"We expected and encouraged teams to take advantage of existing APIs and services they’ve written to create a great mobile app. "
That line upsets me. They absolutely did not encourage teams to take advantage of existing services that they have previously written and pointing to one random post on the developer forum as evidence of this is terrible. My team and I read the official rules together several times before deciding that we could not in good faith incorporate our existing product (including using our own API to integrate features) into the mobile app we built for the hackathon. The line "built from scratch" in the rules seemed clear to us but apparently we were mistaken.
Wow, that's messed up. My team and I could have tacked on Salesforce to our existing product (like several of the top teams), but we read over the rules several times and made the conscious decision to build everything from scratch so that our entry would count.
They don't read books at HBS. Instead students go through about 600 cases over the course of two years. The cases are interesting but the bulk of the learning comes from how the professors dissect the case and facilitate the classroom in debating the various positions. Of course you could order all the cases from HBS but that's pretty pricey and you won't get the teaching notes.
Actually that's a fair statement as living expenses are equal to tuition in places like Boston. Add to that the opportunity costs of two years of deferred salary (on average close to or above six figures) and you're talking about a $400k commitment.
Will lots of people pay you lots of money for it? If not, will lots of people pay you a little money for it? If not, will a few people pay you a lot of money for it?
Any of the above would lead you to then ask yourself whether you or your team have the right skills/experiences/capital to pull it off and then you need to understand if the cost of acquiring customers leaves you room for profitability (basic CAC vs. LTV).
I'd recommend and go talk with a bunch of your prospective customers to get feedback on the idea. Look for trends in what they are saying to understand if there is a compelling need or not.
The author lost me at "much of the actual content of the program focus on corporate skills and how to network to get a job." He has obviously never been near a real MBA program. After having gone through core curriculum classes in Accounting, Marketing, Finance, Entrepreneurship (yes it's part of the core!), Leadership, Ethics, Operations, etc., this year I'm taking classes such as Entrepreneurial Finance, Financial Management of Small Firms, Founders Dilemmas, Launching Technology Ventures, Strategic Marketing in Creative Industries, Competing with Social Networks, etc. along with getting school credit for working on my startup.
I chose to go back for an MBA after 8+ years of a wonderful career because I knew there were significant holes in my knowledge that I wanted to address while simultaneously using it as a platform from which I could start a company. Yes, the alumni connections are wonderful and the school name does carry some weight in certain circles, but more than anything I love learning from faculty who are some of the great entrepreneurial thought leaders of our time and passionate students who genuinely want to create businesses with lasting value.
Of course it's crazy expensive and it's not a choice you make lightly but for me personally, it was the best possible way to become an entrepreneur. (The school actually gave us some funding/grants, allowed us to incubate on site, etc. Super supportive.)
Oh and I am considering applying to Y-Combinator/TechStars when I graduate because while I'll have a solid business foundation, there is still tons I need to learn about entrepreneurship.
So is your value add that you are actively steering traffic to the test sites (Google Consumer Surveys, Amazon Mechanical Turk, etc.) or simply creating basic landing pages and relying on the customer to generate his/her own traffic?
VCs are needed as an asset class because there is a market opportunity to service a small segment of the population that are trying to create high risk, capital light, and high growth potential businesses that do not fit the risk/collateral/historical cash flow characteristics that banks need to believe that you can service their debt. VC money is EXTREMELY expensive and can be thought about as similar to credit card debt and payday lending. Sure, VCs have value added services like contacts and expertise that help portfolio companies potentially have a higher chance of success, but their primary motivation to help you is to return money to their limited partners (and themselves through management fees and carried interest). I'm an entrepreneur and know many amazing VCs who hopefully will someday fund my business but I'm realistic in acknowledging the nature of the relationship.
That line upsets me. They absolutely did not encourage teams to take advantage of existing services that they have previously written and pointing to one random post on the developer forum as evidence of this is terrible. My team and I read the official rules together several times before deciding that we could not in good faith incorporate our existing product (including using our own API to integrate features) into the mobile app we built for the hackathon. The line "built from scratch" in the rules seemed clear to us but apparently we were mistaken.