Amy Cosper was the keynote speaker at the Dr. Albert Zanzuccki Distinguished Lecture Series at JFK Auditorium Sept. 23.

Cosper is vice president and editor in chief at Entrepreneur Magazine.

Cosper emphasized social media advertising for start-up businesses at her evening lecture.

“It’s free market intelligence,” she said.

Cosper said social media gives entrepreneurs a chance to get to know their market personally and really create a dialogue.

She noted that the biggest challenge for would-be entrepreneurs is cost.

Her advice for those wanting to start their own business is to be able to explain the business idea clearly in three sentences or less.

“Know what you stand for, know who your customers are, and know where the money is coming from,” Cosper said.

A failed entrepreneur herself, she shared her experience of trying to start a website called mypoliticaldna.com.

The idea was that it would match the issues that people were concerned about with the candidates prioritized those issues.

Cosper also shared a personal story about a wildfire that destroyed her home three years ago in Colorado. The fire burned for a month and a half.

“Suddenly out of the blue, like magic, the Red Cross people appear,” she said. “And they give you a hazmat mask, gloves, a shovel and a little sieve to go through the dirt and see if you can find anything.”

This all tied back to her topic about business.

After sifting through the remains of her home, Cosper decided that “I’m not going to dig around in the rubble of the past.”

Entrepreneurs fail sometimes, she said. It is going to happen. The important thing, she emphasized, is to dust yourself off and keep moving forward.

Zanzuccki, for whom the event is named, spent 38 years as a faculty member in SFU’s School of Business and volunteered in the University’s Advancement Office when he retired. He helped to bring in millions of dollars for the business program.

He unexpectedly passed away Sept. 18 at age 99.

His funeral was Sept. 23, the same day as Cosper’s lecture.

Dr. Randy Frye, dean of the School of Business and coordinator of the event, said he considered cancelling it, but after consulting with Zanzuccki’s family, he decided “Dr. Zan” would have wanted the lecture to go on as scheduled.

The event got mixed reviews from students.

Dominick Palguta, a digital media major, said he thought Cosper was “down to earth,” but that she didn’t go very in-depth on her topic.

“She didn’t really go into the entrepreneurial business side,” said Palguta. “She just stuck with the PR side.”