DMSB Keynote Speaker Encourages MBAs, New Startups, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
Life is Like a Venture Investment, Biotech Entrepreneur Tells Business Graduates – D’Amore-McKim Blog
The Northeastern University D’Amore-McKim School of Business selected biotech entrepreneur Dr. Gerald Chan as the keynote speaker at the DMSB graduation ceremony last month.
Dr. Chan, whose private investment firm Morningside Group funds “life sciences startups that are working to discover new ways to treat disease,” implored the assembled crowd at Matthews Arena to “live a life that makes themselves and their loved ones proud” even if “life can be at times so scary and at other times so exhilarating.”
Dr. Chan shared a personal anecdote about his father’s refusal to accept a job at casino on ethical grounds: “Had he accepted that offer, our family would have become financially richer. But because he acted on his ethical principles against his own economic interest, my family can stand tall today.”
D’Amore-McKim School of Business graduates, during last month’s ceremony / Photo via damore-mckim.northeastern.edu
You can read the full article here for a complete overview of the ceremony.
Winning Paper Shows Network Effects Fuel Business Value and Upend Strategy – Questrom School of Business Blog
BU Questrom School of Business‘ Marshall Van Alstyne recently co-authored new research that finds that “platform businesses” that depend on high numbers of users like Microsoft, Apple, Uber, Google, and Amazon scale much faster by moving value creation from “internal production to external orchestration.”
In “Platform Ecosystems: How Developers Invert the Firm,” Van Alstyne and his co-authors conclude that this approach will reverberate through “every part of a business, from marketing to operations to human resources.”
“Instead of a firm doing all its own marketing, consumers can add value through viral marketing. Instead of AirBnB incurring operating costs of a hotel stay, ecosystem partners bear those costs.”
“Instead of hiring employees inside the firm, platforms rely on freelancers outside the firm. In each of these instances, the value-creating activity shifts from inside to outside the firm. This shift affects all of the traditional business functions. It also has profound implications for fair division of wealth in society.”
You can read the full article here and the complete paper here.
25 MIT Startups To Watch – MIT Sloan Newsroom
On Saturday, September 8, Bill Aulet, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship told the crowd at the MIT Kresge Auditorium, “We’re not just going to be doing another dating app.”
“We’re going to be doing things like addressing inclusion in society, making a more informed citizen throughout the world, cybersecurity, mental health, urbanization, improving ed-tech, improving health care. These are significant problems that the brightest people in the world should be working on, and those people are MIT students.”
The ambitions Aulet spoke about were created from the 25 startups built within the MIT delta v accelerator, which you can check out here.
MIT Sloan Hosts Talk About the Modern Value of Old-School Advertising
Even for newer customers, there is an undeniable value in the old methods of advertising, according to cycling startup Peloton Senior Brand Marketing VP Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, who recently spoke at MIT Sloan.
Founded in 2012, Peloton makes a high-end exercise bike that livestreams indoor cycling classes—sort of like your own private FlyWheel. According to Blodgett, Peloton is vertically integrated, which means that “employees design the hardware, the software, teach the classes, and even deliver the bikes.”
Largely through word-of-mouth, Peloton’s revenues exploded to $137.5 million in just four short years, which placed the company atop Crain’s Fast 50 list. Despite this rapid, significant growth, Peloton is trying to reach a broader audience beyond its base of “affluent suburban women” (see sticker price: $1,995 plus $39 per month subscription fee).
Digital advertising is just one part of Peloton’s overall marketing strategy—one that Blodgett believes becomes increasingly “more expensive and less effective” once you understand that every company is buying on Facebook in 2017.
Speaking recently at the MIT Sloan Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, Blodgett explained that Peloton has begun to “invest in offline channels” like TV commercials, radio spots, billboards, direct mail, and 29 new brick-and-mortar showrooms to build a “community of those for whom fitness is a core value.” She explains, “We’re always testing new media channels.” Especially channels that maximize the ability for consumers to have hands-on experience with the product. “Trying the bike is a really important part of the purchase journey.”
With the holiday shopping season in full swing, Blodgett explained the company’s newest commercial, saying “We spend a lot of time showing the product, but my favorite part is the scene where the daughter is riding a tricycle and looks up at mom on the bike. That’s an emotional side of the product, and we’ve never really told that story before.”
You can find out more about Peloton and its luxury services here.
An Introduction To The World of MIT Sloan FinTech
Everyone knows that finance has always been a prominent staple of business school, but it’s also been a bit of an “old-school” science. In recent years, the role of technology in business increased dramatically as computers, big data and business analysts have entered the arena. These developments have opened up new sectors and industries, including FinTech. Continue reading…
MIT Sloan Startup/Entrepreneur Spotlight
Many think of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as just an engineering school and site to the most famous math problem in film history, but the prestigious university is also home to great business programs at the Sloan School of Management. Through school’s MBA programs—the full-time, Executive MBA and 12-month Sloan Fellows Program—students have an opportunity to earn a stellar, rare education that is key to a successful business career. Given the acclaimed faculty, staff and lengthy history of breakout corporate empires, MBA grads have a chance to earn a spot among the most celebrated MIT Sloan startup companies.
Sloan Hosts CEO’s for G-Lab Program
Twenty-five CEOs from startups and growing companies in 12 countries toured MIT Sloan at a summit connecting them with faculty and students in MIT Sloan’s Global Entrepreneurship Lab.
The Global Entrepreneurship Lab or G-Lab matches teams of four students with companies in emerging markets to work on projects focusing on business growth, new market entry, marketing, finance, or another realm. The G-Lab is one of Sloan’s signature action learning programs.
MIT Team Wins Clean Energy Prize for Solving Solar’s Shade Problem
An MIT team, including MBA students from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, whose integrated chip restores lost power to partially shaded solar panels — achieving double the energy capture improvement of similar technologies — won top honors at the seventh annual MIT Clean Energy Prize (CEP) competition.
Equipped with a promising business plan and a snappy catchphrase — “shade happens” — Unified Solar took home both CEP grand prizes: the DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Clean Energy Prize, worth $100,000, and the NSTAR MIT Clean Energy Prize, worth $125,000.
Solar panels on residential rooftops that are partially shaded by clouds or trees sacrifice as much as 30 percent of their energy potential over a year. Unified Solar’s technology, for the first time, integrates an entire power balance circuit onto a low-cost chip that can be integrated into a solar panel to regain that lost energy. Continue reading…
