Pros and cons of an MBA – a perspective after 10+ years from graduation
What you will learn
Alumni perspective: Mark Clift LBS MBA 2012
Alumni Perspective: Jules Radcliffe INSEAD MBA 2009
Business basics and financial metrics
Go to market with your product
Valuing your business
Why take this course?
This course starts with an interview of an INSEAD alum, Jules Radcliffe.
Jules will talk about his background and how his education has been a stepping stone to Private Equity. He will tell us which aspects of the MBA he found most useful and what is he expecting from people who aspire to work in finance.
The second interview is with Mark Clift, a London Business School MBA alum, who reflects on the core lessons of his career.
Post MBA, Mark became a CEO and co-founder of SnappTrip and CPO of Snapp!, Iran’s SuperApp that had 85% of the ride hailing market – more than Uber in any city in the world.
In the video, Mark explains the concept of Growth Mindset, the importance of setting the strategic vision when building a business as well as executing on it.
He points out what the MBA won’t prepare you for.
The second part of the course will be taught by founders of a British drinks company, Fighter Shots – Anna and Kavita. They graduated from London Business School with MBA degrees and have passion for sharing the knowledge with anyone interested in starting a business too.
In this course we will talk about:
– What we learned at London Business School that was helpful in starting and running a business
– How we built the business from 0 to £1m+ in sales
– How to choose a product and create an MVP
– Determining your costs
– Identifying the target market and customers (incl channels e-commerce, export, retail, on trade)
– Estimating your financial projections (Profit and Loss statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flows)
– Choosing suppliers
– In house capabilities vs subcontractors
– Financing (invoice financing, debt financing, equity fundraising, crowdfunding, cash advancements)
– How to be profitable
We will talk about the above topics on the example of our drinks company, Fighter Shots. We think that seeing all of the above topics applied to a real business will make it much clearer to comprehend and follow.
While our business was founded in the UK, and different food and manufacturing standards might apply in the rest of the world, we think that most of the topics are universal and very much applicable in most of the markets.