It is currently 18 Mar 2024, 18:45 |
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: What you can expect at Diversity Weekend |
Are you still looking to experience what it would be like pursuing your MBA at Kellogg? If so, you might want to consider attending our upcoming Diversity Weekend. Diversity Weekend is an annual preview event for prospective students hosted by the Kellogg Admissions Team, the Africa Business Club, Black Management Association and Hispanic Management Association. This year’s event is scheduled for Nov. 7-9. The weekend will kick off Friday morning with a talk by Dean Sally Blount. Professor Julie Hennessy and Assistant Professor Michele Rogers will each teach a mock class for the prospective students. Attendees will hear from Career Management Center representatives about resources and opportunities available to students, and they will also have the opportunity to ask questions of the Admissions staff. Throughout the weekend, prospective students will be able to meet and interact with current students and alumni. One of the highlights of this year’s event is that it coincides with the student-led Black Management Association (BMA) Conference, “The Balancing Act: The Essential Equilibrium Between Your Career and Personal Pursuits.” The goal of this year’s conference is to hone in on three major points:
If you have any questions about Diversity Weekend, please email Michelle Maxwell in the Office of Admissions. The Kellogg Admissions Team 847.491.3308 | mbaadmissions@kellogg.northwestern.edu Register for Diversity Weekend. Learn more about Kellogg’s Full-Time MBA Program. Request info about Kellogg. Apply to Kellogg. Filed under: Academics, Admissions, Career, Student Life Tagged: Africa Business Club, black management association, BMA, Conference, diversity, Diversity Weekend, Hispanic Management Association |
FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Alumni Spotlight: Songhua Hu ’10 and Richard Lim ’10 |
Songhua Hu ’10, left, and Richard Lim ’10 hope Bloominous can capitalize on the DIY trend while cutting costs for couples getting married. (Photo provided by Richard Lim) While serving as the General Manager for one of the world’s largest floral wire-service companies, Richard Lim ’10 developed close relationships — friendships, even — with his flower distributors. So when one of those distributors found out that Lim was engaged, he offered to supply all of the wedding flowers for free. Lim excitedly shared the news with his fiancée. “But then we said, ‘Wait a minute,’” he recalls. “What are we going to do with all of these flowers? How are we going to arrange them? What type of flower should we use?’” Overwhelmed by the process, Lim turned down the offer, instead hiring a florist for $2,500 to create all of the centerpieces and bouquets for him. Costs aside, that decision served Lim well: It inspired him to co-found a company that supplies the tools and materials to create do-it-yourself floral arrangements for weddings or other events. A BLOOMING BUSINESS Earlier this year, Lim partnered up with Dallas-based entrepreneur Songhua Hu ’10 to launch Bloominous in Lim’s hometown of Los Angeles. The company aims to capitalize on the “DIY” trend while loosely emulating the IKEA business model. Brides and grooms visit the Bloominous website to choose from an assortment of design collections (with varying themes such as Vintage Cottage, Bohemian Desert and Country Charm) and indicate the number of centerpieces, bouquets, boutonnèires and corsages they need for the big day. A few days before the wedding, Bloominous preps, packages and airmails the flowers direct to the customer, along with step-by-step instructions, pins, ribbons, vases and other supplies to assemble each piece in 15 minutes or less. The entire order costs about half of what a floral shop might charge. Backed by angel investors, Bloominous is now regularly securing orders in the $500 to $800 range and posting “double-digit growth,” says Lim, though he doesn’t disclose actual figures. Since early July, the company has appeared in more than 150 blogs and the number of unique visitors to the website tripled between June and July. “Every indication is telling us that we are on the right track,” he says. “Our customers have emailed us to say, ‘This is such a great concept. I was looking for something like this and I found you guys’ or ‘Where was this when I was getting married – At least I get to use you for my baby shower’. It’s very encouraging to see our customers be our biggest advocate.” PARTNERS IN TIME A key factor behind Bloominous’ success is the complementary strengths of its founders. Lim used his industry knowledge and relationships with distributors in California and South America to build and manage Bloominous’ operations. Hu, a self-described “scrappy entrepreneur,” used his problem-solving skills and experience working at Google and McKinsey to address Bloominous’ technology and marketing needs. “From an execution standpoint, there are certain things that I can do and certain things that Songhua can do,” says Lim, who added that the pair works together remotely because Hu is based in Dallas. “We divide up the roles so that we’re responsible for each part of the business.” “Every indication is telling us that we are on the right track.”