This year, a team of five students took first place in the Kellogg Venture Capital Investment Challenge, and will represent Kellogg at this year’s regional competition, held today at the University of Texas. Ty Findley, one of the winning team members, discusses the value of the experience and what he’s learned about venture capital, below.
How do trends work?
What do Crocs, TED and Instagram have in common? According to Dr. Liraz Lasry, marketing professor at Recanati Business School, they all are trends that have spread from person to person, without significant interference from marketing. In this TEDx talk, Lasry explain why trends happen, how they influence us and why trends may play a large role… Continue reading
Alumni Spotlight: Jeff Eschbach ’14
Build, design and problem-solve: That’s all Jeff Eschbach ’14 wanted to do with his career, and for more than 15 years, that’s exactly what he’s done.
As an engineer and technologist, Eschbach has helped design new phones and other mobile technologies for Motorola and created computer chips for Intel.
But now he’s taking his technological acumen to the courtroom with Page Vault, a company he founded in 2012 as a student to independently store and safeguard Internet content for lawyers to use as evidence later in court.
Professor earns Journal of Finance best paper for second straight year
Associate Professor Dimitris Papanikolaou had a question. He wondered why investors are so willing to invest in growth firms – like Uber or Facebook – that have historically produced low average returns, when they could be investing in value stocks – like General Electric – that seem to provide a more guaranteed return.
Papanikolaou, who teaches finance at Kellogg, investigated that question in new research that recently won the Amundi Smith Breeden Award for best paper in the top-ranked Journal of Finance. He earned the same award last year for his paper on the value of investing in people.
Why I went to Kellogg
I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life. When I was a kid, I sold candy and comic books. Today, I run a software development company. About nine years ago, I started a non-profit called Refresh Miami to help connect other entrepreneurs and technologists in my area. At the time, I didn’t realize what I was… Continue reading
Zell Scholars receive support for their startups
For some students, starting a business means more than just having a clever idea. It’s a passion, a future career, and a chance to solve industry deficiencies or build a game-changing startup with lasting value.
With that in mind, Kellogg unveiled the Zell Scholars program last year to provide support for students looking to turn their startups into market- and funding-ready businesses, said David Schonthal, program director and a clinical assistant professor of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Recently, 10 students were named to the 2014-15 class.
More than 200 companies hired Kellogg graduates in 2014
Kellogg graduates enter the workforce educated and equipped to lead with confidence in virtually every industry and a wide array of functional roles. This is no accident. We have designed our curriculum precisely for that purpose.
How relevant costs influence decision making | MBA Learnings
Fred Wilson, partner at Union Square Ventures and investor in most networks we know and love (Twitter, Tumblr, Etsy, Kickstarter), had a great post on sunk costs this week. It is a must read. My favorite part is below:
“This is a hard thing to do. It is human nature to want to recover the sunk costs. We face this all the time in our business. When we have invested $500,000 or $5 (million) into a company, it is really easy to get into the mindset that we need to stick with the investment so we can get our money back. If we stop funding, then we write off the investment almost all of the time. If we keep putting money in, there is a chance the investment will work out and we’ll get our money back or even a return on it.
Even though I was taught about sunk costs in business school twenty-five years ago, I have had to learn this lesson the hard way. Most of the time that we make a follow-on investment defensively, to protect the capital we have already invested, that follow-on investment is marginal or outright bad. I have seen this again and again. And so we try really hard to look at every investment based on the return on the new money and not include the capital we have already invested in the decision.”
Innovating Public-Private Partnerships with the Governor of Colorado
In our time at Kellogg, there has been no shortage of engaging and unique experiences, but among all the trips across the globe and thought-provoking coursework, one opportunity stands out among the rest. Being selected to participate in the first Kellogg Innovation Network (KIN) challenge was truly distinctive because it allowed us to draw on some of our coursework and personal experiences to work directly with the Governor of Colorado on a real issue facing his state.
The KIN can be described as a community of thought and growth leaders from around the world. In 2014, the KIN launched a new program called the KIN Challenge that was designed to offer Kellogg students the opportunity to solve complex problems facing the Challenge sponsors.
The 2014 KIN challengers included Esther Dyson, Ann Hand and Governor John Hickenlooper. The challenge initially proposed by Governor Hickenlooper’s office focused on developing an innovative public-private partnership model (PPP or P3) to harness private sector investment for large capital works projects (infrastructure, public housing, energy-related projects etc.). Governor Hickenlooper’s team was specifically looking for recommendations on how to create an institutional entity/legislative body that could develop PPP proposals and attract capital for such projects.
Behind the scenes at Kellogg’s Super Bowl Ad Review
Current students Mike Hayes, David Morgenstern, Kate O’Brady and Vivek Kumar were four of the viewers who participated in this year’s Kellogg School Super Bowl Advertising Review. Find out why they participated, what their favorite commercial was and what they learned from the experience.
Follow Kellogg’s Super Bowl Ad Review with #KelloggSB
Each year, brands spend upwards of $2 billion collectively on Super Bowl commercials. Some emerge as clear winners. Others limp away. This year, for the eleventh time, Kellogg School of Management marketing students will apply rigorous, research-based criteria to determine what separates the Super Bowl advertising winners from the losers.
Follow the Kellogg Super Bowl Ad Review in real-time this Sunday via our website’s social feed, powered by RebelMouse, at http://kell.gg/superbowlsocial, or on Twitter with #KelloggSB.
How we won the Kellogg Marketing Conference’s Creative Lab (and a really big shoe)
Kellogg’s Marketing Conference is by far one of the largest events at Kellogg. More than 500 attendees, hotshot panelists from companies like Google, SC Johnson, Kraft, Johnson & Johnson, Pepsico and Uber, incredible keynote speakers and the vibrancy of the student leadership team make this an exciting and informative event.
For the first time, this year’s marketing conference featured a creative session competition hosted by the Google Brand Studio. Six teams of four members competed to solve a marketing prompt delivered the day of the competition. We were excited to participate because of our interest in the rapidly evolving tech industry.