Career Paths
The Lang Center's entrepreneurship program is not just a tutorial on how to launch new ventures. The program is specifically structured to emphasize individual initiative and identifying, valuing and capturing opportunity. Virtually all business students will encounter these challenges in some form, whether as entrepreneurs, consultants, financiers or managers of firms.
Entrepreneurship in New Ventures
Many students with an interest in entrepreneurship seek a stimulating career track organized around founding or managing new ventures. Because new ventures demand a strong foundation in key business functions — financial organization, negotiation, management and product development — managing a start-up company requires training in finance and accounting as well as in marketing and management.
A great idea is simply not enough; it must be coupled with a solid business model if the venture is to succeed. While many students choose to pursue an entrepreneurial idea immediately, either as a new venture or as part of an existing family business, others choose first to gain experience in larger business organizations, consulting firms or investment banks.
Entrepreneurship in Large Organizations
Because innovation in products and services is a hallmark of successful large firms, many exciting and profitable entrepreneurial opportunities exist in large organizations. This form of entrepreneurship typically exists within divisions of or spin-offs from large companies.
In such settings, entrepreneurial activity centers on managing innovation and product development, although general finance and management skills remain important. Turnarounds — the process of reorganizing and managing change within a company or unit — present another entrepreneurial opportunity within large organizations.
Private Equity Financing: Venture Capital and Leveraged Buyouts
Venture capital provides funds to companies at early stages of their development, typically before their initial public offering of equity. This specialized form of investment management has enormous appeal for many students, but the field is a difficult one to enter. Many venture capital firms specialize in emerging technologies and seek to hire individuals with operative backgrounds in those technologies. For students without such a background, entering the venture capital arena straight out of business school is generally difficult.
Many financial institutions and private partnerships pursue leveraged-buyout equity investment, which involves buying entire companies, whether private or public, with relatively modest equity investment. Such transactions have become an important business for all types of banks, some of which use the misleading phrase “merchant banking.”
Individuals who obtain employment in this area often have experience in such other areas as mergers and acquisitions. They must combine negotiating skills with an astute sense of what makes an operating business successful. This, too, can be a difficult area to enter straight out of business school, as most private equity funds hire people with substantial transaction experience.
Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship takes place in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors of the economy, and seeks to apply entrepreneurial business principles to provide social benefits in areas such as the environment, workforce development, education, health, community and international development. Achieving social/environmental purposes as well as financial support enables the sustainability and growth of these ventures.
Due to exceptionally tight resource constraints, social entrepreneurship poses a challenge for even the sharpest management skills, and students interested in social ventures will need a strong background in entrepreneurship. While some MBA graduates will start or work for social ventures, others will participate in social entrepreneurship as business or financial consultants, social venture capital investors, mentoring entrepreneurs or as board members for these organizations.
For a list of courses relating to entrepreneurial career paths, go to the Course Map.
