The Final Days...

I have exactly one more night left in State College and then my MBA career will officially be over. It didn't hit me until I saw the slide show of the past 2 years of our lives. It's crazy to think how close my friends and I have become and how much we have grown (probably more socially rather than professionally).

Below are some experiences that has helped shape my MBA career and that I hold dearly. I am very fortunate to have experienced all that I have over the past 2 years:

Inaugural Party at Phillips - Walking into his Copper Beach house, I felt a sense of uneasiness because I was meeting everybody for the first time. Questions of whether they would like me and whether I would be accepted danced in my head.... and then I met Phillip, a fellow Niner fan! Although we disagree on the greatness of Joe Montana, I always had a friend to talk about my favorite team.

Purdue Case Competition - Between the first and second Mod, I entered a marketing case competition with 3 other first year MBA students, Sneha, Ilya, and Prashant. We drove 9 hours to Purdue to compete in a 5 hour long analysis, followed by a 30 minute presentation. Nonetheless it was an exhilarating experience in which we thought we totally blew it but to the contrary we took second, which extended our trip to Purdue a night so that we could celebrate with the Notre Dame team that came in first. Here is the blog post that I wrote.

Monday Night Football - Every Monday I drove to Scotts to watch Monday night football. The evening was filled with beer and wings from Wings over Happy Valley while we watched football with our computers doing "homework." Sampson, the dog that I dubbed the most disobedient dog I have ever met always tried to eat our food and eventually we would have to lock him in the bathroom.

San Franciscans in State College - In November, my friends Tyler, Kate, Deborah, and my girlfriend Lena, visited me in State College. The weekend entailed Deb taking down 5 Guys, 1 dollar beers at Tony's, and a football game in the rain. It was great having my friends visit all the way from California. I appreciate all of your support!

Prague - Our global immersion trip landed us in Prague where we drank every night and struggled to stay away during the day. I will always remember going to get coffee with Eleazar and the bus leaving without us. When they turned around to pick us up, the coordinator was not pleased with us. I also drank Absinthe for the first time and in opposition to what Jared says, that stuff tastes like shit.

Polartec - My summer internship consisted of my driving Margret and June around. Funny how Polartec did not mention that in my job description. They also failed to mention that Margret would make numerous attempts to donate my car to a local charity. The summer was filled with weekend trips to various New England destinations. I felt like a Vanderbilt, except for the whole asian thing, when I visited Newport. We also found a new job for June, a lobster saleswoman.

The rise of Choco - His real name is chocolate but facebook would not let me create an account with the name chocolate. He is a stuffed animal that Minaz won at Hershey Park and we took so many pictures of him that I created a facebook page. On a side note, I have never seen so many people afraid of a ferris wheel. You know who you are!!! cough* Varun! cough*

Weekly Ale House Trips - During the second year, the Ale House became a staple for my group of friends but honestly, how could it not when they offer 1 dollar blue moons for happy hour. Always great to see Blair order 15 blue moons right before happy hour ended, which worked great for Yvonne because she drank nothing but blue moon! Unfortunately for Nick and DJ, their girlfriends eventually quit the Ale House and were never heard from again. Conversations at the Ale House usually centered around several crushes on a several professors, imitations of fellow hand waving MBA's, and funneling down a three point speech.

Stanford Innovation - The theme was to create a video that showed how to make saving money fun. The team, consisting of Oscar, Natasha, Hector and myself, came up with a game to save on energy, water and gas. We were semi-finalists but unfortunately did not win. The video

AAMBA - The Asian American MBA conference was loosely a disguise to go to New York. Had a great time the night before, when I met up with Patrick (Patty Cakes as Richard would like to say) had bon chon chicken (53rd and 6th Chicken and Rice is better drunk food) and drank way too much. Conference was still useful, not too many companies that I was interested in but got to talk to Pepsi (only because I think their CEO is awesome), and Tmobile.

U2 in New York - Had a great time seeing U2 for the first time. Drove up with Kaushal (btw, thanks for all the rides to NYC) the day of the concert. Her aunt makes awesome food. If any of you are ever in the New Jersey area, I highly recommend it. The Concert was awesome! The Muse opened and even though I was never huge fan, they are great live. U2 was great, mixing a lot of their newer stuff with a lot of their older stuff. A bit theatrical at times but one of the best concerts I have been to.

Net Impact Leadership Conference - This event was held in Ithaca so naturally I had to call up my buddy Patrick to party while I was there. Sure it made listening to the lecturers a bit harder when I'm just trying to stay awake but I got the jist. ...be an agent for sustainable change,...community banks are great in theory but don't work,....invest in companies with a green focus!

