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MBA for Entrepreneurship/Social Impact: Cambridge vs LBS

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natyomatcha
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MBA for Entrepreneurship/Social Impact: Cambridge vs LBS [#permalink] New post   29 Mar 2024, 04:07
­Hi everyone! I’m sure there are similar LBS vs Cambridge vs Oxford posts here, but I haven’t found any related to entrepreneurship. I’m very grateful to be able to choose between LBS, Cambridge, and Oxford for my MBA. My head and heart are torn between Cambridge and LBS. Which school would you consider better for entrepreneurial opportunities, start-up recruitment, and social impact?I have a varied professional background (family business, entrepreneurship, and a small stint in e-commerce consulting—all in the Middle East). I have no desire to return to corporate life, and my post-MBA goals are to start a business, work at a startup, or work in social impact. My goal is to work in the UK for two years after graduation and then move back to Saudi Arabia.

Cambridge has the Cambridge Cluster, which means I could potentially work with start-ups there. I loved that Judge students can sit in on other faculty’s classes and really diversify their learning. The way the housing/college system is set up (mixing students from different faculties) seems to create an innovative/supportive community, which is really attractive to me.

LBS has a two-year program, a larger network (esp in the Middle East), and the courses offered are much more varied and seem really interesting and challenging. I know I could learn and grow so much there, but I don’t necessarily sense an entrepreneurial culture. Although LBS has the Entrepreneurship Summer School and similar initiatives, it still feels very catered to corporate recruitment. This is just my opinion from visiting the school and talking to alumni. I could be wrong, so please shed some light if you’re an LBS student or alum.

I’d appreciate any advice based on my goals, especially if you’ve been to either of these schools. Thanks!
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Re: MBA for Entrepreneurship/Social Impact: Cambridge vs LBS [#permalink] New post   29 Mar 2024, 12:06
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Hey natyomatcha,

I have a very similar profile to you (from the middle east and similar work experience) and I asked myself similar questions not so long ago.

1- Do you care about the cost of the MBA or the length of the MBA?
If you do, money you will use in the MBA could be used for launching your company so I would take that into account. Also, if you're unsure of what you want to do a 2 years programme will give you more time to try things out.

2- What type of business do you think of launching?
I had a very good convo with alumni from LBS and Cambridge and they made a very good point that in LBS you have better opportunities if you want to launch a "business service" while Cambridge will give you more exposure to deeptech opportunities because you will be able to interact with researchers in other fields than business.
Obviously you can still do a deeptech business from LBS and vice versa if you work really hard.
Finally, Cambridge will allow you to network with more people outside the business sphere and less typical business profiles while LBS will primarly expose you to very competitive business profiles.

3- When do you want to launch something and where?
Cambridge has a high number of people starting a business immediately while LBS seems to have a good amount of alumni starting a business after they worked for a few years.
From what I found online, I think LBS has a better presence in the Middle East (Dubai etc.). You'll still find Cambridge graduates but just not in the same numbers.
One small thing to add, the LBS Entrepreneurship Summer School is also something you can apply to without doing the MBA.

Finally, the best question that helped me was to decide where would I be more inspired. So I will ask you the same, where do you think you will be more inspired and motivated to start a business?

Happy to get on a call with you just send me a private message.
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Re: MBA for Entrepreneurship/Social Impact: Cambridge vs LBS [#permalink] New post   29 Mar 2024, 12:12
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For entrepreneurship, a couple things jump out at me. First, other other entrepreneurs and people you can bond with and potentially work together. They would have their contacts to share with you and you could go to various startup conferences together and keep each other updated. There is value in numbers. One of the school have an entrepreneurship club? You can always start I guess but it’s better if you’re not starting up at the start up club 😂

Second is what you were referring to and that is the alumni network. As an entrepreneur you have to be networking quite a bit - bigger is usually better. Stronger is important but bigger tends to win.

Finally, you did not mention money but that’s a pretty serious consideration for most entrepreneurs and most people who are not going to make a big paycheck up on graduation. Minimizing the costs during school will be helpful.

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Re: MBA for Entrepreneurship/Social Impact: Cambridge vs LBS [#permalink] New post   29 Mar 2024, 12:59
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Hi! Thank you for your replies :) Rcatleb where did you end up going? bb do you know where I can find stats of which programs produce the most entrepreneurs? I've done some research and it seems Cambridge has been beating LBS the last few years. Don't know how reliable those claims are though.

Answering your questions below

Cost: My MBA fees are being covered by a government scholarship so that's a huge relief and it gives me the flexibility of choosing the program I want. My savings can go into starting up a (very small) company after graduation. But I'm also not disregarding the idea of working at a startup for 1-2 years to save up after grad school.

Type of business: I don't have a specific idea right now but I def want to do something related to tech or e-commerce.

When and where: Ideally I'd like to launch within 1-2 years of graduating. As for location, I'm flexible but it will most likely be either the UK or KSA.
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Re: MBA for Entrepreneurship/Social Impact: Cambridge vs LBS [#permalink] New post   29 Mar 2024, 15:18
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natyomatcha,

I chose Cambridge and I am planning to do my MBA this year :)

Cambridge has more students launching a business right after the MBA (you can see this from employment reports of LBS and Cambridge) but there's other stats that are important that aren't reflected in the reports: number of founders 5 years after graduation, how much capital did they raise, etc.

For example if you check the link below you see the LBS MBA is ahead in terms of founder's count and capital raised (consider they have more alumni though):
https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/pit ... y-rankings
If you check Cambridge as a uni, they have a lot of undergraduate and graduate founders and they will likely pass by the business school since the entrepreneurship center is there. How much this can be leveraged by an MBA depends on how much networking/work you put into it.
Another article that is interesting is this one: https://sifted.eu/articles/unicorn-universities

I think both programmes will give you a chance to work in great startups across the UK.

You don't have a preference between a 1 year or 2 year programme?
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Re: MBA for Entrepreneurship/Social Impact: Cambridge vs LBS [#permalink] New post   29 Mar 2024, 15:30
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Fantastic. Congratulations on getting your cost covered. That’s huge.

If you don’t mind the two-year program at LBS, the larger class size and frankly more competitive and hiring program is better for a catchall type of a plan.

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Re: MBA for Entrepreneurship/Social Impact: Cambridge vs LBS [#permalink]
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