Entrepreneurship : EphBlog

Fri 6 Aug 2010

Entrepreneurship

Posted by esoskin under Alumni Office, Curriculum at 8:45 am

A troubling thought has been rattling around my mind since the June Alumni Review arrived. Thanks to the comment thread in one of this week’s Beyond the Log seminar session, I’ve been inspired to post. (Note: there have been more relevant posts since I started this one — particularly yesterday’s Institute of Finance post, but this post is already too long, so it’s going up as is.) In a discussion of “decreas[ing] the penalty placed on international applicants” with the ultimate goal being to “accept a class with the most academically talented and ambitious students from around the world,” Ken pointed out:

the issue which echoes across the educational system . . . creativity and entrepreneurship. The issue, which parallels the problems of Germany and elsewhere, is that you need a new economic system, and people who will lead it, and the people who go to Sciences Po, while incredibly intelligent and ‘clever,’ are not, necessarily, risk-takers.

They’re happy with $140K/yr (plus possibly investments) in a country where, down in Fontainbleau, the children taking the metro will never know lives where they have more than $30K/yr in resources. . .

But that’s what Williams can offer. . . Because the French need what Williams offers. And we could benefit a lot, from giving our students access to that world…

“Creativity and entrepreneurship,” indeed. The alumni review article (link to the June magazine — as David has pointed out, the online magazine unhelpfully doesn’t allow links to individual articles) took a tour through Eph entrepreneurs who have brought their businesses to the Berkshires. That’s living the dream — Williams College at one end of the street and your company at the other. But largely absent from the article — except for a brief mention of the influence of the late Prof. Dick Sabot on Bo Peabody ’94 — was any indication of how the subjects’ Williams education contributed to their business undertakings, other than drawing them to the Berkshire setting.

Now, there’s no doubt that an athletically-minded liberal arts college like ours provides the ideal flexible set of tools for just about anything – including starting your own business. Or, notwithstanding the Peabody example, most entrepreneurs will benefit from first working in a more structured environment.

That still leaves open the question — does Williams do enough to assist students who are thinking about an entrepreneurial future or who might think that way, if the opportunity presented itself?

As far as I know, the only curricular commitment to the topic is in Winter Study, where Professor Stephen Sheppard is sponsoring two courses:

“ECON 12 – So You Want to Start a Business Some Day—Understanding the Business Plan”, with Steve Fogel, the Program Director of Berkshire Enterprises Entrepreneurial Training Program, as the instructor; and

“ECON 17 – Entrepreneurship,” with Dr. Jeffrey Thomas, a Boston-based bioinformatics entrepreneur, as the instructor.

This isn’t surprising, as Winter Study has always been the place where the curriculum expands to areas otherwise considered insufficiently academic or excessively professional. (Kudos to Prof. Sheppard, by the way, who appears to be a go-to guy for sponsorship of WSP programs in economics — his name appears after virtually all of them. Only a few other Economics professors appear to be taking a similar interest in Winter Study).

Is there anything from the regular curriculum a student should consider taking as preparation for an independent future? Although the overall Leadership Studies curriculum appears starved for courses that examine business leadership, Leadership Studies 295, “Leadership and Management,” is perhaps relevant. (Also missing from both the Leadership Studies and Psychology curricula is anything studying leadership or the dynamics if small groups — but hopefully that’s an area students are getting a lot of experience with outside the classroom).

Accounting is the kind of pre-professional course that Williams frowns on, so it’s only available during winter study. However, the Math/Stats department has a couple of introductory courses in statistics that are offered every semester and that every student – regardless of their interests – should probably consider. (Bonus: some of the introductory courses are taught by academic entrepreneur Dick De Veaux).

What about outside the classroom? It looks like there’s been a Williams Entrepreneurship Society in the recent past, as well as an Eph Business Association that brought Herb Allen ’62, James Lee ’75 and Bo Peabody as speakers. Is either of these groups still active?

OCC counselor Robin Meyer has wisely set up a separate resource page for those interested in “business” and thinking of something other than investment banking or consulting. The various endowed summer internships are all directed at supporting students in non-profit or governmental endeavors, but I know there are a number of smaller alumni enterprises that come to campus looking to hire interns (I understand there’s more to David than just EphBlog and taking stAmudents to lunch).

