Entrepreneurial Management

Last week we made the first presentation of the business plan we are developing throughout terms 1 and 2 for our class titled Entrepreneurial Management. As the first group started its Q&A part of the presentation, we all started sweating bullets, wondering if we’d be able to answer the same questions about our business idea.

While I don’t plan on being entrepreneur for awhile, I am really enjoying the process we are completing in this class, and all the additional resources available at IE for fostering the skills to be an entrepreneur or intrapreneur. IE is really able to attract not only quality speakers, but also quality collaborators. I could list names, but that would take too many paragraphs to include in this blog.

Yesterday afternoon, for example, IE put on a speaker event featuring successful investors and entrepreneurs. I liked that the group of speakers included a mix of backgrounds and a mix of businesses.  The IE professors moderating the event noted how successful entrepreneurs often become successful investors, showing how the potential career path of a future entrepreneur might develop.

Here’s a few quotes from the speakers I found inspiring and/or useful:

“They (entrepreneurs) have the greatest potential to drive, change, and positively influence economies and societies.”

- Christopher Pommerening, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Active Venture Partners

“When you’re starting a business, you need everyone to be committed 150%, and to do that, you need them to be happy.”

- Joshua Novikk. CEO & Founder of Antevenio

“Where are we going and why do we want to get there?”

- Jose María Castillejo. CEO & Founder of Zinkia Entertainment

The last quote refers to motivation. It may seem obvious or easy to determine, but as I’m sending out my resume to companies for summer internship opportunities, I am constantly asking myself, what is my mission? What exactly do I want to achieve? And how can I do so with this company? One might be tempted to say that this is even more important when you’re risking your capital and future on your own venture, but to make change, become a leader, having a mission and motivation is key to develop your strategy. I am finding that the more I learn in the MBA, and the more subject matters I explore, and the more people I meet, it is becoming harder to define my specific mission as my brain is stimulated by all the different options. What I’m trying to do now as I prepare for an eventual internship interview is to remember my story, my background, and how I can leverage that to be productive in the business world.

Right now, I’m sitting in an event put on by the Entrepreneurship Club called “Pitch to Your Peers.” The club is hosting a series of events that mirrors the process every entrepreneur goes through. Again, I am inspired. And again, I am eager to figure myself out and to be on the stage.

midterm madness

IE doesn't have a set mid-term week. In fact, I've only had one actual mid-term exam this past week. However, in these two weeks we have a number of major projects to hand in, so it feels like mid-terms, and that's what we're all calling this hectic period. It means a multiplication of group meetings that have spilt over into the weekend. It means even more need for excellent time management skills. My peer Miguel has written about this in his blog this week, click here for the post. 

While the time pressure has mounted, and the anxiety about grades has become a little more real, what I'm starting to take away from this process of finishing big group projects is a sense of having learned something. I'm trying to apply the frameworks we've used to analyze other cases; I'm thinking about our business plan for the entrepreneurial management class in a completely different light than I did at the beginning of the term thanks to material I've learned in all my classes, particularly marketing; I'm gaining confidence in some of my newly learned financial and quantitative analysis skills. But, I'm also increasingly struggling to retain additional information as we are starting to delve into the nitty gritty of financial accounting. As my classmate who sits next to me said this week "I'm saturated." What am I going to do about that? Go buy some flashcards. When it's tricky and detailed, I need to start memorizing certain facts so that I avoid getting lost when we're looking at complicated issues. 

Time management fairy is telling me my time is up to blog! Back to accounting!

last days of freedom!

I'm down to the last days of my pre-Madrid, pre-IE Business School MBA life! This is my last week of playing around in Italy before starting the apartment search Saturday in Madrid! 

In reality, my "IE Business School MBA life" started two years ago around this time when I started studying for the GMAT,  and I never stop bothering my boyfriend with business ideas that I can't wait to try out with IE's supposedly great entrepreneurial resources. We made a mini-trip to the beach this past weekend... chilling out with this view in sight made me think up of a million ways to find work in a nice beach town.

view of Portovenere from Isola Palmaria beach

But then again, how could I choose just one? Beach town, that is. Better to travel the world working first, see many great beaches, and then figure out a time-share plan... Hehe... The key is to dream big, and that's what I plan on doing throughout the MBA! Good luck to me and my future classmates, especially with the upcoming apartment searches!