The art of bootstrapping

Excerpt: “Bootstrapping’ is one of the many buzzwords that flit around the startup scene. This is particularly true in times when investors in new ventures are thin on the ground and what funding there is is only being directed at businesses seen as safe bets to go public or be acquired for gazillions at the exit stage. For those entrepreneurs struggling to acquire venture capital, bootstrapping is the art of putting minimal resources to work and growing your business incrementally from the ground up. But how is it done?

To read the full article click here.

1. Quantifies your knowledge base.

It doesn’t always matter where you learned something, but having a degree is an easy way to prove your knowledgeability on a subject. Prospective employers can see exactly what classes you took and what subjects were covered.

2. Prepares you to think like a business person.

Not everybody is ready for the cutthroat world of business. Obtaining a master’s in business, however, exposes you to the business environment at a more gradual pace. You will be working with teachers and staff whose sole job is to prepare you for what comes next. This will give you time to adjust to the fast-paced world and enter it fully ready.

3. Exposes you to networking opportunities.

Business schools typically maintain large alumni networks, full of graduates who know and respect the program and are happy to give informational interviews or consider current students for internships or jobs.  Student peers, too, can prove useful contacts years after graduation. By attending a master’s program, you will be exposed to all of these contacts which can drastically help you get a job post-graduation.

4. Exposes you to business terminology.

The more you know what someone is talking about, the better you’ll understand and be understood.  Business jargon can be quite specific, so it’s helpful to know what the terms relate to (especially the acronyms that give no clues as to what they might mean). Business schools will keep you informed on the most up-to-date jargon.

5. Develops written communication skills.

Classes at business schools usually require long papers dealing with the topics and issues of the class—these provide practice for explaining a point in writing, as well as developing and proving your skills at comprehensive analysis.

6. Helps better solve business problems.

By exposing students to an array of aspects of business, an MBA can prove far-reaching when information outside of one’s own specialty is needed.  Particularly now that business school classes are more diverse than ever, a broad base can help problem-solving skills and thinking outside of the box.

7. Teaches standards of business.

Business practices are often fairly standardized—clients, coworkers, and often the law expect certain protocols to be followed, protocols that are typically taught and analyzed at business school.  This can also expose you to useful technology and skill sets, and you won’t have to reinvent the wheel each time you do something new.

8. Provides skills relevant to any workplace.

You’ll notice that quite a few of the skills on this list would be helpful in any work setting—no matter what kind of business you’re involved in and often regardless of whether it’s “business” you’re involved in at all. Therefore, obtaining an MBA cannot hurt you. If, for whatever reason, you choose not to pursue a career in business, the skills you learned in business schools will be impressive to many employers and will help you in any job environment.

9. Many jobs require an MBA.

Today’s job market is competitive and more and more positions now require a master’s degree. When deciding whether you need to get an MBA, make sure to explore all potential career options. You may find that you don’t have a choice at all and an MBA is required for many of the positions you are interested in.

10. You want to start your own business.

For those interested in starting their own businesses, an MBA is an excellent stepping stone. Not only will this give reassurance to future employees and clients, but most MBA programs will give you excellent ideas and contacts for starting a business from scratch.

Sarah Stegner is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog. She also writes on online college courses for Guide to Online Schools.

Valuations are particularly difficult for start-ups as forecasts and cashflows are difficult to predict. In addition the investments can potentiallly dilute the founder’s shares and share values. In order to avoid a share dilution it is important to consider a protection against dilution. Anti-Dilution clauses are useful however knowing how each investment will impact your equity is even more important. Check out this Anti-Dilution calculator as proposed by the incubator “hackfwd“ here. This calculator does all the maths for you.

Now be smart about getting the right investor!!!

Employers are most likely to be favorably disposed towards graduates who have completed an internship because they are perceived as being more committed to their cause. Of course, you need to have luck on your side as well if you want to intern at a reputable and well-known organization. But what happens if you work at an internship in finance only to apply for a job in marketing after you graduate? Does your indecision show that you’re flighty or does your foresight show prudence in trying out the options available before you settle for the one you’re most suited for?

It’s hard to second-guess employers in this regard; some of them may applaud your forward thinking while others may be hesitant to offer you employment because they fear you may be using the job as another testing ground. But in general, internships make a solid foundation for an MBA’s student quest to land a good job. When they apply for and secure a position at a company that has a reputation for churning out effective interns, their value rises in the job market, more so if they’re able to garner accolades from their temporary employer.

