What The Entrepreneur And The MBA Taught One Another

Two topics that I frequently see discussed in online forums, blogs, and articles are entrepreneurship and MBA degrees. In such venues, perspectives and responses are often very polarized, and it would not be unusual to see different camps characterizing the relationship of entrepreneurship to MBA training as either highly relevant or highly irrelevant to one another.

Rather than taking an argumentative approach to distill relevancy, one of my former colleagues (Paul Brown, an entrepreneur & founder, PhD degree) and I share a few things below that we specifically learned from one another (with Steve playing the role of non-entrepreneur, MBA degree). The context is during an enterprise software startup that went from Seed financing to Series A corporate venture capital to Deloitte Rising Star to sale/merger over a period of five or so years.

Some key things Paul got or learned from Steve (my notes taken from discussion and correspondence with Paul):

  • Level of professionalism added – Having an MBA-trained person on the team changed professionalism not so much in demeanor but in the total approach to business. The MBA perspectives complemented a very technical, software R&D organization that sold highly technical products.
  • Concrete methods and processes added – As opposed to piling receipts in the corner of the room and calling the pile "our accounting books", having an MBA on the team introduced discipline and methods in finance, sales, competitive intelligence & benchmarking, Board meetings, etc.
  • Business literacy added - Perhaps an understated item but by adding an MBA competency to the team it helped to make a difference in key company situations as to whether we were taken seriously or not by others (e.g., partners, investors, customers).

Key lessons that Steve learned from Paul:

  • Business experimentation is part of the entrepreneurial spirit and approach – Although I may have paid lip service to this in the past, I recalibrated myself away somewhat from business role models where managers are expected to "know the right answer" a priori. When you are paving new ground as in an entrepreneurial venture, there is tremendous value in conducting safe tests (such as floating an idea with another entrepreneur or an industry veteran, presenting a new pricing plan to a niche distributor).
  • There is value in tapering the need to make hasty decisions – Something that has always stuck with me for many years was something that I remember reading about the Harvard Business School training method. Students were pressed to make decisions and calls based on information (however limited) in a case study. In reality, this type of mentality is reinforced in many business school and business settings. The mentality is that one will always have incomplete information whether in a managerial, case study, etc. setting, and one needs to make decisions as a manager. Boom, boom, boom, done. Although I have not fully formulated my thoughts in this area, what I believe I learned from Paul was that the entrepreneur may benefit not from procrastination but by delaying critical decisions as long as there is time to either gather additional information, see activities play out, or let management team emotions clear. (I know – my idea is a bit convoluted in its current form, but I am onto something and will revisit).
  • If you want to appreciate entrepreneurship truly, you must witness someone with total willpower, drive, and endurance – I don't think I need to say more here, other than Paul has these characteristics.

Paul, thanks for the lessons!

*********************************************************************************************************************

Please enter your email address to subscribe to updates on Steve Shu's blog.


Powered by FeedBlitz

Some Of My Scattered Notes On Pro-bono Consulting Via Taproot Foundation

For those interested in nonprofit and pro-bono consulting, I have started to dip my toes in with the Taproot Foundation to do a greater good for the community. The economy is tough, and I should put myself to good use. Have not started any projects yet, but I am going through director training. I have some scattered thoughts and notes here and here, and these thoughts and perspectives are mainly in the context of a person who has spent most time in commercial consulting.

As a digression, I encourage those that follow this blog to do so via email subscription or RSS feed. The updates on this blog are somewhat infrequent, primarily because I try to include limited scope & more substantive information here pertaining to management, consulting, and leadership. 

If you want more frequent information on a broader range of business topics, you can consider seeing my teaching thoughts and multimedia exhibits for my marketing course at my marketing posterous site. If you'd like to view diverse links (sometimes 1-6 per day) on business, social media, entrepreneurship, consulting, and random interests, you can see my Twitter page or look at the rolling list on the homepage of my main blog.

I plan to have two upcoming posts that I have not really seen discussed elsewhere, one on ethics in consulting and one on something to the effect of what an entrepreneur and an MBA taught one another. Either the links or complete postings for those will be provided on this blog.

Thanks for your readership!

*********************************************************************************************************************

Please enter your email address to subscribe to updates on Steve Shu's blog.


Powered by FeedBlitz

Collecting My Favorite Multimedia Clips and Exhibits For Marketing Course

Starting to collect my favorite videos and photos on my new posterous site (marketing section at http://steveshu.posterous.com/tag/marketing) for teaching business school classes (e.g., marketing, brand management). Folks may find some of the videos and photos entertaining.

I am still trying to find the best way to organize the videos in the context of what part of the marketing or brand management framework is being covered. I may also find a better way to include more detailed marketing notes on each video or photo. In any case, please feel free to send me links of your favorite videos. I may extend the posterous site to include organizational behavior topics, depending on my fall teaching load.

As background, I am using my posterous site as a scratchpad space separate from this blog and Twitter streams.

*********************************************************************************************************************

Please enter your email address to subscribe to updates on Steve Shu's blog.


Powered by FeedBlitz