I recently presented at a mobile panel and got a nice email from a woman after the event:
I've gotten interest from MBA's on a regular basis, and yet none of them have ended up working for us. It's a trend that's happened often enough that I want to write a blog about it.
The first thing that I would say is that we'd love to have MBAs working for us. Having said that, I find it very unlikely that it will happen.
Here's why: The entire reason you go to get an MBA is to increase your marketability. Yes, sure, you do it to be a better businessperson, but at the end of the day, the reality is that you can make 20%+ more in the exact same job just by having an MBA. So by working at a big company with your newly minted MBA, you'll be able to greatly increase your salary.
At a small startup like PointAbout, we won't be able to pay you for your MBA degree. The reality is that you'll be able to apply your MBA skills in a small company to a much greater degree than you could at a big company, but you won't be paid for your greatness.
As CEO of my startup, I sometimes have to be in sales mode. (Well, every owner of a company is always in some sort of sales mode, but in this case I mean prospecting for customers of new product offerings).
I recently wrote about what it takes to create an effective sales team. But here I just want to share one pro-tip, and see if I can find a few other interested people to beta-test a new tool with me.
We have a new product that we're piloting, and so I'm in sales mode for a bit testing the waters. I always like to do the initial sales myself, so I can tweak it and figure out what's working and what's not, before I pass it over to a sales team. Plus, hearing the inevitable "no's" from prospects is a great way to get honest feedback about the product so we can iterate on it quickly.