Most students seek employment with the companies they’ve interned in if they’re satisfied with the workplace, the nature of the job and the salary offered. Only a few prefer to move on to a different organization of their own accord; the rest of course are unable to make the grade as full-time employees.

An MBA graduate’s greatest assets are the fact that he/she is able to think analytically, make the right decision using the information at hand, and most important of all, learning from experience as time goes by. With an internship, students gain experience, something that is invaluable in the business world. So no matter if you’re undecided about your chosen field of work in the business world, no matter if you have no intention of staying on with the company you’re interning with for the long term, and no matter if you think it’s a waste of time that could be spent doing something more worthwhile, it pays to complete an internship program before you graduate from B school.

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This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degree . She welcomes your comments at her email id: anna.miller009@gmail.com

We at Accreditedonlinecolleges.com recently came across your blog and were excited to share with you an article “100 Search Engines Every Business Student Should Bookmark” was recently published on our blog  (here) and we hoped that you would be interested in featuring or mentioning it in one of your posts. Please let us know if you have any concern.

Thanks for your time,

Emma Taylor

When students pick undergraduate schools, they often look at rankings to determine which school has the best faculty-to-student ratio, the nicest dorms, the most state-of-the-art libraries and recreational centers, and the prettiest campuses. And while these rankings are important, valuable tools for comparing schools, MBA rankings are even more closely examined. Business publications like the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, FT.com, and BusinessWeek release regular MBA rankings, and they all differ. Some of these publications even create different lists based on different qualifications like American schools vs. international programs; readers’ choice; school size; and more. So how are prospective MBA students supposed to interpret these lists? Below is an outline to help you understand what MBA rankings are based on and what they mean.
Each publication or institution that releases a list of MBA rankings uses different qualifications to determine their top picks. Before scanning lists, review the methodology used, so that you have a better idea of what the rankings mean. The Economist, for instance, explains their methodology here as being based on the MBA market at the time the list was prepared. They asked schools with full-time MBA programs only from around the world to participate in a survey, and then selected the top 100 from their choices. So, if you want to attend a school that only offers part-time MBA programs and do not see its name on an MBA rankings list, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the program is considered poor: it just wasn’t qualified for that particular list.

In most MBA rankings, many aspects of the program and school are considered, including student-to-faculty ratio, program size, financial aid and value, career services, student assessment, recruiters, number of student who found jobs soon after graduating, size and influence of alumni network, number of offered programs, average GMAT score, student diversity, campus services and facilities, and others. Publications like BusinessWeek develop different lists to help students narrow down their search and find more focused information on the schools they’re applying to. Two of these more specific lists include “ROI: Business Schools with Bang for the Buck” and “European B-Schools.”

Top-rated MBA programs and schools will have received favorable scores in most if not all of the qualifications listed above. There may be very slight differences in scores in schools, so don’t cross off a program just because it isn’t ranked in the top 10 or 20 on a single list. Compare lists, and make sure you always read the methodology and individual school report before making a decision to apply to that program or not. Campus visits, interviews with students and faculty, financial aid, and the appropriate program offerings are also very significant factors when choosing an MBA program.
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This guest post was contributed by Alvina Lopez, who writes on the topics of accredited colleges online. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez@gmail.com.

I wanted to also let you know that some of the graduation party photos are online now on the ESADE Alumni website. Check out the photos of the pre-graduation party here and the graduation party here.

This is the agenda for tomorrow in case you have missed the emails and notices.

Graduation Day on Friday 26th March .

Please find below the order of the day:

Location: Garden of ESADE BUSINESS SCHOOL, floor A next to Career Services.
Av. d’Esplugues 92-96

Agenda

11.00-11.30 Reception
11.30-12.00 Welcome Speech
12.00-13.30 Brunch

You are also invited to a Mass given by José Gette on the same day. It will be held in room A012 at 10.00.

Casa Llotja
18:45: FT MBA Class 2010 Graduation Ceremony.

Ceremony Location: Casa Llotja, Passeig d’Isabel II, núm.1- the main entrance is located on Pla de Palau, not Passeig d’Isabel II.

