Taking the $5 Challenge

You've got five dollars in seed money, seven days to brainstorm, and two hours to execute your plan—how do you create value? These are the elements of the $5 Challenge, a core feature in management professor Andrew Nelson's course Recognizing Business Opportunities. Four MBA candidates from the Center for Sustainable Business Practices tackled the challenge by creating a service that would be valued by bike commuters everywhere. On a cold and rainy winter afternoon, the team toweled off bike seats for departing cyclists, and dried and plastic-bagged the seats of bicycles parked around the Lillis Complex. Bicyclists were invited to show their thanks by donating to a Eugene-area teacher through the Donors Choose website. "The beauty of the $5 Challenge is that students move from thinking 'what could I possibly do with $5 and two hours?' to identifying and executing on a whole range of creative ideas," explained Nelson. "I intentionally leave the definition of 'value' ambiguous, and we have a lively class discussion afterwards on the students' different interpretations—whether it's financial value, entertainment value, social value, or something else entirely."