With respect to these efforts, it seems a mighty weak brew. Compare it to the efforts directed to encouraging/supporting so-called “public service” careers. And compared to many competitors, it’s unimpressive. Middlebury has its Project on Creativity and Innovation, subsuming a winter-term offering into a prominent program that includes dedicated physical space, an idea competition with a summer-earnings subsidy, and more. Swarthmore has an annual entrepreneurship conference with nearly a decade of history drawing prominent alumni. Even Amherst promotes “social entrepreneurship” through its Center for Community Engagement.

Am I missing something? What curricular or cocurricular experiences should an Eph ’12 or Eph ’13 be taking advantage of?

This is obviously more important to more than just attracting international students — and the right international students, of course. The Williams interests in having a robust and thriving community of Eph entrepreneurs begin with the nakedly financial: professionals get only to the upper middle class (especially if they eschew legal entrepreneurship for jobs more conducive to contributing to EphBlog!); entrepreneurs, by and large, make up the ranks of the wildly rich. They extend to the immediately enriching: a broader coterie of employers looking to hire alumni (and provide internships), potentially providing students with a better set of opportunities to explore their enthusiasms. And don’t we need some compelling new names for the honorary degree and graduation speaker pool, too?

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19 Responses to “Entrepreneurship”

1. kthomas says:

   I’d like to comment, but I’m going to need to read this though carefully three times first.

   
   August 6th, 2010 at 9:15 am

kthomas says:

Actually, let me stop:

What you to do, is connect students with ideas and ambition, to alumni and others with the technical and other knowledge necessary to mentor and execute, to those who have the capital and connections to make things happen in exchange for equity.

I … Ken shuts his mouth.

August 6th, 2010 at 9:22 am

esoskin says:

Oops – thought I had scheduled this post for Saturday, but I’ll leave it up anyway

August 6th, 2010 at 9:29 am

JeffZ says:

Excellent post (well, excepting the “so called” public service comment :); I am all for supporting more Williams alums doing things like the Peace Corp, Teach for America, and so on).

I note that MCLA is instituting this year what appears to an executive MBA program. I know Williams in the past tried to synch up with MCLA’s graduate teacher education program, and I’m not sure whether any students still are involved with that, or if it proved useful. But I would think there might be some opportunities for synergy for upperclassmen at Williams who are interested in entrepeneurship to take a class or two at MCLA, or at least work with any entrepeneurs who are hired as faculty.

http://www.mcla.edu/Academics/news/mclatoofferprofessionalmbaprogram_311/

I also wonder if there are ways to better connect with the small community of tech and arts entrepeneurs operating in Williamstown / North Adams (in particular at and around MassMoca).

August 6th, 2010 at 10:01 am

Leigh says:

Great post, Eric. I loved that article as well, but agree, the how do you get there part was missing.

I remember in my Econ senior seminar that we each had to lead class one day on a given topic. I chose Entrepreneurship as my topic, and opened the class by asking for a show of hands of who would ultimately like to be an entrepreneur. I assumed I’d get a near unanimous show of hands, thinking of course it would be a goal of almost anyone. But I was pretty much the only one with my hand up. I think there’s a gap in terms of exposure – exposure to people/alums and their stories.

Senior year an alum named Aaric Eisenstein ’91 came back to campus and gave a talk on entrepreneurship – he had essentially built a race track, and was off starting another company if I remember correctly – it inspired me and stuck in my head more than any other career-oriented talks, because it was the only one of its kind. Connecting more alums and current students is key. How can we get more alums coming back to tell these stories?

August 6th, 2010 at 2:58 pm

jeffz says:

I do think Eric’s idea of using the leadership studies major as a platform is a particularly good one. I know that in the past the leadership studies program has hosted, over a weekend, a series of speakers / seminars on a particular topic over at Mount Hope Farm. An entrepeneurial leaders in business weekend (and this also echoes something DK suggested recently) conference, featuring both alums and intriguing non-Eph entrepeneurs, could be a very interesting academic event for leadership studies. BTW, I really think leadership studies could be a real selling point for Williams if it receives more institutional attention / support / emphasis. But that is getting off point …

August 6th, 2010 at 3:34 pm

Sr. Mom says:

I agree, terrific post.

