Tag: CEL



Global Management Studies (GMS) trips are student-designed, student-organized study tours that take a deep-dive into another country or region to focus on business practices and cultures around the globe. During spring break this month, MBA students are in Cuba, Colombia, and Japan. They must be too busy to write, but we have received a few photos to share.

japan gms

From left to right Jerica Vogel, Erin Ilic, Andrew Lind, Teja Mysore, Amber Vitale (wife of Daniel Vitale), Grace Helker, and Courtney Callegari. Photo by Andrew Lind.

Rautken Japan trip

The team visits Rakuten Crimson House Headquarters in Tokyo. They appreciated the Silicon Valley feel of the corporate offices.

 




How will we feed the world’s rapidly growing population? By 2050 the world population is projected to reach more than 9.6 billion, according to a UN report.  The Yield Lab, the first and leading agricultural technology (AgTech) business accelerator, has begun to answer this fundamental question.

Formed in 2014 by Thad Simons, former CEO of Novus International, and Cultivation Capital, the top St. Louis Venture Capital firm, The Yield Lab seeks to address the global food crisis by investing in AgTech start-up companies that have creative ideas and innovative solutions for increasing agricultural productivity. The start-up companies selected for the 9-month program receive $100,000 in funding as well as mentoring and networking opportunities.

Our group is excited to be consulting for The Yield Lab this semester and thankful that Washington University is giving us the opportunity to do so. Composed of one MBA student (Jonah Hanowitz), one PMBA student (Paul Dinkins), and two law students (Julia von Türk and Edward Brennan), we will be producing a marketing plan that builds The Yield Lab’s brand awareness as the first and leading AgTech business accelerator across the agricultural industry and among venture capital firms.

The entrepreneurial sector for AgTech is rapidly developing, and The Yield Lab is uniquely situated in the Midwest, which has some of the world’s best growing conditions and natural resources. In addition, St. Louis has some of the largest agricultural companies in the world, which are looked upon as the leaders in their field. One of the biggest differentiators over a typical business accelerator is that the companies chosen for the program benefit from The Yield Lab’s Managing Directors’ and Advisors’ expertise and long-term success in the agricultural industry. The Yield Lab’s portfolio companies are able to take advantage of the burgeoning St. Louis start-up scene by using the work spaces at the T-REx incubator and coworking space downtown. We were able to spend a day there and were impressed with the energy and opportunities available there.

We will be putting together a marketing plan that increases brand awareness and reputation among talent pools which we believe will have multiple benefits: First, it will lead to more–and more qualified–Yield Lab applicants, which in turn will lead to more successful Yield Lab companies, which will ultimately lead to more profitability, visibility, and investor interest.  Furthermore, increased brand awareness among talent will hopefully lead to applicants coming to The Yield Lab, as opposed to The Yield Lab having to seek out potential portfolio companies.  This will free up considerable time and energy to devote to other, more productive tasks—such as seeking out investors for the Growth Fund (who will, hopefully, be attracted by the level of talent that The Yield Lab attracts). Lastly, a talented, successful portfolio of companies will lead to a talented, successful network of alumni, which will only serve to attract more talented portfolio companies in the future.

 




How do you make a lasting impact on the people of Rwanda? The Women’s Bakery(TWB), is not alone in its belief that an answer to that question starts on a small scale. (more…)




How can a community help its aspiring entrepreneurs to turn their dreams into successful businesses? Especially if some of its members come from less-privileged backgrounds with little training in business acumen? Our client, David Stiffler seeks to provide an answer to these questions through his proposed project, Entrepreneurship for All. By devoting a floor in the T-Rex building to an entrepreneurship-mentoring program for the low-income high performance college students, David hopes to extend T-Rex’s excellent entrepreneurship offerings to previously unsupported demographics of the St. Louis Community.

Many cities across the United States are struggling with urban development trends that divide neighborhoods based on their residents’ social-economic status. This is particularly apparent in our city of St. Louis, where city blocks from the same street can differ so drastically that they are unrecognizable from each other. The large gap in economic incomes also partially contributed to the recent demonstrations that have gripped our city and raised serious questions regarding race, social status, and economic equality. Entrepreneurship can be a potential solution for enabling economic development in low-income neighborhoods and reducing the number of under-educated/unemployed youths in the city. By providing students from these areas with the training needed to build their own businesses, the students can then increase economic activity in their neighborhoods and provide employment opportunities. This new focus on entrepreneurship has already been identified as a paradigm shift in cities such as Pittsburgh or Detroit.

The successful business owners of St. Louis have been working hard on improving the city’s entrepreneurship ecosystem through enticing aspiring entrepreneurs from across the country to relocate to St. Louis. This system is gaining momentum through initiatives like Venture Café, Arch Grants, and Coretex… where members are carefully nurtured and are producing better startups every year. Opening up the ecosystem to underprivileged youth can potentially provide the economic force necessary to reinvigorate our city, especially if a program is developed specifically for them at T-Rex, one of the centers of entrepreneurship located in the middle of downtown ST. Louis.

