From Business Classroom to Startup

By Tricia Bisoux

Read the full article on AACSN International

What does it take to become a successful entrepreneur and a passionate changemaker? Of course, achieving either of these goals most often starts with a great idea. But if any new venture is to survive and grow over the long term, its founders also will need a solid foundation in business planning and strategic management.

How can business education help entrepreneurs see their ideas through from the planning stage to launch and beyond? We asked several graduates of Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management in Ithaca, New York, to share what it was like to build their own businesses while pursuing their MBAs. They also offer their best advice to help other entrepreneurs-in-the-making improve their chances of success. 

Preparing for Entrepreneurship

During their one-year MBA program, Mike Kosnik and Samson Schirmer co-founded Enroute, a platform that helps improve patient care by enabling optimal intrahospital patient transportation. This aspect of healthcare has become especially important during the pandemic, when hospitals have been operating at or above capacity. 

Both entrepreneurs sought out graduate business education that suited their interest in technology, and they deliberately sought out a program with a heavy focus on entrepreneurship. In that environment, “everyone is constantly sharing ideas, looking for co-founders, and participating in events to help spur innovative thinking,” says Kosnik.

The pair came up with the idea for Enroute while taking part in a business competition in Israel. For the competition, a hospital asked student teams to come up with ways to innovate healthcare. “The product idea we ended up pitching really resonated with the hospital,” says Kosnik. “We won the competition and a subsequent startup event in New York City that spring.” 

Building a business from the ground up is never easy, says Schirmer. But he says his MBA education helped him develop the tools and mental frameworks necessary to operate in complex and challenging situations. It also exposed Schirmer and Kosnik to case studies that allowed them to learn from others’ past successes and failures as they built their own enterprise.

“When you know you’ve had all the training necessary to prepare you for these real-world scenarios, it definitely makes it easier,” says Schirmer. “You have the confidence to make a decision, be okay with it being wrong, and still find a way to work through it in the end.” 

Appreciating the Benefits of Failure

Perhaps the biggest lesson that business programs offer to entrepreneurs is not just that it’s OK to fail, say Kosnik and Schirmer. Entrepreneurs also must learn that it’s necessary to fail if they want to succeed. “Setbacks and challenges are not easy for anyone, but they are especially difficult when they’re occurring almost daily on something that you’re dedicating yourself to fully,” says Schirmer. “Over time, we’ve learned to embrace them and have them motivate us to drive forward. It’s important to prepare for this and to be excited for the challenges ahead, instead of living in fear of them.”

Mitchell and Koweda add that students should view business school as “a safe space to take risks” and a place where “any idea can be tested out.” It also helps that every classmate is a potential co-founder, while professors and alumni are there to provide mentorship and support, Mitchell adds. “We started sharing ideas the first week of school, discussing them with our professors and classmates. What became Tangle was one of the first ideas we had during the summer of 2019.”

Putting together the right team is also crucial, say Mitchell and Koweda. They turned to expert advisors with knowledge in healthcare technology, operations, and software engineering. “Any investor would say the No. 1 reason startups fail is related to a team issue,” Koweda says. “It's crucial to have a tight team that shares the same vision and has a willingness to sacrifice and push each other,” but also enjoy the journey.

The message they’d like to leave for aspiring founders is that entrepreneurship is simultaneously challenging and rewarding. “It’s a great way to apply all the lessons learned in the business school classroom. It’s a perfect continuation to business education,” says Mitchell. Launching a startup “takes a village,” he adds. “We're almost custodians of the idea that is Tangle, rather than owners in the strictest sense.”