MBA Students Gain Inside Track to Securing Venture Funding
By Jennifer Anzaldi, School of Management
Tarrin Pakes MBA ’10 introduces ChicksWithKids CEO, Kirsten Knull,
at a Business Alliance Grubstake Breakfast last semester. The
students in Professor Wolfe’s class not only had the opportunity to
shadow the due diligence, selection and presenter coaching
processes but also to network with the 300 attendees who gathered to
hear the investment presentations and remarks by investor experts.
What more could budding entrepreneurs want than an insider’s view to the process of receiving venture capital? Lectures and required readings are often the outline for most business courses, but at Mason, MBA students have the opportunity to work with the entrepreneurial community to gain first-hand knowledge of the process of the solicitation of second stage angel and venture funding for new businesses, evaluation of the applications for funding, consultation for entities seeking funding and the negotiations for obtaining funding. The School of Management’s MBA 719 Entrepreneurship Laboratory is a unique course in that there is no regular classroom session, but rather students meet with entrepreneurs and Professor Jim Wolfe.
Wolfe says, “The learning in this course is experiential; students learn by doing. Students work closely with faculty, entrepreneurs, and those advisors working with entrepreneurs to secure an understanding of the entrepreneurial community and the process of securing funding.”
The heart of this class is the Grubstake Breakfast, a “venture fair” program put on three times each year by George Mason University’s Business Alliance for entrepreneurs seeking early stage funding. Grubstake brings together the region's brightest entrepreneurs, potential investors and business leaders in a highly innovative forum that shapes the growth and development of the entrepreneurial companies in the region. The longest running networking and investors forum of its kind in the region, the Grubstake Breakfast provides early stage companies seeking focused growth capital in the range of $250,000 - $2 million a forum to present their investment opportunities to a targeted audience of institutional and angel investors, entrepreneurs, business leaders and service providers. Students observe and participate in all steps of the Grubstake process, including applications, screening, in-person interviews, and final presentations.
Now in its fourth year, the Entrepreneurial Lab is growing in popularity. The first course had just four students in it. This year’s course has 31 students currently registered for the upcoming semester. Wolfe said, “This course is a great opportunity for our students, and one of the most unique MBA course offerings in the country.”
Not only are students exposed to the current entrepreneurs seeking funding, but they also participate in presentations from past grubstake participants where they can learn what happened after the breakfast, and whether the companies were successful in receiving funding. The lab does balance its nontraditional methods with the required readings and research paper of a traditional course, which gives students a chance to compare the academics with the real world to fully learn the process of securing funding.
To learn more about Entrepreneurship at SOM visit som.gmu.edu/WhyMasonSOM/Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial companies seeking to present their investment opportunities at the next Grubstake Breakfast on October 30th should apply by September 17th at www.businessalliance.org/grubstake.html.