South Carolina Business Review

Top entrepreneurship professor invests in SC

By Mike Switzer

Published July 27, 2022 at 5:30 AM EDT

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After experiencing success as an entrepreneur himself, our next guest turned to teaching and was named one of the top 100 entrepreneurship professors in the world while at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also led their entrepreneurship program to being ranked #1 in the world by Inc. Magazine in 2019. After retiring from teaching, he is now bringing his expertise to our state. Mike Switzer interviews Cliff Holekamp, a board member at SC Launch and co-founder of Cultivation Capital in Greenville, SC.

Disclaimer: Magnolia Media, Inc is the producer of the SC Business Review and also owner of Voterheads.com, a SC Launch member company.

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Mike Switzer

After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.

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