Net Impact Case Competition - Our "controversial" entrance into the case competition was already an omen but a great experience even though it was the only case competition my team didn't place in. The team, Ryan, Rob and Christy worked tirelessly over the Thanksgiving break to learn about urban farming and sustainable farming methods to present a solution to the impending food shortage. Whether I believe there will actually be a food shortage as population rises is one thing but it's always great to find creative ways to improve the environment.

Duke MBA Games - I was a late addition onto the team but I'm glad I joined. Our Penn State team together raised over 4,500 dollars, over twice as much as any other school. Lots of fun watching Hector hurl a briefcase 4o yards, doing the crab walk relay race, and watching the dizzy bat participants try to maintain their composure.

Tailgating in the Nittany Gardens Parking Lot - Finally, the day of my move, the movers were 4 hours late and what I thought would take 2 hours took 5. So because I was missing own going away party, my buddies, Rob and Eleazar got beers and we drank in the parking lot while the movers moved. Nothing like a nice warm beer on a warm night.... I did finally make it to my going away at 1 in the morning.

Thank you all for the great times! Looking forward to the reunion in Austin for South by Southwest!

Topics in Entrepreneurship

Last week I had the good fortune of sitting in on the thought pieces presented by Professor Garud's 1st year entrepreneurship class. The topics were very unique and very intellectually stimulating. Needless to say, I learned a lot.

Some general thoughts as I heard the presentations:

Bootstrapping using viral marketing - Viral marketing is a very powerful tool but it has the possibility to be very dangerous as well. Two thoughts on this matter, with the proliferation of viral marketing, it will eventually lose its effectiveness. In the future, entrepreneurs need to innovate the way viral marketing is done. By this, I mean, the fun, engaging, personal form of viral marketing will evolve. What is important to understand, is what characteristics will be transferable and which will not.

Secondly, viral marketing can emulate the wrong message. Consider Molson's attempt to use social media and attract a younger audience. Their campaign attracted underage drinking and excessive drinking. 2 traits that are obviously frowned upon and a movement away from their brand image. Controlling brand image will get a lot harder.

Ecopreneurship- Solid presentation on a controversial topic. In order for this trend to take off, education on global warming and alternative forms of energy need to be enhanced. Maybe this topic could be linked with viral marketing to promote awareness.

Ecopreneurs should also understand that once the demand that they create is established, larger corporations like Chevron will enter the market. Either by acquisition or by research and development.

Institutional Entrepreneurs-Very applicable to the majority of the students as they will likely join an institution and will need to find ways to become innovative. Process innovation may be more applicable and easier to implement rather than product innovation. There are only so many companies like Apple and Sony who value innovation.

Social Entrepreneurship- On a side note, its encouraging to see so many individuals interested in social issues. What social entrepreneurs must realize is that while it is nice to do social good, their ultimate goal is to be sustainable. Community banks are a great idea but because they aren't profit motivated, they are at a higher risk to default. Thus there is the proverbial balancing act between social good and profit maximization.

You know you are an MBA student when you analyze the core competencies of a restaurant

We heard the above title in class a few days back and the whole class laughed. What was even funnier (or sadder) was that when were at Otto's Restaurant, we did exactly that. Here is our analysis:

The restaurant is looking to move to a larger location down the road but its current location is rarely full anyway. On the weekends it is at capacity but there isn't much of a wait and they have a decent size bar that patrons can wait in and, more importantly, buy drinks.

Otto's core competency is mid level restaurant that caters to grad students, adults 25 and up, and craft beer enthusiasts. Their prices are typically too high for undergraduate students. They have made a name for themselves in the State College area as a legitimate brewery as they are the only brewery in town. They need to focus their attention selling their beer and the food should just be a complementary good.

By moving into the larger space they will incur more overhead costs and they still won't be able to reach capacity on weekdays. Weekend they will likely reach capacity but they will have less of a wait for a table, which will eat into their bar revenue. Usually, restaurants make most of their money from the bar and by having patrons go to the bar while waiting for a table, they will be more compelled to buy a drink or two. During dinner time, patrons will typically have one beer if they even order. It is in Otto's best interest to keep their patrons in the bar long enough for them to order a round of drinks but not too long that they give up waiting on a table and if they do end up leaving to go elsewhere for dinner, it's not too bad, based on the assumption that the margins on their beer is higher than their food.

On a side note, I don't know whether to feel ashamed that I actually analyzed a restaurant or accomplished. I will take the prior as I do feel like a total nerd.