And, being that I’m the parent of a (too) soon-to-be-graduating senior, versions of this topic have been at our dinner table all summer. I have questions and comments, some more along the lines of career counseling and guidance, but IMO, they tie right in with some of the comments and suggestions that are already posted. However, I am running out the door, so I will have to check in later. Just wanted to voice my appreciation for the post.

August 6th, 2010 at 4:06 pm

esoskin says:

@Leigh: Great story — and I was thinking that we were pretty much there during the golden age of interest in starting for yourself, with Tripod having such a high profile and the dot.com boom in general making it look “easy” to come up with some idea and be rich overnight. Interesting that I see Aaric Eisenstein’s name all over and he’s still a great Williams enthusiast, but I haven’t seen anything about him coming back to campus recently. Perhaps because Leigh was the only one who showed up?

Regarding a conference, I also think that it would be a good way not only to connect students and alumni, per Ken, but also to raise the mindshare and get more students interested.

It would be interesting to try to ascertain how successful Swarthmore’s conference is not just at getting staged, but at making those connections between students and alumni (and alumni and each other). As well as expanding overall interest. It’s certainly not generating interest in Swarthmore’s entrepreneurs Twitter list, which has three followers, relative to 600 on the Swarthmore Twitter feed as a whole.

August 7th, 2010 at 10:26 am

kthomas says:

@esoskin:

Hi Eric. I’ll try to comment here.

Let’s break this up a little:

Part the first

First, a little background.

I left the world of graduate school at Berkeley (another story, but certainly not a world dedicated to entrepreneurship of any kind) to co-found a series of companies.

Certainly that was due, in large part, to the Tripod example– and, in fact, to the very concrete examples of a month of having Brett and Bo sharing an apartment with me, and the years of tales of Tripod to follow.

It doesn’t boil, simply, down to that. There were items in Mark Taylor’s Imagologies class (Bo was taking Mark’s Psychology of Religion at the time); there was Dick Sabott’s presence; there were things in many other classes; there was, for that matter, the pure contingency of meeting someone from BBN on a train from Munich to Prague, because M——- ’95 decided to meet here, that whole chain of events contingent on sitting next to Bill Fox’s son during a busride from Williamstown to Boston to catch the flight to Munich.

I won’t try to spin that into a tale of contingency and luck or spontaneity, all things that are important in the entrepreneurial world.

Well– actually what I want to talk about for a moment, are part of Wendy Brown’s remarks during the ‘crisis’ at Berkeley– posted here by David– [*1]– one of the thinks that struck me most in what she said, amid things that made a lot of sense to me in general– well, I really had to wonder if she had thought about what ‘shared governance’ really means–

but what stood out above all, was her hostility to the word ‘entrepreneurship,’ her almost contempt in using it. The idea that we might need something like ‘educational entrepreneurship’ at Berkeley–

well what people are really reacting to, what people who are professors in particular are really reacting to, is the challenge of change.

[*1: 'as it were' I looked at them in London while waiting for Prof. Zizek, as street riots rocked the German educational system]

August 7th, 2010 at 10:48 am

kthomas says:

Part the second.

Let me turn back to the main topic, just a bit.

NPR ran a series, a few years ago, on ‘entrepreneurs’ from the internet boom years, who had founded companies in their early 20s, failed, and, after gaining some experience, tried again in their 30s.

One of them said something, which Dylan Tweeney echoed (in a piece linked here on EphBlog by Chris Gondek): that we’d all learned a great deal, and in the end, learned a great deal about what we didn’t know anything about.

That was from NPR– what Dylan said, was that his company should have gone a little slower, and focused on building something of value.

Item: I never knew that Dylan– not to mention a few others– was involved in any sort of startup idea. And that’s a mistake. Because I don’t know that I could have helped Dylan, but I’m sure Dylan’s experience and knowledge, for example, could have helped me.

OK, I’m going to risk dominating the sidebar again, by stopping to rethink.

August 7th, 2010 at 11:02 am

kthomas says:

Part the second: interlude: the Valley; venture!; capital

Another aspect of this, which may be important, are the communities which support entrepreneurship.