Enjoy and make sure that you charge your camera battery ;)

Then I  noticed that there is an increased link between MBASA, the student body and the program mangement. MBASA is now entitled to join and participate in the monthly program management meetings and therefore is now able to contribute the student’s views and feedback and direct them directly to the program directors and the Dean. This is a great move forward from the past and it is good step forward for a closer collaboration.

Today I get an email from MBASA informing students that they would like to change the constitution with more modern and flexible statutes in order to allow for implementing changes more rapidly. This is very proactive and I am glad to see that the change process starts at the core. In addition they sent out a survey asking for the students’ opinion on the proposed changes and this leads me to my next point.

MBASA revamped its website. The survey was conducted on their website, which I didn’t know was relaunched recently. Great way of promoting the new website that hopefully will become the center of information. What I like is that there you can also find there the archived newsletters that I mentioned earlier. The clubs are also now being migrated to the same MBASA address so the online representation of the clubs becomes more uniform.

In addition on the right you will find a calendar for all the MBASA and student related events. This is a long awaited move and I am glad to see that it is finally online. Now we just need the calendar link so that we can import it into our calendars and that it becomes automatically updated on our computers as well.

The next thing that I suggest you start a little online shop for MBASA and ESADE merchandise so that we can buy the products all year around. I truly like the ESADE merchandise and I hope that we get to see more ESADE t-shirts, hoodies, caps, etc. on campus. You might want to use the Abacus technology of the current ESADE shop website.

Good job MBASA and keep it up. I like what I am seeing!!!!

Congratulations Brasilata and keep making headlines like this. The following is an excerpt (full article here):

Excerpt from Switch: Inventing an identity

Brasilata — a $170 million Brazilian producer of steel cans—actually invented the identity that became the engine of its success. Can manufacturing is a relatively mature industry—not much growth or excitement. But Brasilata defies the boring, stuck-in-its-ways stereotype. In fact, it has one of the best reputations for innovation of any company in Latin America.

How does a metal can company become known as an innovator? Brasilata’s founders were inspired by the philosophy of Japanese car manufacturers like Honda and Toyota, which empowered their frontline employees to take ownership of their work. In 1987, the founders launched their own employee-innovation program.

A new identity was its core. Employees became known as “inventors,” and new hires were asked to sign an “innovation contract.” This wasn’t just feel-good language. Employees were challenged to be on the lookout for ideas on how to create better products, improve production processes, and cut costs. Systems were developed that made it easy to submit ideas. The program succeeded beyond reasonable expectations. In 2008, a total of 134,846 ideas were submitted—an average of 145.2 ideas per inventor!

These suggestions often led to new products. In late 2008, for instance, the company came up with a new approach for a steel can designed to carry flammable or otherwise dangerous liquids. To meet UN standards, such cans must withstand a drop from about four feet. Most companies had solved this problem by thickening the metal layers, which used up more raw material. And even the reinforced cans were prone to split if they landed on an edge. Brasilata’s inventors suggested a new design, inspired by car bumpers that collapse on impact. The new cans deformed slightly on impact, reducing stress on the critical seam. They resisted falls better while also reducing the amount of steel in the can.

Inventors have also led the company through emergencies. In 2001, a severe energy crisis forced Brazil’s government to give businesses a strict quota of electricity. In response, Brasilata’s employees dreamed up hundreds of power-saving ideas. Within a few weeks, Brasilata’s energy consumption had fallen by 35 percent, reducing it below quota, so the company could resell the extra energy.

Let’s remember something: this inventor identity, which has fueled the company’s business success and employee satisfaction, was made up. None of Brasilata’s employees was born an inventor. This identity was introduced to them, and they decided it was a mantle worth wearing—a source of pride and strength.

Most successful companies have a distinctive identity in our minds. I can picture the identity of a Wal-Mart or a Southwest or an IBM employee. I have a harder time picturing the identities of some of their competitors. Intel recently has been running a national ad campaign that features its own employees. It’s called “Our rock stars aren’t like your rock stars.” Ajay Bhatt, one of the coinventors of USB, is shown walking into a company canteen and being surrounded by adoring employees. The point is that what they value at Intel may be different from what’s valued in the outside world, but if you’re the next Ajay Bhatt, you want to work for Intel, where your talents will be respected. Another great example of a company that motivates employees by giving them a sense of identity is Brasilata.