Warwick Business School Launches New Silicon Valley MBA Module

Starting December this year, Warwick Business School’s MBA students will fly down to San Francisco for fresh learnings from some of the Silicon Valley’s top entrepreneurs as part of the Entrepreneurial Finance module.

The valley is home to some of the most famous names in tech startups such as Facebook, Google, Uber and Apple. The students will attend lectures by entrepreneurs and academics. They will also visit venture capitalists, angel investors and the offices and bases of some of the fastest growing start-ups in the world, Warwick said in a release.

John Lyon, Professor of Practice in the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Group who worked in Silicon Valley as Global Vice President of clinical trials giant Covance, said, “This is a great chance for students to bring back some of the magic of Silicon Valley. It is like no place on earth, where the entrepreneurial spirit is celebrated and venture capitalists are on the hunt for the next Uber or Facebook.”

Thousands of companies are headquartered in Silicon Valley, with 39 of the Fortune 100 companies based there. San Francisco and the Bay Area has the highest concentration of venture capital funding in the world, 15.4% of the $42 billion invested globally in 2012 according to The Atlantic.

The module is available on the Full-time and Executive MBA or on the MBA with Entrepreneurship Specialism, which also includes a module on Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation plus the chance to develop your start-up idea alongside academics and experts from industry.

The module is available on the Full-time and Executive MBA or on the MBA with Entrepreneurship Specialism, which also includes a module on Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation plus the chance to develop your start-up idea alongside academics and experts from industry.

Professor Lyon, who has also held non-executive and chairman roles as a venture capitalist and angel investor, said, “We will be using seasoned Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and real life businesses to take the students through the journey of a start-up; how to get finance, build the product and people, the pitching, rounds of funding and slowly grow the business.

“After they have soaked up the journey, we will ask students to pitch using a business case study to raise millions of dollars.”

The lectures will include one from Professor Chris Haroun, venture capitalist and serial Bay Area entrepreneur who founded Haroun Education Ventures and also teaches at Stanford University.

The module is not just for budding entrepreneurs, but also for those wanting to develop an entrepreneurial mindset as companies are now looking for ‘intrepreneurs’ to create and disrupt before they are disrupted themselves. “Entrepreneurship is a mindset that can be learned and is something increasingly sought after in the workplace,” Prof Lyon said.

“Silicon Valley is a colourful place where innovation and taking risks is revered. It is expected that certain risks are taken, but when they believe in something that belief and passion will take them further. VCs there tend to be more accepting of that philosophy, whereas in Europe they are more risk-averse,” he added.

“Rather than the technical know-how, it is the passion, vision and story-building that students need to learn to impress potential investors,” Prof. Lyon pointed out.

“Investors look for passion rather than financial numbers. That is what is required to get the start-up over the line. When an investor’s heart is captured by a pitch, supposed to their head, they are more likely to listen to the rest of the presentation.

“In the US they talk about vision. I tell my students that the vision is the first thing you need to get right and you need to get it in the first 60 seconds of the pitch, emotion plays a big part in a pitch. Expressing the vision, and showing ‘why we are passionate about this’ is very important,” he said.

“A start-up is all about the future, there is nothing but hope. All the figures are projections, there is nothing historical, while a business plan will be out of date in weeks. Investors will look at you and wonder what is underlying the figures, will you be tenacious and still hang in there when the going gets tough? Entrepreneurs are good at it in the US and that is something we need to learn in Europe,” Prof Lyon added.

The Coventry, UK-based Warwick Business School’s full-time 1-year program begins in late September and concludes in the same month the next year on completion of a management consultancy project. It has an annual intake of about 75 students.(Image Source:Wikipedia.org)