In my time, the culture of the Valley, and of its enormous creativity of all types– it still seems, largely separate and alien, to at least Williamstown– at the time, certainly, to draw with a very big brush, “to the East Coast.”

Ronit recently gave us some maps of venture firms. What was interesting and amazing to me, was the extent to which they had expanded.

Institutions and resources do matter. Having a startup incubator at Stanford or Berkeley, a business plan contest, a culture of ‘angel’ group, and so forth, does matter. You might call all of that– ‘enablers,’ and I fully mean to use a work with double and potentially negative meaning there.

But in any case, Sean Schickedanz would put some similar maps up in front of us, at HAAS’s entrepreneur’s forum, in about ’98 or ’99. And they would show a quite smaller distribution of venture capital, — to keep it short, it was all in the Bay Area. There were a few firms in LA, and a few in New York and Boston– but there were hundreds in the Bay Area.

And– if we’re talking about key enablers– then in my life, among those key enablers were the existence of HAAS itself, of the business plan competition and the associated incubators, of a lively community of venture investors willing to give time (and risk capital!), and the general community around this.

They provided the message: “you can.”

Perhaps.

August 7th, 2010 at 11:14 am

kthomas says:

Part the Second: continuing– experience(s): what the Valley “is”

My tale is also a somewhat cautionary one. For certainly to say, I wouldn’t have done it any other way, would be declaring I couldn’t learn from experience.

The venture capital model, and the enormous productivity (if that is what it is) of the Silicon Valley, is a model which people have attempted to replicate around the world. There’s an attempt here in Prague– I should ask more about it.

What I’m trying to say is– there are critical differences one might want to think about, between the worlds of starting essentially small businesses, or fairly limited entrepreneurial endeavors, and large-scale ones and “the Valley.”

This is one of those points when I have to worry if I’m saying something important to the audience, or how I can make the point I want to make, both clear and relevant.

In Western Kentucky, for instance, — well in all of Kentucky, there are regional startup incubators. They are meant to encourage regional economic development. The problem is– the businesses in them, are more of the same. In Western Kentucky, they generally house plain-vanilla-ish manufacturing operations, which are what was happening anyway.

And, heck, there’s one of those about 50 kilometers above Acapulco, though why it’s so far out I don’t know. Why?

My point here is– what’s happening in the Valley is really, really quite different. It’s a different series of technologies, and to some extent, depending upon the specific network of connections and ‘relations of production’ in the Valley.

So, really– if you’ll not mind me focusing a little too much on Kentucky, but I hope you might generalize– if you want to develop that somewhere else, you have to get concept of what it is, how it works, what it does– what the specifics are– who knows what.

We’re talking about technology transfer, there.

Now– here’s the hook to the Berkshires.

Ethan Zuckermann and I have had a conversation or two, about Tripod, and the great expectations (and then resentments) that occurred in the area.

Because one hope, even expectation, was that Tripod could bring a large number of jobs to the Berkshires, even reignite the economy.

I’ll keep this section shorter by cutting myself off. Tripod couldn’t do that. But I’m sure that it was very much, though only partially, responsible for the North Adams renewal.

It showed people that they could– well, at least, that they might.

August 7th, 2010 at 11:28 am

kthomas says:

Part the Second: continuing: experience(s): mine! (Company 1)

Now I’ve beat around the bush. It’s a rainy day in Prague and I have a headache, though fortunately, not enough to affect my peripheral vision– much– though I just recorded a good description, from someone else, of the experience how a migraine incident begins for him with distortions at the edges of vision, then proceeds with a sort of stars and hallucinations– at which point he’d better find a place to shut down immediately, before the nausea begins.

That experience is relevant to startup life– especially, to the potentially stresses of startup life and cash flow management, to what Bo talks about in terms of the “inevitable total failures any startup will face–” as well as the constraints of economic development.

“But what did you do, Ken?” Oh, yes.

Nothing entirely impressive, and nothing that, except on paper, every particularly made much money.

The first venture I participated in, which had nothing but a smidgen of angel funding– we started with offices in a fraternity in Berkeley, and eventually had the money to move to offices in Emeryville, though I think we’d have been better off staying in the frat–

my point right there, is important. Steve Vachiani, who is running a startup in Brazil right not– I’ve dropped another hook, though rather awkwardly, so we have two important hooks–

Steve, and his right-hand guy, would explain to me a few years later, when I had a bit more operating cash in hand, that the first thing I should do, is guard that operating cash like blood. Because it’s life.

