Alumni Spotlight: David Hegarty ’07

As is the case with many great ideas, David Hegarty’s Fixed app came during a moment of personal frustration.

The Dublin, Ireland, native lives in San Francisco, where he managed to accumulate four parking tickets over a few weeks last year.

“I decided to pay them one morning, and when I came back to my car, there were two more,” Hegarty, 36, says. “At that point I was livid. San Francisco is pretty ruthless with the ticketing.”

An entrepreneur-in-residence at Palo Alto-based venture capital firm Merus Capital, Hegarty was mulling over ideas for a new startup when he mentioned his ticket frustrations to a friend.

“He said, ‘Dude, why don’t you turn that into an iPhone app?’” Hegarty says. “I took that idea and I ran with it.”

Bend the curve: Accelerate your startup’s success

In the world of innovation, there is no single path to success.

There can, however, be value in learning about the successes — and failures — of other innovators. That is why Kellogg lecturer Andrew Razeghi wrote “Bend the Curve: Accelerate Your Startup’s Success.” In the book (available for purchase here), readers will learn from successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and mentors of Techstars, one of the world’s leading new venture accelerators. The goal? Learn how to grow your startup.

Analytics in sports: The key is communication

A group of Kellogg students and I recently attended the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston, and two things became clear: the sports industry is fundamentally changing and analytics is playing a part in that transformation.

In many ways, professional and collegiate sports have never been more popular or brought in more revenue. However, there are many threats to the sports industry, including health concerns such as concussions or the rise of Tommy John surgery. There are also growing external pressures, such as the push to allow the legalization of sports betting in the United States, as it is legal in many other countries.

Given the growing number and complexities of challenges facing the sports industry, there was a noticeable wave of recent MBA graduates at the conference making inroads at a variety of teams and league offices, particularly those that are more analytically advanced companies. These organizations see the value of utilizing quantitative and business savvy MBA students to help address these issues. This was helpful for many of the Kellogg students in attendance who want to transition into the sports industry and are trying to find opportune ways to do so.

Rules vs. Guidelines | MBA Learnings

One of the more powerful ideas I’ve learned in my ‘Values Based Leadership’ class is understanding the power of using rules vs. guidelines in setting culture.

Culture is by far the most powerful change tool that exists. If you really want to change behavior, it is the culture you should turn to. The culture is the mixture of norms and rituals that act as the default behavior in every group or organization. There are rule-based cultures and guideline-based cultures. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. And, to analyze the difference, I thought I’d examine how I’ve approached designing my own culture.

Student shares CEO experience in new case

Executive MBA students bring years of rich work experience that shape classroom discussions. In the case of Anna Kan ’15, her background now serves as conversational fodder for both her classmates and future EMBA students. Kan was taking Marketing Strategy with Professor Alexander Chernev when she first mentioned some of the challenges she faced as CEO… Continue reading

Alumni Spotlight: Lisa Earnhardt ’96

A stunning 3,000 percent sales growth in the last three years. An IPO. Making Forbes’ list of “America’s Most Promising Companies.”

With those accolades, one could say that Lisa Earnhardt ’96 has had a pretty nice run since joining med-tech startup Intersect ENT as president and CEO.

The JV Chronicles: Making Kellogg My Own Adventure

I was ecstatic for my boyfriend when he was accepted to Kellogg, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit apprehensive about how my experience as a Joint Venture (partner of a student) would differ from his experience as a full-time student.

Besides the fact that I had never seen snow fall from the sky and didn’t yet understand the power of earmuffs, I was worried about how well I would fit in with the Kellogg community and whether or not I was in for two years of always feeling like a bit of an outsider. I foolishly assumed the experience was not mine to define, because this was his adventure and that I was just along for the ride.

Oh how wrong I was …

Prof. Kraemer on ‘Becoming the Best’

Prof. Harry Kraemer confesses that he does not do Q&As.

He does Q&Os.

“I have very few answers but a lot of opinions,” Kraemer said recently. One thing he is passionately opinionated about is leadership, and many of his thoughts on the topic can be found in his new book, “Becoming the Best: Build a World-Class Organization Through Values-Based Leadership,” which is available for purchase today.

In his first book, “From Values to Action: The Four Principles of Values-Based Leadership,” Kraemer showed how self-reflection, balance, true self-confidence and genuine humility are the four traits of today’s most effective leaders. In “Becoming the Best,” he explains anyone can apply these principles to become a values-based leader and help create values-based organizations.

Dropbox peace of mind | MBA Learnings

If I had to summarize my learning on pricing from my Microeconomics classes, it would be: avoid price competition like the plague. And to do that – differentiate, differentiate, differentiate.

We discussed Dropbox’s move last year to lower prices to compete with Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. The big question was whether this was going to be a race to the bottom in a future where storage would inevitably be free.

Now, Dropbox is one of my favorite products. I have been a user since the early days when they used to be hosted on “getdropbox.com” and their brand had nothing but positive associations. All my working files sit on Dropbox, and ever since I did that three years ago, I’ve never had to fret about whether my working files will ever be lost.

So I thought I’d put together two recommendations for Dropbox based on what I’ve learnt in Marketing and Microeconomics in the past few months.

Students develop forecasting tool for Chicago Bulls

The Chicago Bulls and Kellogg’s Analytical Consulting Lab have had a partnership that extends back to the spring quarter of 2012. In the fall quarter of 2014, a team of second year students (Gavin Driskill, Andres Oksenberg, Pankaj Tanwar and Bruno Valle) completed the most recent project with the Chicago Bulls as part of the course, led by Professor Russell Walker.

The Bulls, led by Director of Analytics Matt Kobe (Kellogg ’11), presented the ACL team with a merchandise and concession forecasting challenge. The team wanted to improve the forecasting of these revenue streams to help the team better plan and promote throughout the season.