Visit here to share your definition.
Professional Profile
Category Archives: Entrepreneurship
What Companies Have Babson Students Started
Excellent discussion on Quora on this question. Take a look.
Posted in Babson, Entrepreneurship
Tagged Babson, Companies, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship
Babson MBA Entrepreneurs: Shane Eten, Feed Resource Recovery
As part of today’s operations class, we studied the operational model and challenges faced by Feed Resource Recovery, a business founded by Babson MBA Shane Eten. Shane was kind enough to take the time to come to our class and shared his work in setting up Feed Resources, dealing with competition, winning clients and the numerous challenges he faced in staying with the business.
After the class, I walked up to Shane and spoke to him about his business and his process. The message I took away was that entrepreneurship is about lasting it out. It comes down to staying with the business through thick and thin. Shane also told me that listening to customers was critical to knowing what product to build and we spent a few minutes speaking about how to “listen” to customer voices.
I don’t think I’m articulating this very well, but there was something special about meeting Shane today. The way he carried himself, his humility despite his success and the simple way in which he described the huge challenges he faced and overcame give me hope about my own dreams.
Posted in Babson, Entrepreneurship, Personal
Tagged Babson, Entrepreneurs, Feed Resources, Inspiration, Shane Eten
US News ranks Babson #1 for Entrepreneurship
Eighteen years in a row! Proud of this. Link to US News Ranking.
UPDATE:
A tram trip in San Francisco
I was in San Francisco on a personal visit for spring break this week. I met Eric Bahn, the founder of Beat the GMAT and we had a blast hanging out! I also attended the Cleantech Forum where I met Babson Provost Shahid Ansari at the venue of the event. We (Prof. Ansari and I) started talking about entrepreneurship and the announcement of Babson’s #1 ranking in the latest US News publication. I asked Prof. Ansari what Babson’s consistent #1 rankings for entrepreneurship meant (coincidentally on the same day that I put up this post) and his take on the Babson philosophy that resonates in the academics and experiential learning here.
The hour that I spent with Prof. Ansari and his wife (Prof. Jan Bell, also a Professor at Babson) was time spent very well.
Through our discussion, I realized that Babson is not just “for entrepreneurs”. We spoke about the fact that Babson is a school that aims to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset amongst students and professionals and it is this mindset that Babson students carry into their later lives and careers. This mindset is applicable, whether you go to work for a startup, a family business or in corporate life. The combination of the hard technical skills, an entrepreneurial attitude, opportunity seeking and validation and willingness to DO is the cornerstone of Babson’s excellence in training future business leaders.
I buy into this philosophy. The Babson Way.
Sure, some may say I have drunk the Babson Kool-Aid, but what Prof. Ansari said to me resonated a lot with what my thought process had been what I wrote Pt. 1 in this post last year.
There are two significant people who contributed in shaping my decision to come to Babson and whom I thought about when writing that post.
Sales Principles Applied to Cold Emailing
I like to read (mainly skim through) books along with my main course readings (which are aplenty!), usually by keeping aside 15-20 mins a day to do so. Call me old-fashioned, but even in this digital day and age of Kindles and Nooks, I still find it very appealing to actually own a book or borrow one from the Babson library to read.
I have been reading the book “Smart Calling” by Art Sobczak over the past few weeks. This book is a great resource to prepare oneself for cold calling and smart prospecting and has exercises to put yourself in the shoes of your target client and understand their state of mind. The lessons I learnt from this book came in handy today when I was in the process of writing an email to a very senior member of a global logistics company with whom I wanted to initiate a dialogue.