- Richard Lim ’10 Lim and Hu met while they were still students at Kellogg, where they developed “a sense of wanting to be an entrepreneur,” says Hu. After graduation, both took full-time jobs but met several times a week to brainstorm ideas for startups. Over time, their list of ideas grew to 50. To pinpoint a winning idea, Lim remembered some advice he received from a Kellogg alumnus. “He said that you need two of three things to be successful in an entrepreneurial endeavor: You need passion. You need insider knowledge of an industry. And you need the right timing.” Bloominous hit all three points. VENTURING FURTHER But another idea showed promise, one inspired by an ‘aha’ moment that Hu experienced while trying to find renters for his Chicago condo in 2012. Hu realized that most landlords use credit reports to screen prospective tenants. But his work as a senior associate for Enova Financial taught him better. “A credit report tells you about someone’s past, but it doesn’t say anything about that person’s ability to pay a loan,” Hu explains. “You have to screen for employment and income.” So in January 2013, Hu and Lim co-founded Tenantify, a website that verifies prospective renters’ employment and income on behalf of landlords. Hu took the lead on this project, teaching himself coding and using his knowledge of income-screening practices to build the online platform. While Hu cautions that the company is still “ramen noodle profitable” — just making enough to cover costs, living expenses and cheap noodles — its revenue has increased by 75 percent between June and July. Currently, Tenantify relies on word-of-mouth and SEO marketing to recruit new customers, but Lim is exploring partnerships with management companies and larger groups to scale the business. Slow and steady growth is part of Hu’s vision for Tenantify, which is also why he and Lim bootstrapped the business themselves. “I’m leaning toward not funding at all and growing organically so we can reap the benefit in the end,” Hu explains. BALANCING ACT Like Bloominous, Tenantify leverages its founders’ industry knowledge to solve the right problem at the right time, a solid formula for entrepreneurial success. And both startups partner two leaders with disparate, but equally strong, skillsets. “Songhua and I come from different philosophies in terms of how to approach certain problems — but that’s what’s needed,” Lim says. “I can’t imagine doing this without him.” Read the original story on the Kellogg website. Learn more about Bloominous. Filed under: Academics, Career Tagged: Alumni Spotlight, entrepreneurship |
FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Decision making and the devil’s advocate |
First-year student Rohan Rajiv is blogging once a week about important lessons he is learning at Kellogg. Read more of his posts here. In our pre-term class on Leadership in Organizations, we spent a few hours on personal and organizational decision making. A recommended tactic was to assign a team member to play “devil’s advocate” on all important decisions. This move is designed to eliminate confirmation bias and “yes-and-yes” decisions. So, what are “yes-and-yes” decisions? An analysis of teenager decision making, as published in Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath, showed:
In an analysis of 168 decisions made by companies across industries, researcher Paul Nutt found that only 29% of the decisions made by companies had options, meaning companies were worse than teenagers in making decisions. In fact, large acquisition decisions can often be a result of a “yes and yes” decision. The CEO decided a company was worth acquiring and everyone else worked hard to prove him right. A famous example is Quaker’s failed acquisition of Snapple for $1.7 Billion. Ex-Quaker CEO William Smithburg later admitted that the acquisition had no one within the company challenging it. Think about that – the largest acquisition in the company’s history had no one challenging it. So, if you have team members and friends who frequently play devil’s advocate, encourage them. And, I hope you will consider assigning a person or group of people to play devil’s advocate on all important decisions. Rohan Rajiv is a first-year student in Kellogg’s Full-Time Two-Year Program. Prior to Kellogg he worked at a-connect serving clients on consulting projects across 14 countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. He blogs a learning every day, including his MBA Learnings series, on www.ALearningaDay.com. You can also find more infographics like the one in this post on Learnographics, where Rajiv and a colleague use visual graphics to teach lessons and spread ideas. Filed under: Academics, Student Life Tagged: 2Y, infographic, MBA Learnings, Two-Year |
|
||