NYU Stern Marks Five Years of Its Endless Frontier Labs

Prospective MBA and entrepreneur? Science and/or tech enthusiast? NYU Stern’s Endless Frontier Labs (EFL) might be of interest to you.

EFL is a dual stream program designed to bolster entrepreneurship in the science/tech space. The program includes an MBA course and an early-seed accelerator program for science and technology startups. Enrolled MBA students, with mentoring and coaching from EFL staff, are paired with a startup to develop a commercialization strategy. Students gain hands-on experience developing and implementing a business model, defining strategy, pulling together financing, and planning for scaling. The startups in the accelerator benefit from the MBA’s consultation on bringing the scientific development(s) to the marketplace, as well as from access to the resources available through the NYU, Stern, and broader NYC communities. 

The program has grown in popularity over its five years. As an accelerator, it now selects about 75 startups each year out of 1500 applications, making it among the most selective of early-seed accelerators. Students are also eager to take part, with about 120 students vying for 75 spots. The course founder and director, Deepak Hegde, stresses that he selects students who demonstrate intellectual curiosity and an ability to thrive in ambiguity, not just those with a background in science or tech. 

To date the program has yielded impressive results. EFL has led to 183 alumni startups, with 83 percent of those garnering at least one successful round of funding. This compares favorably to similar accelerators such as YCombinator and Techstars where 77 percent and 73 percent receive funding, respectively. Additionally, Hegde won the 2022 Innovation in Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award from the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division. And a number of the MBA student participants have continued their work with their startup in a post-graduate position. 

More MBAs Seek Investors to Fund their Search, Acquisition, and Management of an Existing Small Business

Last week, the Wall Street Journal highlighted a small but growing career trend among MBA graduates: seeking investors who will fund their search, acquisition and management of an existing small business. 

A Wharton Magazine article described this niche career path, “The model, at its core, involves working with a group of investors to locate, acquire, manage, and grow a privately held business. The “searcher” starts by raising funds from a group of investors and then spends two to three years looking for one special business to acquire and grow. After finding the right business, the searcher is expected to take on a management role at the company and relocate to the business’s headquarters. One of the key differences between the search fund model and traditional venture capital and private equity fund models is that the search fund model is focused on the business owner and is designed to provide a unique transition plan to take the business to the next level.”

Although search funds are not new to MBA graduates, according to the WSJ, they have grown during the pandemic as investors with access to capital are seeking more investment opportunities. In 2019, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business counted 51 new search funds. In 2020, preliminary numbers showed 70 funds. And estimates suggest that more were launched in 2021.  

Initially most searchers came from Harvard or Stanford, though today, a growing number of MBA programs are developing search related offerings and bringing in experienced professors from the industry. “Search is really taking off. It doesn’t get better than the search fund model. The average person who does this is 32 years old, a very young CEO,” said Jan Simon, an MBA professor teaching a search fund course at UC Berkeley  Haas,  In addition to Haas, courses on search funds are now available at IESE, Duke, Dartmouth, and Columbia to prepare students to raise money from investors, as well as to understand the many complexities of the location and acquisitions process. Additionally, MIT, Northwestern, and other universities regularly host clubs and networking events for search, which have garnered the interest and participation of hundreds of students. 

While searchers can accelerate their careers and avoid some of the startup pitfalls by acquiring an established business, this career path necessitates a high-risk tolerance. They forego the support of an MBA program’s career center, as well as the stability of a position within a larger company. And the WSJ notes that about a third of searches end without an acquisition. Prospective MBA students wishing to pursue search should ensure that they select a program that has a support infrastructure with professors, coursework, and a network to best set them up for success. 

Access the Stanford Graduate School of Business Search Fund Primer to learn more. 

Tech Companies Seek MBA Hires Who Excel in Entrepreneurial Culture

Technology companies have taken a large hold on MBA recruiting, with a particular interest in those students who can thrive in ambiguity and have a proven track record of creative problem solving. In turn, students are attracted to these companies for their generous compensation packages, the opportunity to take ownership over popular products, and the culture of innovation.