What we did in moving to Emeryville– the first wrong thing we did– was to take on approximately $2,000 in unnecessary monthly expenses for an office.

We would have done better to work out of café space in Berkeley, or negotiate for a corner in an incubator, or with another company– we just didn’t need 3,500 sf, or whatever we had!

The other important point — well, I had known Steve Vachiani for a while, because we had bonded for a variety of reasons, some of them indeed quite purely contingent– he was an Indian immigrant to Toronto, who spoke French– Lawrence Cohen, my housemate, was a French-speaker from Toronto, who taught me loads of French– Steve’s girlfriend of the time, was a woman from Lodz, a Polish city only a few tens of kilometers from here.

Bluntly stated, the second important point — was that the area around UCB and HAAS was teeming with entrepreneurs and people thinking about entrepreneurship and possibility– so moving to Emeryville was a bad idea. Sure, we were next to WebVan (well!…) but it moved us away, from the center, from the culture, from the resources.

In Emeryville, the streets were quiet; you could walk down to the AskJeeves complex, part of an industrial park, and in the lunchroom, there were Jeeves and WebVan and a handful of other people–

but generally, 9 out of 10 people weren’t doing the same sort of think, and didn’t understand a think, more or less, about what you were trying to do.

Over at the fraternity– well, we were a half-block from the International House Café, where, on any given afternoon in those years, you could run into a group of guys (real story) with the contract to build an email system for Congress.

And you could get a job with them by simply pointing out that they couldn’t do X,Y, and Z for reasons a,b, and c, and explaining it to them.

That was the environment. That was what was critical– the — a sort of co-generation or cross-pollination.

In the business literature today, when people talk about entrepreneurs, and especially serial entrepreneurs, the tendency is not to talk about the person. Rather, we speak of the people around them– the community they surround themselves with– the resources.

The point I’m trying to make is– that’s critical! So that’s one goal.

August 7th, 2010 at 11:52 am

Kevin says:

esoskin @ 8: I don’t know about Swarthmore, but Middlebury’s project on creativity and innovation (which you have linked in your original post), which includes an intensive winter term (J-term) course, also includes a yearly conference centered around 20-30 alums’ return to campus. The alums present to the student in the winter term class and students at-large, and is a huge success. The alums return to campus throughout Jan to present to and engage students on their successes, failures, and lessons learned in the world of entrepreneurship, and the month concludes with a focused conference. The month-long program leads to meaningful relationships, networking, collaborations, and career mentoring that the College’s career office wished it could somehow replicate.

August 7th, 2010 at 12:04 pm

kthomas says:

Part the Second: continuing: experience(s): (Company 1: autoguru)

[irritated voice:] But what did you do, Ken?

In some sense it doesn’t matter, does it? Because with big ideas… Big Hunkin’ Ideas…

Sorry, that was the 2-person PR firm down in LA, which was quite cute. (Another contact would get a copy of our business plan to Ogilvy, who would then keep taking us to $500 lunches on them).

I might stop and ask if those $500 lunches were worth it? Because in some sense that’s one indication of the insanity of the age, there, in that era–

But let me get on topic, though in some sense, how one presents things, was also crucial in all of this.

In technical language that most of you will likely understand, what we wanted to establish was an online reverse-price marketplace for automobile sales.

In the age of Toyota and it’s supply chain management miracles, which mean you can go into Toyota, tell them what you want, plop down cash and get financing– and then Toyota takes your cash and starts building the auto and it is quite miraculously delivered to you 8 days later or so — well none of that existed then– and the idea was, that with all this sitting inventory out there on dealers’ lots, with the inconveniences of negotiation and haggling for price (which everyone hates), with the general inability to find a vehicle that’s exactly what you want (remember– no Toyota, no inventory systems except at individual dealers)–

so the idea here was that you’d go online, put in what kind of vehicle you wanted, what color inside and out, what engine (2.0l or 2.2l?), sunroof or cassette deck (we had heard of CDs– just kidding), and so forth–

and then this request would go out, a big database would find where on lots throughout the country were vehicles like this– and– best of all– the dealers would then bid downwards for your business.

