The Last Days of the MBA

My last two classes in the MBA program were entrepreneurship courses. In New Venture Development, we wrote a business plan for an idea that could not be a consulting project. In the Entrepreneurship Capstone, we did a consulting project for a local business.

In the business plan class, groups were limited to 2 - 3 members. Before class, we each had to come up with 3 ideas; as a group, we would select one to focus on for the plan. Instead of a book, we bought $100 software that did fancy machinations based on our entries. Presto! A pretty business plan could be spit out or exported, with tables and charts and graphs, oh my! It's cool beans.

There's a lot to think about when starting a new venture. If you're going to have an internet based business, how are you going to get folks to look at your site (or twitter or facebook page) in the first place? Who are your competitors? What are your estimated costs? How do you plan to harvest (sell or IPO) the business? (The bulk of an entrepreneur's money is made at harvest.) How do you plan to make money?

As an entrepreneur, all you do is sell. You're always seeking to close the deal. Not like a swarmy, pushy, used car salesman, but the type of salesperson you like.

If you know me, you know I've said "Oh, I don't do sales" at least a hundred times. Yet by the end of the course, I was thinking about trying to bring some of my ideas to market. Though I was worried at first (the professor has an in-your-face style), it turned out to be one of my best classes.

In the capstone, we filled out a questionnaire, were divided into four groups of six, did a few team building exercises, heard presentations from two businesses, selected our consulting project, did research, gave an interim presentation, re-tooled, and gave a final presentation and report. Yes, it did go that fast.

The capstone is the course where we apply everything we've learned in the MBA program. Our class had a live case study to analyze and comment on – a real company with real issues. Our suggestions should to help them improve their business.

Our group had three strong-willed women and three quiet (but by no means push over) men. There was no way we could make it out of the storming stage of team building by the end of the quarter. And if I didn't do what I do best in such settings (editing), the chances for misery would increase exponentially.

Yes, I thought about positioning and costs and how the company could interact with their community. But time and again, what I applied the most to the project was the knowledge of who the group was, and what I could control. I was much less stressed than I was at the beginning of the program when I was first put into a group.

Which is was the point, of course. If nothing else, we learned how to play well with others.