Liz Arnold, associate director for tech, entrepreneurship and venture capital in the Career Management Center at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management, said “I encourage all students interested in tech to build their entrepreneurial skill set, to really understand how to take the initiative on their own to go from idea to launch. I think that particular skill set is valued at most tech companies, because the tech companies want students to be autonomous and take projects and run with those ideas and move them forward.”  Similarly, Sarah Eytinge, MBA University recruiter at Microsoft, describes the company as having an entrepreneurial culture, and as seeking MBA recruits who can thrive in ambiguity, learn and adjust their course, and take creative approaches to complex problems. “We have a lot of teams in an innovative culture trying new things and failing fast,” she says. “They have the benefit of working for a large company like Microsoft so we have the resources to make those investments and take those risks. For those MBAs who are interested in entrepreneurship, they are surprised by what they have access to – they thought it was just a big company.”

Recruiter Insights on Top-Tier Programs for Entrepreneurship and Creativity

The Recruiter Insights Rankings, a component of the 2018 Bloomberg Businessweek Best B-Schools ranking, include deep-dives into recruiters’ views of the best programs based on entrepreneurial reputation and training, as well as the most creative and innovative graduates. The rankings include the responses of 3,698 employers that recruited MBA graduates, and focus on specific survey questions. Bloomberg Businessweek analysts then assigned scores to the top 30 schools with a score of five being the highest and one being the lowest. Below are the top ten for the three categories relevant to entrepreneurship.  

What schools have the best reputation for entrepreneurship?

What schools provide the best training in entrepreneurship?

What schools are producing the most creative graduates?

Prospective students interested in expanding their entrepreneurial skill-sets for an interest in a technology career or who are among the 27 percent of prospective full-time two-year MBA students who listed entrepreneurship/self-employment as a primary career goal post-graduation in GMAC’s Prospective Students Survey 2018, should carefully consider the top programs listed above. Additionally, during the school selection or interviewing period, prospective students should proactively engage with administrators and professors from specific MBA programs to see how they support students in achieving these strong outcomes.

See full listings for each of the categories below:

What schools have the best reputation for entrepreneurship?

What schools provide the best training in entrepreneurship?

What schools are producing the most creative graduates?

QS Global MBA 2019 Rankings Place Four US Schools in the Top Five

The QS Global MBA 2019 Rankings were released this week and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business ranked first. This is the second year that QS has released global rankings, which include over 250 MBA programs internationally. The ranking’s algorithm incorporates scores for Entrepreneurship & Alumni Outcomes, Return on Investment, Thought Leadership, Employability, and Diversity.

In both 2018 and 2019, 13 of the top 25 programs were based in the US. Also in 2019, four of the top five were based in the US, up from two in 2018. Schools in the US scored particularly well in the areas of Employability and Thought Leadership, while international programs fared better in Diversity and Return on Investment.

There was one new entrant to the top 25, CEIBS, which is based in Shanghai China.

Rankings Indicators

As with all rankings, a closer look at the underlying components, which make up the Overall Score, can provide beneficial information for prospective MBA students. Below are charts showing the top ten ranked schools and their scores for each indicator.

The Entrepreneurship & Alumni Outcomes indicator makes up 15 percent of the overall score. Stanford not only received a perfect score within this indicator but was also about eight percentage points higher than any other program. Harvard, Penn (Wharton), and Michigan (Ross) were also included among the top ten. This indicator should be of particular interest to those keen on pursuing entrepreneurial options post-MBA.

The Return on Investment indicator accounts for 20 percent of the overall score. Programs in the US did not fare as well in this category, though Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) and Michigan (Ross) are included within the top ten. International programs with shorter durations saw the highest scores, as shorter programs save students money, both in terms of tuition, as well as lost wages.

The Thought Leadership indicator makes up 15 percent of the overall score.  US schools scored well in this category with MIT (Sloan) receiving a perfect score, followed closely by Penn (Wharton).

The Employability indicator was given the heaviest weight, and accounts for 40 percent of the overall score. The top five programs, four of which are US schools, all received scores of 99 or higher.

The Diversity indicator, which includes Class and Faculty diversity, accounts for ten percent of the overall score. For the second year in a row, no schools from the US were in the top ten in this category. And this is not expected to change significantly in the coming years as international applications to US programs continue to decrease.

Find full results here: https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/mba-rankings/global/2019