Thanks for starting this thread
souvik101990!
Quick background - Undergrad in engineering + Postgrad in marketing and communications; 6 years of work exp.(in marketing research, advertising, and tech product marketing) going into business school.
My primary motivation is to use the MBA and the 3-5 years post-MBA experience to launch my startup. For me, entrepreneurship seems to be an excellent way to find my
ikigai and bring together my passion for problem-solving and being enterprising, and tech and business skills to help society (and make money in the process
).
Particularly, with a history of playing multiple sports at competitive levels and currently part-timing as a Crossfit trainer, I consider sports as a massive influence on my life and values. And so, I’m interested in using tech to scale this passion and provide accessible sports and fitness training to people, with a focus on underprivileged kids.
So for my post-MBA job(s), I’m considering two paths. Path A is to work as a tech product manager (I’ll be primarily targeting FAANG/big tech companies but also look for specific PM opportunities in Nike and sports tech startups such as Hudl, Aaptiv, etc.). Path B is consulting, wherein I will try to either directly recruit into the digital/sports consulting practice of a top-tier firm or try to make my way internally (full disclosure: I don’t like the consulting lifestyle).
Besides this, in the next 10-15 years, I want to build a good enough corpus to not be worried about money for later, climb one 8000m peak, finish one Iron Man, own a Crossfit gym as a side hustle, travel, and write fiction. All this will be quite an exciting challenge, given my entrepreneurial ambitions!
Happy to hear thoughts and suggestions - what am I missing? What else should I be considering?
I like the plan but here are my 2 cents. Breaking into digital practices is doable but top consulting companies dont really have a sports consulting practices. These are usually tiered with practices that have "leisure" baked into them. Its good that you are thinking about startups for PM role but do note a) you dont have a PM background (I might have missed it) or a Comp Sc. background in UG (again, assuming your engineering degree wasnt in Comp Sc. or related) b) Startups or smaller companies wont be open to sponsoring intnl candidates for internships as they want to bring someone on for internships those who can stay with them FT as well post graduation.
If digital/sports is the intersection you want to expose yourself to, I would say also look at gaming companies like EA Sports/Zynga/Ubosoft/Bethesda etc.
Finally, one more thing that people need to keep in mind is the fact that 'usually', tech recruiting happens after consulting for internships and FT at top b-schools and hence consulting should then be your Plan A and not B.
DM me and we can discuss more. Good luck and keep us posted on how it goes.