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MBA Voices
MBA Voices
Bastian Purrer (MBA 2020), a native German, spent most of his career before HBS launching international offices for Groupon and Rocket Internet. After a few years in Europe and Asia, Bastian enrolled at HBS hoping to continue his entrepreneurial journey. Rather than completing two years straight, Bastian took a gap between RC and EC to launch an e-commerce startup in Indonesia. Upon selling the startup, he plunged himself in the world of fighting against disinformation and started humanID. Shuyao Kong (MBA 2020), a native Chinese, spent most of her career in the tech world across Middle East and Africa. She’s particularly passionate about blockchain, cryptoeconomics, and privacy. humanID is an anonymous Single-Sign-On replacing “Login with Facebook” while also blocking bot-armies and trolls, with the goal to stop fake news and cyber-bullying. [...]
Eleven student teams were required to run a “design sprint” – a structured and rigorous process for quickly identifying critical questions facing a venture, and rapidly developing multiple answers to these questions to test with stakeholders. Jake Knapp of Google Ventures, who invented the Sprint process, ran the first two days, then handed over to faculty co-chairs Alan MacCormack and Russ Wilcox. The pressure was on the teams to make progress, rapidly building prototypes to a high level to generate insightful feedback on how well the solutions matched real customers’ needs. [...]
The Black New Venture Competition was an event designed to offer support to promising early-stage Black entrepreneurs with resources to develop their ventures into dynamic powerhouses. The event served as a launchpad for innovative ventures founded by Black entrepreneurs, providing exposure to capital, mentors, and advisors. The Black New Venture Competition awarded $175,000, thanks to funding from General Catalyst, Google for Startups, and Khosla Ventures – making this event the largest pitch competition for Black founders in the country. [...]
Kimberly Foster and Tyler Simpson
- 20 Feb 2020
Black Visionary Leadership and Redefining What's Possible
The statistics regarding black entrepreneurs are staggering. Fewer than one percent of black entrepreneurs get VC funding, and of that .0006 percent goes to black women entrepreneurs. This is not because there is a lack of innovative ideas and lucrative ventures from black founders. [...]
Carlyn Strand Sylvester (MBA 2016) leads a small team at Netflix focused on creative testing and innovation for the streaming service’s global paid digital and acquisition channels, with an emphasis on growing the Netflix audience through brand, product, and content marketing strategies. Previously, she held roles at Glossier, Spotify, and YouTube. Carlyn received her B.A. from Stanford University and currently lives in Los Angeles. [...]
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The views and opinions expressed in the MBA Voices blog are those of the authors.
Any political views shared by students are their own; HBS does not endorse a particular party or candidate.