The entrepreneurial ecosystem at MIT is incredible, and I believe there are few better places to grow as an entrepreneur. Many Sloan classmates, like me, work on their start-ups alongside taking a full load of classes and extracurriculars. Sounds like a demanding schedule? I won’t lie, it is, but the fantastic thing is that every class and extracurricular directly helps you become a better entrepreneur.
For the benefit of aspiring entrepreneurs in the prospective, incoming and existing MIT community, I’ve compiled the following list of “Best of” entrepreneurship at MIT. These are a culmination of my best experiences at MIT in my first year, and I’m grateful that so many of the lessons learned from here are things which I already incorporate into running PK Clean every day.
Emerging entrepreneurs need hands-on skills, mentors, idea exchange, industry exposure, and a rich community. MIT offers all these things and more:
SKILLS
I was drawn to MIT since Sloan, unlike most leading business schools, has a very hands-on and extremely applied curriculum. Between Labs, E&I classes, SIPs, IAP workshops, you have an entrepreneurial smorgasbord at your fingertips:
IAP: IAP is Independent Activities Period, which takes place in January before the semester begins in February. There are some great entrepreneurship classes, including the The Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans, which is a great way to get a head start for the Business Plan competitions in Spring. I took the class this past January, and as it’s an evening class you can balance the class while working for a full-time externship during the day.
SIP: SIP is Sloan Innovation Period, which is one week in the middle of the semester where instead of taking regular classes you register for short workshops. Many of these are related to entrepreneurship, and this past year I took several helpful and practical SIPs including IP Strategy, Women and Entrepreneurship, and even one on designing employee contracts.
Classes: Since Sloan allows you to choose electives for 3 out of your 4 semesters, you can take full advantage of Sloan’s best classes for entrepreneurs such as New Enterprises, Technology Sales, Early Stage Capital, Managing in Adversity, and ventures classes such as Media Ventures (collaboration with Media Lab) and Energy Ventures (energy-focus). These are all classes I either took this past semester or am registered for this upcoming semester, and all come highly recommended.
Labs: Sloan offers several “Lab” classes where you work on a project for a real-world company. For entrepreneurs, G-Lab offers the opportunity to work with a start-up globally, whereas E-Lab allows students to do this locally. I’ll be taking one of these Lab’s next semester, and would also recommend iTeams, which is an opportunity to work on a commercialization strategy for a promising MIT technology out of a lab. I worked on this great water technology.
MENTORS
You can find a lot of great mentors on-campus through faculty, E&I staff, and the E-Center’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence program. There are also formal mentoring programs through MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service and through competitions such as the 100K and Clean Energy Prize. Various clubs also have their own mentorship programs – this year I had two mentor’s through MIT’s Energy Club.
IDEA EXCHANGE
Some fellow 2011 classmates really enhanced the idea flow at MIT this year with Erdin Beshimov and Rob Lemis founding MIT’s Entrepreneurship Review and Adam Blake, Morgan Blake and Slava Menn founding IdeaStorm. I highly recommend students getting involved with both – I’ve both pitched and moderated at IdeaStorm and gained a lot of insights. There are also events fostering idea exchange hosted by the E-Club and TechLink on-campus, as well as many interest groups in the area which host some great idea exchanging events such as WebInno, PEHub and TiE throughout the year depending on your interests. I’ve been involved with or attended events hosted by each of these groups throughout the past year, and they’re all great forums to keep on your radar.
INDUSTRY EXPOSURE
As great as the MIT campus bubble is, entrepreneurs also need to be constantly engaged with “the real world” and networking with people across industries. One great way to do this is through conferences. Some of MIT’s best conferences which I was part of this year include the MIT Energy Conference and Venture Capital Conference, and there are also many great non-MIT conferences which you can attend as a student volunteer such as the Cleantech Forum Boston and others depending on your area of interest. The VC/PE Club also offers great events for entrepreneurs, and the treks are a fabulous way to get out into the real world. Another great opportunity is MIT’s Externship program - I worked at a VC in Boston and learned a tremendous amount about how investors evaluate entrepreneurs and the ins-and-outs of funding. Other local groups with events to look out for are the MIT Club and MIT Forum.
COMMUNITY
If all these forums haven’t already given you a sense of how strong the community around entrepreneurship is at MIT, Sloan students can also be part of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Track during their 2 years. The track entails an introductory course in the Fall, which familiarizes students with entrepreneurial resources on campus such as The Licensing Office and Legatum Center, and includes a weekly dinner speaker series. The highlight of the program is the Silicon Valley Trek in early January, where all the E&I students bond closely. Finally, depending on your area of interest – whether it be media, development, energy or anything else – there is a Sloan community for you. For instance, I’m on the board of Sloan’s Energy & Environment Club, focused on entrepreneurial events. I have also been interested in creating a closer community of women entrepreneur's on campus during my time here, and together with classmate Erica Dhawan we're putting together a Women Entrepreneurship Seminar for the Fall - I'm sure more on this in future posts!
