According to Wharton's alum, corporates like these will tempt you away from making the entrepreneurial commitment.
I watched the video Wharton posted on entrepreneurship today. I highly recommend watching it if you are interested in entrepreneurship. Before looking at this, I was a little anxious about how committed Wharton was to entrepreneurship, but I can see they can definitely produce enough interest and offerings in the area.
I took a few notes while watching it. For the lazy, I've included them below...
---
I was very impressed with the talk given by Seth Berger ('93 grad). He told a great story covering the temptation to going into investment banking and what swayed him to start a company. He said something surprising - he said he got rich very quickly after selling his company to a VC; in the end, he earned at least as much as those traveling the slow upward career path.
Irene Susantio ('08 grad) talked about how she won the Wharton Business Plan competition. She talks about how having their small team (her and Brian) meant they made decisions quickly, and the advantages of her non-biotech She mentions a few things that she learned: In the reality of starting a company, you are not going to be dealing with millions of dollars. Being humble about amounts of money is important. Secondly, you learn a lot from creating a company while at Wharton - it is not the same as learning in class. However, you need an obsession to do it; don't do it half-heartedly.
Greg Neichin ('08 grad) says he lives and breathes tech start ups. He gave three messages (also blogged here):
1. Starting a company is normal (and sexy). This is important to remember, because you can be discouraged by the perceptions of other students. Wharton grads have started some of the hottest startups around at the moment, e.g. PlaceVine, admob, Bazaarvoice (and more).
2. The most important thing you can do is commit to starting a company. If you hedge your bets with the corporates, you will fail. You have to commit to researching and knowing your idea. You have to commit to yourself. Committing with someone else (i.e. a partner) that this is what you want to do will encourage you more. If you are not committed, everyone you ask for help will know that you are not committed. e.g. professors are used to having hundreds of students contacting them about their business plan, but then seeing these same students going for interviews with corporates.
3. Execution is what is most important in making the company successful. You won't learn that in a class room. Entrepreneurship programs are obsessed with business plans. In reality, you have to get down to executing. If you commit, you don't even have to worry about executing - it will happen by itself. Smart people with backs against the wall will commit to making it happen.
Uri and Mike, two 2nd year students then speak about the Entrepreneurship Club. Uri started a luxury handbag company through the VIP program. Mike says he is planning to something similar with an energy efficient light bulb company. They said the Entrepreneurship club help create a community for like minded entrepreneurial individuals. Secondly, the club organises events, like alum talks. They also organise career treks to VCs and the like. Their key event is the Entrepreneurial Conference. A lot of VC and entrepreneurial alum will be at the conference, so it is a great opportunity to network.
A few responses from the alum to questions at the end:
- People are obsessed with raising money. At least in the Internet industry, you should be able to scrape together a prototype with very little money. To get ideas, read around. Proably the real reason you want to raise money before doing anything is because you are not willing to work for less than $100k.
- The notion of protecting your idea is a fallacy; the truth is unless you are a real rocket scientist, your idea has been thought of before. It is all about execution. Who can move fast enough and really moves on that plan?
- If you are having fun, you will work and keep pushing. Figure out how much money you are aiming to make before you start - make sure you remember that number. When you get to that number or when you figure that you will not be able to grow the business, sell out.
- There was a great final question: If you are committed, and you are smart enough - what is the value of coming to Wharton? What is Wharton going to give you? This produced an even better answer from Seth: When you go to raise money, when you go meet with partners, when you go talk with customers, they ain't going to remember your name. They are going to remember the guy from Wharton.
| Follow any responses to this entry through the |
