Book excerpt: This book offers an in-depth examination of six exemplar student-run ventures. These ventures, actual businesses that students enroll in as a course and run themselves, are changing the ways in which students learn by offering valuable hands-on experience. Many universities around the US have some form of student-run venture operating on campus, but how learning is reinforced and integrated into the classroom varies widely, as does the meaningfulness of the overall student experience. The struggle is most universities operate these ventures as one-offs, disconnected from formal academic instruction and as a side project that never gets full faculty or student attention.