Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert creating boot camp to develop young entrepreneurs in Detroit

DETROIT (AP) - Dan Gilbert, the founder of Quicken Loans Inc. and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, plans to create a boot camp to develop young entrepreneurs and fund start-up costs for businesses they create in Detroit.

Gilbert plans to spend about $10 million to create the boot camp. The two-year, full-time residential program called Bizdom U is expected to launch in January with an inaugural class of 10 to 20 students.

Gilbert expects his Bizdom U recruits to be 18 to 22 years of age and high school graduates with street smarts.
"I've always hoped that I, we, could do something that we could fund ourselves, something different, based on the philosophies we have about how wealth is created," Gilbert told Detroit Free Press columnist Tom Walsh.

Gilbert turned a $5,000 investment in the mid-1980s into an online mortgage empire and bought the Cleveland Cavaliers for $375 million in early 2005. Quicken Loans includes Michigan mortgage company Rock Financial.

An office for Bizdom, which is incorporated as a nonprofit academy, has been picked out on the Wayne State University campus near where the students will be housed. But Bizdom is not directly affiliated with the university.

Ross Sanders, executive director of Bizdom U, has studied other urban entrepreneurship efforts around the country. He said most programs, however, end with the development of a business plan.

Bizdom will fund the start-up of a graduate's company with an investment of $250,000 to $500,000 in stages.