Wonderful idea, right?

August 7th, 2010 at 12:05 pm

kthomas says:

Part the Second: continuing: experience(s): (Company 1: autoguru: language/Deal?)

Now guess what. Explanation is hard. If you pitch 100 or 200 people, you’ll find that– for 10 out of the 100 or 200– you can’t possibly explain what you want to explain.

You can’t say “reverse price market for automobiles,” or explain any of that, because they don’t think that way.

Moreover, — moreover– you don’t have much time. They may be giving you the space of an elevator ride.

It’s critically important to determine what language they speak, and what may be effective in communicating your idea to them, quickly and succinctly.

And heck, you might even learn a thing or two, as you do it.

For the CFO of Intuit, that language was “NASDAQ for automobiles” Nothing more, nothing less– well, other than comparisons with what Intuit does.

Now– to expand this a bit– he knew what the NASDAQ was (first online stock exchange, that is, putting a manual process online and acheiving advantages); and he knew a little bit about automotive; and he knew a lot about finance, and what Intuit’s products had done in financial planning world.

Are you starting to see ‘fit’ here? For besides speaking a common language– that is, we can communicate a good deal of what we’re doing, to you in terms important to you, and we can take the time to hear your out and learn from what you have to say, even if it’s in a language and even jargon that’s pretty alien to us–

one way of looking at it was that we were a strategic fit for Intuit. We were proposing the creation of an entity, closely aligned with what Intuit did. In fact– we were talking about Intuit’s future, which, thus, gave Intuit a lot of good reasons to “get in bed with us,” as the business phrase went.

Why not?

August 7th, 2010 at 12:21 pm

kthomas says:

Part the Second: continuing: experience(s): (Company 1: AG: Deal? Deal? negotiating the deal )

At this point, I should perhaps be a little more explicit.

At this point in my life, I had gone from being a grad student at Berkeley– perhaps the most marginalized economic position in the world, short of living on the streets, which, actually, come to think of it, a good number of grad students have done– to having a significant equity stake in a company, that is talking with the CFO of Intuit about an seven-figure investment.

This took about six or seven months. That was the tech boom– and while it is important to recognize the ‘irrational exuberance’ of that boom, its seemingly insane ability to invest in projects which an outside observer would surely think, had no chance of generating revenue–

it’s equally important to keep in mind, on the one hand, that this is the culture of the Valley, that over the past century or so, there have been numerous booms and crises and busts, in a cyclical pattern–

and that, of course, to get back to a topic above, change can happen, and sometimes simple change, or well-managed change, or innovation, can lead to significant advances, efficiencies, gains– “a better world,” so to speak.

You eliminate internal borders between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. You integrate your train systems; you educational systems, so that over a period of time, it becomes possible for people to transparently live and work in your part of the world, without borders and controls.

Because of this, the cost of train travel goes down by 20%. A student in the Hague, can complete one semesters’ requirements, by traveling to Leuven or Gent.

I’ve suddenly switched to larger issues of education and society and social goods– but isn’t that the point– in the end?

But so– did you get the deal?

August 7th, 2010 at 12:34 pm

esoskin says:

@kthomas: These might make a great series of main-page posts, or at least one really long one — perhaps easier to engage with — and to reference in the future — that way.

August 7th, 2010 at 12:57 pm

kthomas says:

=============================================================

PAUSE IN CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Well, on that note, I did have to get other things done, but this is a good point for a pause.

One of the things I try to emphasize above (sure could use a rewrite) is the CULTURE of entrepreneurship.

For if I complemented Williams, what I’m saying is that Williamstown can be pretty distant from that. Even if Bo can occasionally be found at … have they moved Mezze???

My second point is, of course, that there being all sorts of other things that we can talk about, such as a conference– well, you know, I’m thinking we talk about a lot of things here on EB, but don’t do that many…

the one thing we clearly *could* do, is try to make some of those connections, online.

Think of that as the “turn part of EphBlog into the NASDAQ of Williams Entrepreneurship” proposal, for the Board.

I’ll go back to building the tools you’ll need now…

=============================================================

August 7th, 2010 at 5:22 pm

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