Faculty Panel Discusses Role of Entrepreneurs, Financiers

A faculty panel discussed the role of entrepreneurs and financiers in business development at the Michael P. Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship on October 8 as part of Alumni Weekend.

“When I started my first business in 1985, I had trouble hiring because the prestigious jobs were all in oil companies, utilities, management consulting. Nobody trusted new businesses—they thought there was no future,” said moderator Michael Polsky, ’87, the founder, president, and CEO of Invenergy. Now, he noted, most agree that entrepreneurship is the future of business. The faculty then explained the thinking behind different aspects of entrepreneurship.

James E. Schrager, clinical professor of entrepreneurship and strategic management, said that new venture strategy asks the question, “Is this business a good idea?” and answers it in plainspoken terms. Schrager said, “Great strategy, like Superman, is like X-ray vision. It’s seeing inside the inner workings of a business . . . . Great strategy also looks like Tinkerbell—it can’t turn dust into gold, it can only tell you what is dust and what is gold.”

Discussing start-up financials was Scott Meadow, clinical professor of entrepreneurship, who spent 20 years in the venture capital industry. Meadow said financing new businesses was like buying a house. “You put in $10,000 for a $100,000 house, you put in new features, hopefully the market goes up, you pay off your debt, and the rest is profit. It’s very straightforward.”

All the strategy and money in the world won’t help you, though, if you don’t have good execution. Well-funded companies most often fail because of poor sales, marketing, and operations, said Waverly Deutsch, clinical assistant professor of entrepreneurship. “Arguably, these are the two things a traditional MBA prepares you the least for,” Deutsch said.

Her students, said Deutsch, learn what actually needs to be done—how to make a sales call, how to close a deal, how to implement an operational process. She ended with a quote from General George Patton that she said summed up good entrepreneurship: “Good tactics will save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy. Execution is the key.”

—Jennifer Vanasco