Does Silicon Valley — a world of startups in our own backyard — make Stanford students feel a greater pressure to perform? Undeniably, our ties to this industry offer extraordinary opportunities. But what if you’re not an overachieving student, one who has already started a company, balancing both work and academics? What if you want to explore the world of startups but don’t know where to begin? How do you approach the right people for guidance?

That’s where the BASES e-Horizons program — a campus organization aimed at providing a more realistic portrayal of entrepreneurial life after Stanford — comes into the picture.

The program, comprising 15 core members and 30 auxiliary ones, is designed with an emphasis on exploring the workings of both biotech and cleantech startups. In winter, the group concentrates on the biotech industry, and in spring, the focus shifts to the cleantech, or alternative energy, industry.

“There is too great a focus on high-tech entrepreneurships while biotech and cleantech startups have such great growth potential,” said Khurram Masood M.S. ‘08, vice president of community development in e-Horizons. “This is why the e-Horizons program is focusing on introducing Stanford students to entrepreneurships within these industries that are under-tapped and have an immense future.”

The e-Horizons program involves trips to startup campuses around the area, where students interact with company management and are exposed firsthand to the inner workings of Silicon Valley. The field trips are followed by mentored discussions over dinner with the company representatives, when the participants can reflect upon their understanding of the businesses explored that day.

“These are invaluable opportunities for students at Stanford to learn about these growing industries, debrief with fellow students and understand how they can play an active part in the growth of startups in the Valley,” said Ryan Tong ‘09, an officer of the program. “And although the members vary in experience level, the events assume the students know nothing and start from scratch so students aren’t overwhelmed by the information but instead understand the entrepreneurial process in its entirety.”

The e-Horizons program, which was Tong’s brainchild, was co-founded by Masood and Richard Lo ‘11. In its first year, the program has attracted immense talent and interest in venture capital (VC), with the members ranging from freshmen to business and law school students.

“Diversity is an important aspect of the group we select because startups are never founded only by technical students,” Masood said. “We hope that by bringing together students with such diversity in interest, ideas and age, they will combine to form compatible teams and start companies of their own.”

On Feb. 6, 18 members of the e-Horizons program had dinner with a panel of four patent lawyers at Bingham McCutchen, a nationwide law firm. The panel was led by Bill Abrams, a consulting professor of Law at Stanford and the new managing director of the Silicon Valley division of Bingham. The panel discussed a number of legal issues involved in starting, funding and exiting startups, including approaching VCs with ideas, obtaining technology patents and structuring businesses.

Varun Sivaram ‘11, who has been interested in VC funding since interning at a solar energy firm, Nanosolar, last summer, considered the law firm visit an invaluable experience.

“Management at the law firm took us through all stages of what an entrepreneur would have to do to establish a startup, from the seed to the exit and both from the legal as well as the VC point of view,” he said. “Their explanations on how to finance such a company, with an emphasis on financials, were so meticulous in description and analysis that it felt like it was a quarter-long course condensed into two hours.”

“The e-Horizons program is about learning about companies firsthand, about getting an inside view and actually seeing versus just hearing about it,” Tong said. “It’s great to hear speakers talk about the entrepreneurial spirit within the appropriate context; this experience takes entrepreneurship to another dimension leading into a sustaining discussion about the intricacies of establishing startups.”

On Feb. 15, e-Horizons visited Mohr Davidow Ventures, a VC firm that invests in biotech, cleantech and other technology companies. The talk was about different types of investing in biotech space, future development of biotech industries, biotech diagnostics and the role they would play in personalizing treatment.

Douglas Jones, a doctoral student in Bioengineering, found it interesting to get direct insight into the business and legal aspects of startups.

“Sitting down for a small group discussion with the VCs gave great insight into how they think: how they look at a new venture and why they have shifted to funding later stage startups and shorter payback periods,” Jones said. “I think a key advantage of the e-Horizons programs is that the informal, roundtable format enables a focused discussion targeted to the young entrepreneur about the practical business and legal considerations involved in a biotech startup.”

Upcoming events include a visit to LS9 Renewable Petroleum, a biotech company that develops technology to make biodiesel, and afterwards, a trip to Plug and Play, a technology incubator.

“The e-Horizons program is more than just a talk; it is a tour of the facilities, concrete discussions in the appropriate setting and an interactive opportunity for students to learn from the experiences of professors and employers as well as fellow students,” Tong said.

Excited about exploring the world of startups and approaching VCs for all that money? BASES is an opportunity waiting to be tapped into. For more information visit http://bases.stanford.edu and add yourself to the BASES mailing list to receive updates about the group’s activities, events and application process for the 2008-2009 academic year.