Haas’ Bootstrapping MBA Entrepreneurs

Rhonda Shrader, the director of the Berkeley-Haas Entepreneurship Program. Courtesy photo

How much is raising VC funding emphasized at Haas compared to bootstrapping or other early stage tactics?

I think the focus here is on building a quality scalable and sustainable business. And I guess maybe another metric I would look at is how long has one of these small bootstrapped startups been around. Because my hunch is that our entrepreneurs have more longevity than the folks who have actually gone out and gotten some funding. By bootstrapping you have more control. So, yes, we do emphasize on quality business ideas, like building customers and applying the skills for scalability and definitely much less emphasis on a cash grab.

What are the most popular entrepreneurship elective courses at Haas and what are they teaching?

Definitely the lean startup class with Steve Blank and Toby Stuart and those guys is the most popular. There’s pretty fierce competition to get in. The course is comprised of teams not only from Haas but from other departments as well. One thing that we’re starting to do much more effectively across all of UC-Berkeley is to work with other schools so we can really develop the best ideas and the best technologies to make them into viable companies. And that’s another factor why I say to stay tuned in the next couple of years.

Besides the electives, we also have our launch accelerator that’s extremely popular. We did it for the first time last year, we are doing it again this year and we’re expanding it to 24 teams–up 16 from last year. We’re also adding a social impact tract. And that’s been hugely popular among MBAs and students from other departments. It’s kind of like Lean Startup 2.0. Once you have your prototype and you’ve done customer discovery, how do you really learn the skills you need to scale your businesses.

For an MBA applicant wanting to start a venture during their time in B-school or soon after, what should they know that’s unique about how entrepreneurship is approached at Haas?

It goes back to our Haas defining principles. That’s the biggest difference between us and other top schools. It’s going to be more about going beyond yourself, building a sustainable, scalable business that’s quality and not just the flavor of the month. You aren’t going to see more food delivery apps or the next Snapchat coming out of Haas. These are going to be real, sustainable businesses.

What trends are you seeing in interest and popularity in entrepreneurship among MBA students at Haas?

It’s totally increasing. The metric for that would be the number of entrepreneurs coming out of our program. Not only that, but the number of entrepreneurs doing businesses while they are still students. They’re starting while they’re students. They’re using it and we encourage that. I know at Stanford now, the trend is to say do your academics and start your company after. That’s definitely not the attitude here. We want our students to learn the academics to learn the methodologies, but we also want them to start applying that immediately. And I think this is a great test lab to do that, when you’re in business school. So it’s totally increasing and year after year we see doubling and tripling of the number of entrepreneurs coming out of our program.

Why do you think an MBA is a worthwhile investment for an entrepreneur?

I think that’s a question that’s difficult to answer globally. It’s much easier to answer individually. I’m a Haas alum and came here 20 years ago to transition from science to business and I could have never gone on to be a successful entrepreneur if I hadn’t had that basic grounding in the skills I got as an MBA. So I think for students that need those skills, I think they are incredibly valuable. They are going to make you a better entrepreneur.

Number two, just coming to this environment where it’s so stimulating, there are things going on all the time, you can immerse yourself in getting to know folks from other schools. You can apply the things you’re learning immediately. For that reason, it’s definitely worth getting an MBA rather than going out and joining an accelerator where you may get some mentorship, but you know, you’re not really going to get grounding in the fundamentals. And you’re certainly not going to get the network of bright people. There are just so many bright people that can improve your idea. The folks at Haas are very generous and it was the same way when I was here before and that part of the culture has remained. It’s much less competition and much more, how can we all make this better.