{"id":49830,"date":"2020-09-13T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=49830"},"modified":"2020-09-13T04:06:09","modified_gmt":"2020-09-13T11:06:09","slug":"what-these-seasoned-startup-founders-have-done-since-earning-their-stanford-mbas-episode-382","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/what-these-seasoned-startup-founders-have-done-since-earning-their-stanford-mbas-episode-382\/","title":{"rendered":"What These Seasoned Startup Founders Have Done Since Earning Their Stanford MBAs [Episode 382]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"What<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stanford GSB grads discuss MBA admissions, entrepreneurship and affordable car loans [Show summary]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nicholas Hinrichsen and Chris Coleman, startup co-founders who earned their MBAs at Stanford GSB, return to Admissions Straight Talk<\/a> to share what they\u2019ve accomplished as entrepreneurs since earning their MBAs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Coleman and Nicholas Hinrichsen share how their experiences at GSB helped them grow their startups [Show notes]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So, you want to be an entrepreneur in something using tech. Or maybe you\u2019re interested in tech product management. Should you get an MBA? Is it a waste of time and money that you could better spend learning on your own, founding your own business? Two Stanford GSB grads are here to share their perspective, reflecting seven years of successful entrepreneurial experience since earning their MBAs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicholas Hinrichsen and Chris Coleman, who were previously guests on Admission Straight Talk in Episode 88, both graduated from Stanford GSB<\/a> in 2013. While at GSB, they founded Carlypso, which was acquired by Carvana in 2017. Since then, they\u2019ve founded a new venture, WithClutch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we last spoke, you both had recently graduated from Stanford GSB, and you were running Carlypso, which you had founded as MBA students. What\u2019s happened since then? Can you bring us up to date? [2:09]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Chris:<\/strong> A lot has happened since then. When we talked, I think we were going through Y Combinator. We actually ended up pivoting the business into a new model since that time. Carlypso was this sort of peer-to-peer car sales platform. We ended up pivoting to being a direct wholesale channel where we sold cars, leasing to companies that can\u2019t sell directly to the consumer but have to sell through these wholesale auctions. We became a virtual dealer of sorts. We built software that said, \u201cOkay, what are the cars that we think are good for consumers? How do we figure out how to use performance marketing to our advantage so that we can market the right car to the right consumer?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had a pretty good handle on that. It was a good business. It wasn\u2019t a great business because it required very, very heavy operations, actually moving around 4,000-pound pieces of metal all the time, rather than bits and bytes. The software that we built ended up being more valuable than our end-value prop to consumers. And so we sold the software to Carvana, and ended up joining as executives there. Nick ran the sell-to-Carvana business of buying cars from consumers, and I ran product for the initial part of the consumer experience, from the homepage, search page, and product pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We spent three years there. It was a great three years of seeing the company go from early public company to the company everyone else is aiming to beat. That was a really fun ride, and we got to know some of the executives there very well who were super helpful and had very different skill sets than us. Now we\u2019ve gone off to start a new thing again. Me and Nick have just started WithClutch<\/a>, which is sort of a platform for saving consumers on their automotive expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick:<\/strong> Our first employee at Carlypso ended up applying to business school when we sold. So, business school plays lots of roles in our lives. The person at Carvana who we touched base with to \u201ccompare notes\u201d (when what we really wanted was to sell the company) happened to be one of our classmates from GSB. I had worked on a student-run event with her, and Chris had been on a student trip with her. Thankfully, GSB reappeared in our lives multiple times. I don\u2019t think we would have made it to where we are without our experience at the GSB<\/a>, frankly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silicon Valley tends to disparage the MBA. When we spoke in 2013, you were very happy you did your MBA. Do you still think the time you spent at GSB was time well spent? [5:34]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Nick:<\/strong> There are so many dimensions to it. If you go into it thinking it\u2019s an academic experience, you\u2019ll walk out of it with so much more than what you\u2019ve learned. Both Chris and I, we have a very tight overlapping circle of friends. Most of our friends are GSB students. We\u2019re both in the Bay Area. Chris is in Half Moon Bay. I\u2019m in San Francisco. Most of our friends in the Bay Area are GSB students. The references for the investors who invested in our new company were classmates and GSB students. And in fact, the partner who led the round said, \u201cI\u2019m so surprised that we haven\u2019t met before because we have so many friends in common.\u201d All of them, believe it or not, were GSB students. We can\u2019t get rid of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

< <LISTEN: Is an MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree? [Episode 346] >><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris: <\/strong>The mindset of Silicon Valley scorning MBAs is probably less so now than it was. I think there was a time period where some founders had companies taken over by experienced managers, and I think that\u2019s less true today than it was previously. I feel like there\u2019s not as much of a stigma about the \u201cevil businessperson.\u201d And then I think the benefits of the MBA have been more tangential than purely direct, too. The main benefit of Stanford and GSB was a way to get a lot of smart, ambitious people together. Then suddenly, you form a social group of smart, ambitious people. A lot of things you learn are totally indirect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, I was the one interested in cars, and I think that\u2019s how Nick learned the dimension of that space here. The same can be said of our classmates who were super into enterprise software investing. That\u2019s how we got to learn about that side of the business and get some shared enthusiasm there. I\u2019m not sure I remember anything from classes I took, but I don\u2019t think that was the important part anyway. I think \u201cnetwork\u201d to me is a little bit of a dirty word because \u201cnetwork\u201d implies you go there with the intention of having a professional cohort. Your network is people that you\u2019re friends with. That\u2019s sort of how it was formed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n