Our client David Stiffler, is the Community Affairs Manager at Equifax. David has identified this need and wishes to bring the program into existence. Our objective is then to conduct a feasibility study on the Entrepreneurship for All project. We need to first identify the physical requirements necessary to launch such a program. We then need to validate the fit and sustainability of moving such a program into the T-Rex space. Finally, we need to identify the demographic segment targeted by this program as well as any potential existing programs that are helping the same demographic.

We will be reaching out and conducting one-on-one interviews with the leadership at T-Rex, Arch Grants, Coretex… to analyze the current entrepreneurship ecosystem. We will also be researching existing programs in other cities and if their success can be adopted for St. Louis. Our results should enable us to better understand the gap that can be filled by the Entrepreneurship for All program and its potential success in helping the community.

This post was written by Finn Liu, MBA ’16, Kenneth Mao, MBA ’16, Colin Stapleton, MBA ‘16, Greg Scharine, PMBA




In the past month, we have been working closely with a local startup in St. Louis called Greetabl. Greetabl produces and distributes small, beautifully designed boxes that combine the concepts of a gift and a gift-card. To date, the Greetabl team has primarily targeted consumers, and so we were tasked with designing a business-to-business (B2B) sales strategy that will help them target corporate consumers and ultimately establish recurring revenue streams. Our team consists of two Washington University undergraduates, Jude Gingo and Alan Zhang, as well as two MBA students, Shai Hatsor and Steve Hiltebeitel, and we are all very excited to be working with Greetabl and helping them advance to their next stage of growth.

We started our analysis with four goals in mind: 1) Identifying Greetabl’s primary value proposition, 2) Categorizing Greetabl’s target corporate customer segments, 3) Determining who the decision makers were for each of these segments, and 4) Analyzing the economics behind those segments. Our initial hypothesis was that Greetabl had a sustainable “WOW Factor” that would differentiate it from its competitors (traditional small gifts and cards) and that this “WOW Factor” would ultimately sell itself in a semi-viral fashion, once a good use-case was found for a corporate client.

greetabl founders Joe Fischer and Zoë Scharf at Startup Connection '14.

greetabl founders Joe Fischer and Zoë Scharf at Startup Connection ’14.

In order to test our hypothesis, we interviewed with several former and existing clients of Greetabl, inquiring how they heard of Greetabl, as well as how and why they have used this product. We had two main takeaways from these interviews: that this product could be 1) surprisingly effective marketing material, and 2) effective at acquiring and retaining first-time customers. Although this second finding was well in-line with our initial hypothesis, we believe that the first takeaway holds far more potential in achieving Greetabl’s goal of establishing predictable B2B revenue streams. Thus, we have recently shifted our focus away from the “WOW Factor” of the product and towards its effectiveness at getting across a company’s message to its customers. This is a far more sustainable value proposition that we believe will justify its premium price.

Moving forward, we will be interviewing potential clients and gauging their interest in Greetabl’s product, asking questions regarding price sensitivity, potential use-cases, and design. Based on the feedback we receive, we will move on to laying out a specific implementation plan for Greetabl to acquire and retain these business customers.

Overall, it has been a great experience consulting for a local start-up in St. Louis. As a team, we were able to connect with the startup scene in St. Louis through our visit to T-REx in September, which kicked off the class. Furthermore, the speakers who provided an overview of the entrepreneurial landscape in St. Louis were helpful in piecing together what has become a vibrant and exciting driver of development and economic opportunity for the city.




Applications for the Taylor Community Consulting Program (TCCP) are officially opening this week, so I asked Colton Calandrella about his experience with the TCCP. Colton is a junior at Olin from Colorado Springs, CO studying Economics and Strategy with a minor in Latin American Studies.

The Olin BSBA Undergraduate Program will be highlighting students throughout the semester to share their experiences both inside and outside the classroom.

Colton stumbled into an CEL* information session about the TCCP minutes before it started because it seemed like an interesting opportunity. After hearing the presenter for Catholic Charities explain the project, he knew he had to apply.

CEL logoHe says his experience with the TCCP has been the most rewarding part of his time at Olin. Interacting with local St. Louis organizations, administrators in Olin, mentors at Deloitte, and MBA students exposed him to what he said were valuable perspectives he had never considered before.  Takeaways from the experience included: consulting skills such as defining a problem, managing client expectations, narrowing the issue scope, and project management. He said he could not recommend the TCCP highly enough. From both a personal and a professional development perspective, he said it has been the most valuable activity he has participated in during his time at Olin.

When I asked him what his favorite part of the TCCP was, he had this to say

“My favorite part of the TCCP is the delivery of the final product to the client. Clearly communicating all the work our team had done for the project and seeing how satisfied the client is gives a profound sense of purpose and achievement. Learning about how the St. Louis community works would be a close second, since I think it is so important to get outside of the WashU bubble.”

The next Information Session for the Taylor Community Consulting Program is on Thursday, September 24 at 5:00pm in Bauer Hall 330: Active Learning Lab.

*Center for Experiential Learning