Meet The Most Disruptive MBA Startups Of 2019

What is the biggest lesson that Underdahl has absorbed from launching a venture like Civic Champs? Counterintuitive as it may seem, he advises entrepreneurs to share their ideas. ā€œI was originally very guarded with my ideas,ā€ he admits. ā€œOne of my instructors told me, ā€˜Donā€™t worry about that. No one is going to steal your ideas. The Idea is not as vital to the success of the organization as the implementation.ā€™ Weā€™ve integrated a lot of the learnings weā€™ve had from speaking with others into our product road map. Telling people what you are working only enhances what youā€™re doing.ā€

After launching Pepper without product in inventory, Lia Winograd has taken a different lesson to heart: Donā€™t shoot for perfection. ā€œIt is more important to be scrappy and test things and feel comfortable with a certain level of risk,ā€ she says. ā€œIf we had waited until the product was perfect, it may not exactly have been what people wanted. There wouldnā€™t have been an opportunity to refine the product further. I think the best advice is to be comfortable with not having everything figured out. As someone once told me, ā€˜If you feel 100% comfortable with your product, then youā€™ve probably waited too long.ā€™ā€

And comfort is something very few entrepreneurs ever experience, Ryan Underdahl adds. Thatā€™s why he urges future MBAs to understand exactly what entrepreneurship entails. ā€œPeople think that entrepreneurship is being your own boss. To a degree, thatā€™s true. If youā€™re going to start a venture, it better be something you love because itā€™s all-consumingā€¦Itā€™s not only all you do, itā€™s also all you think about and all you worry about.ā€

What inspired these graduates to pursue entrepreneurship? How did an MBA make them better entrepreneurs? What are their long-term goals with their ventures? Click on the company names below to access over two dozen in-depth profiles of the most innovative MBA startups.

Startup MBA Program Founding Students Industry Funding
BikeLord Babson College (Olin) Jake Maude and Ty Filsinger Bicycles NA
Jamani Corporate Group Babson College (Olin) Jacob Fohtung Education, Finance, & Impact Investment $4,700
Caldo Restaurant Technologies U.C. Berkeley (Haas) Jose Alonso Food Service/Automation NA
Eliqs UCLA (Anderson) Max Berg, Dave Goldman and Joe Schwappach Food and Beverage $450,000
Riders Share UCLA (Anderson) Guillermo Cornejo Motorcycles / Sharing Economy $670,000
Talent IPO Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) Aashay Doshi, Michael Lai and Ayush Luthra Financial Services $26,000
Aegis AI University of Chicago (Booth) Ben Ziomek AI/Security $2,200,000
Sable Columbia Business School Andrej Paule, Naveen Qureshi, Towers Wilen and Joseph Finlayson Financial Services NA
SiteRX Columbia Business School Seth Goodman Healthcare NA
Purro Cornell University (Johnson) Earl Roach III, Donnie Hampton and Christian Laftchiev EdTech/HR Tech $8,000
Moonshot Diversity & Inclusion ESADE Sophie van Gool HR/People Analytics NA
Foublie, Inc. Georgetown University (McDonough) Melissa Antal Pediatric Health and Wellness NA
M’panadas Georgetown University (McDonough) Maria Margarita Womack Food $40,000
Civic Champs, Inc. Indiana University (Kelley) Ryan Underdahl B2B Software $366,000
INSEACT+ INSEAD Tim van Vliet and Saby Maity Agtech/Biotech ā‚¬40,000
Dear Black Women University of Michigan (Ross) Florence Noel Community/Wellness $85,000
Phraze University of Minnesota (Carlson) Jack Schneeman Health IT $300,000
Season Three MIT (Sloan) Adam Klein and Jared Johnson DTC/Apparel/Outerwear/ Fashion NA
Maziwa Northwestern University (Kellogg) Sahar Jamal Global Health/Maternal and Newborn Health $132,500
Pepper New York University (Stern) Lia Winograd Online Apparel $400,000
WellWorth Rice University (Jones) Vinay R. Acharya Enterprise Software for Upstream Oil & Gas NA
Synapse Technology Corporation Stanford GSB Ian Cinnamon Security/Defense $6,300,000
Trulli University of Virginia (Darden) Amanda Joseph Travel Technology $35,000
Buoy Washington University (Olin) Daniel Schindler Food and Beverage $100,000
aavrani Wharton School Rooshy Roy & Justin Silver Beauty $1,500,000
Statera Therapeutics Yale SOM Owen Yang and Jennifer Fischer Biotechnology $25,000

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