Clearly, funding has been hard to come by as of late. And, time always is in short supply. Even so, lots of cash and unlimited amounts of time aren’t always needed to make money, as this project assigned to students at Stanford University demonstrates.

Several years ago, Tina Seelig, executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and author of What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World (HarperCollins 2009), was trying to figure out how she could best convey the concept of entrepreneurship to her students. So, she divided students into about a dozen teams of four or five each, handed each team $5 — that’s not a typo — in seed money and gave them two hours to come up with a plan for making money. They then had several days to execute their idea.

“The students went beyond what I imagined,” Seelig says. One team made reservations at the trendiest restaurants in town for Saturday night. Come Saturday, they headed to the hot spots and sold their reservations to would-be diners. Another group stood outside the hall where a dance was being held, and took digital pictures of the couples, which they later sold. (You can argue whether using a camera qualifies as sticking to the $5 budget. However, it’s worth remembering that they couldn’t buy equipment for their ventures.)

Coming up with profitable ideas required students to reframe the challenge, Seelig says. “The most successful teams realized that the $5 was not a limitation. If they assumed they only had the $5, they missed opportunities.” They also ignored the value of their creativity, skills, and networks, which trumped the five-spot.

In the next go-round, Seelig broadened the criteria. Recognizing that value isn’t always measured in money, she gave students four hours and ten paper clips to develop a venture that could add value in any way the students defined. One team traded the clips for paper, and used the paper to jot down clues to an elaborate treasure hunt they mapped out around the Stanford campus. Another turned its paper clips into a collaborative art project.

In a following year, students’ “financing” consisted of Post-It notes. One team asked 25 students to each write a musical chord on a Post-It. They then combined the chords into 25 different songs.

Since its inception, Seelig’s project has grown to a Global Innovation Tournament, with students from around the world competing.

The challenges these students tackle offers lessons for CFOs and CEOs struggling to lead their firms when financing is tight. As Seeling notes, “There are always opportunities that you often don’t pay attention to. This demonstrates that without very much, you can do incredible things.” ###