrepreneurship 320 say they appreciate Landow’s enthusiasm and the unconventional nature of the class. By the end of the semester, each student will be expected to develop a marketable product or service.

While owning a successful business is the goal of most students in the college’s Entrepreneurship Track, getting rich isn’t necessarily a goal Landow espouses. He said he encourages charitable giving as a way for business owners to expand their sales and do good in the world.

“The system doesn’t work unless you give back,” he said. “Don’t overlook the need to give back. You can make better contacts through charity than through business. How thrilling is it to do something for someone else? I can’t tell you why, (but) it’s more fulfilling.”

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