Future-proof: How entrepreneurs are transforming the workplace

Editor’s note: Throughout the 2025–26 academic year, RED’s Future-proof series will focus on the critical role public universities play in preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow.

The modern workplace is changing before our eyes.

As technology and global trends reshape the job market, employers are increasingly looking beyond traditional employee attributes in favor of candidates who think like entrepreneurs — proactive problem-solvers who can jump into any role and add value immediately.

“The fact is that more companies are looking for employees with particular mindsets, rather than skill sets, and that’s an important distinction,” said Adam Melnick, J.D., director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

While most technical skills can be learned in a variety of ways, Melnick explained, acquiring the kind of entrepreneurial qualities employers increasingly want takes extensive face-to-face instruction and lots of experiential learning.

That’s why the Entrepreneurship Degree program at MSU Denver explicitly sets out to foster an entrepreneurial mindset in students. By graduation, the faculty aims to turn out seasoned problem-solvers who are creative, persistent, action-orientated, financially savvy and great at minimizing risks and maximizing opportunities.

Student Luis Toscano, winner of the program’s annual Pitch and Poster Competition, is emblematic of the Entrepreneurship program’s can-do ethos. Although still studying for his degree, he’s already the owner of a growing business: Mobile Glow Automotive Detailing.

“The courses have significantly helped me to run my business,” he said. “Besides introducing me to a useful network of people, it has sparked ideas that have inspired me to keep pushing, despite various challenges.”

As much as anything else, the degree program has given Toscano a confidence boost: “All the teachers have helped me recognize that my business is a real company with genuine potential, and not just a side hustle.”

Melnick fosters this kind of confidence in his students by encouraging them to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset.

“The key ingredient is the range of experiences that we give our students,” Melnick said. “And by that, I mean putting them in uncomfortable situations where they’ll face difficult choices and uncertainties.”

Melnick, it turns out, is a master at pulling the rug out from under his own students.

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For example, he’ll ask students to prepare an in-person presentation, then days before tell them to record a video presentation instead. Or he’ll ask them to set up the accounts for a dummy small business, with almost zero guidance — leaving them to figure things out.

The point of such challenges is to closely echo what students will face once they start a business.

“Entrepreneurs operate under resource constraints all the time, including a lack of knowledge,” Melnick explained. “You need to be able to overcome those constraints under pressure.”

Creative approach

Sometimes, you can find an entrepreneurial mindset where you’d least expect it. According to Nicole Predki, MFA, Dance Program co-director at MSU Denver, dancers are natural entrepreneurs.

What sets dancers apart, Predki explained, is that they’re highly practiced at trying and trying again until something works: “Failure, as such, doesn’t exist for them — and what could be more entrepreneurial than that?”

Predki recently took the creative teaching approach she uses in dance courses into a Small Business Entrepreneurship class and was impressed by the results.

“By introducing fun and creative exercises into an entrepreneurship course, I helped the students rediscover their divergent thinking skills and grow more confident in their own ideas,” Predki said. “Ultimately, many of them ended up using the creative process to generate better business ideas.”

The Entrepreneurship program saves its best gambit for the senior class, where teams of students are given $50 start-up capital to invest and turn into a profit. They can keep any extra revenue at the end, but they have to pay back the fifty bucks.

“Anyone can rationalize the dry facts of borrowing and investing money,” Melnick said. “But without actually living it, you can’t explain, for example, what it feels like to bake 500 cookies, turn up at a park event, watch them melt unsold, go home out of pocket, then have to work out what to do with the ruined product.”

Within a controlled environment, Melnick wants his students to experience the stress of borrowing money, as well as the risks of investing and perhaps even losing it. “That’s how they really start to learn,” he said.

If all this sounds a little like being thrown in at the deep end, Amber Burr — business owner and MSU Denver alumna (Management, ’05) — would argue that it’s a hugely valuable learning experience.

These days, Burr heads up Daddy’s Homemade Syrup, an award-winning company whose product has been featured on Colorado news and sells in numerous markets, coffee shops and restaurants.

But Burr has also stayed connected to her roots at the University, attending events and recently participating in the Launch Denver program. And she knows from her own experience how important it is for entrepreneurs to be taught hard lessons and have the right support.

“You don’t have to do it all alone,” she said. “I used to believe that grit was enough, but real growth only happened after I allowed myself to lean on mentors, community and partners.”

Toscano, juggling his studies with the pressure of growing a young business, couldn’t agree more about the value of a support network.

“I have a strong sense of self-belief and think that’s the main reason I’ve been successful so far,” Toscano said. “But it’s the people I’ve met here at the Business school who have inspired me to keep believing in myself — they have helped to keep my dreams alive.”

Toscano will be set up for success when he graduates, Melnick said, especially considering the entrepreneurial mindset is starting to be better understood and used in the modern working environment.

“In particular, we’re seeing a lot more of the word ‘intrapreneurship’, which basically refers to being an entrepreneur within an organization,” Melnick said. “Lots of companies are looking for people who can apply an entrepreneurial mindset to solving problems within their company, rather than being total freelancers. “With their capacity to innovate, adapt and unpack problems, they could apply themselves to pretty much any work situation,” he said. “It’s a point of pride for us that they should leave the University with a professional mindset that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.”