Justin Jensen, MBA ’10

A Day in the Life of MIT

Yesterday, I participated in A Day in the Life, a campus wide photography project.

"On September 24, 2009, hundreds of people from the MIT community documented a single day in photographs. ADITL.mit.edu is a collective photo blog of sorts, and is the repository for these photographs."

You can browse my photos from A Day in the Life here or by clicking the photo above.

Entrepreneurship@MIT

The entrepreneurial opportunity played an important role in my decision to attend MIT Sloan, so I thought I would share my experiences thus far. The entrepreneurial wisdom and aspiration of MIT are off the charts.

The experienced visiting entrepreneurs and faculty are eager to share their observations, and the MIT and MIT Sloan students are excited to take on new endeavors. Those of us who opted to enroll in the Entrepreneurship & Innovation (E&I) track are taking a class on technological entrepreneurship. This course is designed to provide a 360° view of the MIT entrepreneurial ecosystem, which it does in part by bringing in successful entrepreneurs and VCs to give weekly seminars.

Through E&I and other club events, I have been able to hear some amazing speakers, including Aaron Patzer (founder of Mint.com, which was acquired last week by Inuit), Carl Stjernfeldt (General Partner at Castile Ventures), and Desh Deshpande. Desh is an immensely successful serial entrepreneur. He is the founder of Cascade Communications (acquired in 1997 for $3.7B), and he is the Chairman of A123Systems, the leading lithium ion battery company (who’s IPO is Thursday). Desh was incredibly humble and called his own career a series of accidents. Sure, Desh. Horrible, horrible accidents!

Desh shared some insightful observations, many of which were shared with other speakers. He said that, in entrepreneurship, everything boils down to knowing what is possible. What is possible? It starts with an innovative, scalable idea. Interestingly, he said that innovation is often a result of naivety. Regardless of the idea, entrepreneurship is about making things happen, and having the gut feeling to jump without knowing. Once you jump, the best way to succeed is to work with good people, and it is critical to be able to find and recognize people with potential. Startups often get stuck because the entrepreneur is passionate about one area; this limitation can be avoided by building a well-balanced team. Finally, he advised that success is less about making good decisions than about admitting bad ones and cutting losses quickly.

Some (including Ed Roberts – Founder of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center) say to get experience in an early-stage, high-growth company before undertaking your own venture, and some (including Hagos Mehreteab - Sloan MBA ’06 and founder of yOOnew.com) say to just go for it now. Really, you know when the time is right. If you have the idea, the team, and you are ready to go all out; then the time is now. On the VC side, Stjernfeldt and others said that, while VC is excellent experience, joining a VC firm after business school is not generally a good path to a partner position. Odds are much better for successful entrepreneurs that join the firm later on.

MIT is an exciting place to gain some perspective on entrepreneurship and a likely place to catch the entrepreneurial virus.

Getting Situated

I’ve been in Cambridge for three weeks now, but, while the Sloan MBA experience is in full swing, classes still haven’t begun!

It began with a rafting trip to Maine. ~80 members of the class of ’11 set off on a weekend trip. The trip was a blast, and it provided a great opportunity to get to know some of our new classmates.

Then we began an optional ‘pre-term’ week the next morning after returning. People benefited different amounts from the material depending on their past experience, but, again, we were able to continue meeting our classmates. And, without fail, students and significant others gather each night at various bars and restaurants. We even find time for some athletics. The Sloan basketball group is looking pretty good :)

Orientation took place this week and provided the first congregation of our class in its entirety. Our orientation began at the Marriott ballroom, where several members of the MIT community, including Susan Hockfield, MIT President, and David Schmittlein, MIT Sloan Dean, welcomed us. We then learned our (much anticipated) ~60 person cohorts (oceans in Sloan speak) and 6-7 person core teams. Our first semester “core” courses are set. We share the same schedule with our entire ocean, and will undertake each group project with our core team. I happened to draw the perfect combination of the Pacific Ocean and the Pelican Team! ;)

The rest of orientation week included some great interactive discussions with various members of Sloan. One of my favorites was with Sloan Professor Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and co-founder of http://baselinescenario.com. We also spent a day off campus to undertake some team building activities with our newly formed core teams. It was a great time and began to prove my initial inclination of the Pacific Pelicans’ excellence!

 

Image courtesy of Flickr user John's Images

The real work begins next week with the onset of classes, but I look forward to getting started with courses and all of the other activities that will coincide. “Drinking from the firehose of MIT” has already begun, but its about to come at full force.