Entrepreneurial Nuggets | Adirondack Jack | Wave Extinguisher at Ripley’s | Cheap Lego Drones | Warby Parker Makes Public School Hip

Alibaba founder Jack Ma bought 28,000 acres of forestland in the Adirondacks for conservation purposes… While billionaire founders and CEOs conserving land in NY is not new, the fact that a Chinese innovators is there too is interesting. Read the story about Jack and his $23 million dollar buy.

Warby Parker, the hip, social impact oriented eye glass firm founded by Wharton

Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Cartoon of the day 6/26/15.

students has partnered with New York City Public Schools and will provide up to 20,000 pairs of glasses to kids in need.

GMU’s Seth Robertson and Viet Tran were feature in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Cartoon of the Day for their Wave Extinguisher — it puts out fire with sound waves!

We love Parrot drones at Mason — they are fun for students to learn on. The company announced 13 new drones this week for less than $189! One with a Lego attachment!

Commonbond, an innovative student loan company started at Wharton in 2012, sold its first bonds to Wall Street investors. By targeting specific students and graduates (originally Wharton grads), the firm offers lower rates to lender and loan products with specific attributes to investors.

Do Groups Kill Innovation – Knowledge@Wharton

From Knowledge@Wharton — the first business school in America (btw).

To come up with the next iPad, Amazon or Facebook, the last thing potential innovators need is a group brainstorm session. What the pacesetters of the future really require, according to new Wharton research, is some time alone.

In a paper titled, “Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea (PDF),” Wharton operations and information management professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich argue that group dynamics are the enemy of businesses trying to develop one-of-a-kind new products, unique ways to save money or distinctive marketing strategies.

How Group Dynamics May Be Killing Innovation – Knowledge@Wharton.

What Happened @ Wharton’s BPlan Competition

There are some smart people at Wharton (and within the broader UPenn neighborhood) so its worth reading about their business plan competition. From Knowledge@Wharton:

Competing for more than $70,000 in cash and prizes, the eight teams that reached the BPC finals presented their plans on April 29 to a panel of judges and an audience of nearly 300 venture capitalists, business leaders, faculty and students. The competition is open to any University of Pennsylvania student and is managed by Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs.

Despite the challenges of starting a business during a down economy, interest in the BPC was higher this year than in the past two years. More than 160 teams entered the contest compared to 145 last year and 151 the year before. BPC 2009 launched last fall with the submission of students’ business concepts. The teams then competed throughout the year for a spot as one of the eight finalists.

The range of industries/firms is pretty fascinating: from open source toy robot teddy bears to online bill splitting services (think roommates paying rent/cable/etc.)… Good stuff. Good on you Wharton.

Entrepreneurship Prof Behind Celtics?

As an entrepreneur with a sports venture, I am excited to see that Profs and business schools view sports as a major growth industry and are tailoring entrepreneurship programs in response. We have covered the programs that schools are offering for pro athletes. This article, from the Economist, is full of great examples, including a campus entrepreneur in Nebraska and a Stanford Prof who helps manage the Celtics! (I had no idea, very cool) Mark Cuban, btw, created Broadcast.com so that he could watch his beloved Hoosiers after he had left Bloomington. From the Economist:

At American business schools, there are signs of faith in the sports business. One believer is Professor H. Irving Grousbeck, the director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He juggles his academic duties with a role as managing partner of the Boston Celtics, a National Basketball Association (NBA) team.

Professor Grousbeck is part of Boston Basketball Partners LLC, a partnership that bought the Celtics in 2003. In the previous five decades, the Celtics had amassed 16 NBA championships, but a bad run in the 1990s and into the 21st century had tested the patience of their loyal following. Professor Grousbeck says he and his partners wanted to restore the team’s camaraderie and pride.

Not that sentiment caused them to forget the goal of profitability. Initially, the group considered buying a baseball team, but feared losing money. The Celtics’ asking price of $360m, says Professor Grousbeck, “felt fair”—although he stresses that, as a professor of entrepreneurship, he was aware the venture had its risks.

And,

And some sports-loving MBAs are taking their enthusiasm beyond the classroom. One such is John Wirtz, who got his MBA at the University of Nebraska and is now chief operating officer of Agile Sports Technologies, a start-up. While at Nebraska, he developed what eventually became “Hudl”, a software package offered by Agile that combines videos, playbooks, presentations and evaluations for players and managers to view online. In vindication of Professor Shropshire’s faith, the project was initially funded through prize money from business-plan competitions. In three years, ten teams have signed up, including the New York Jets NFL team.

BTW, the Economist has another piece on how Sport as an industry performs in a downturn. Is it recession proof?

NFL Players as Campus Entrepreneurs

Cool article on ESPN by Anna K. Clemmons about NFL players going to Wharton, Stanford, Harvard, and Kellogg to learn to make better decisions and be more entrepreneurial. Seems like they are trying to protect the players (who have a lot of capital/cash) from being swindled, but also teach them to make smart investments.

From the article:

A brainchild of the NFL Players Association, the NFL and several professors, the Business Management and Entrepreneurial Program has become a sports business wunderkind. Since its inception four years ago, when 66 players attended Harvard and Wharton, annual attendance at four campuses has reached about 115 players. Each school is differentiated by its area of expertise: real estate/entrepreneurship at Wharton, sports business at Stanford, brand/franchise management at Northwestern’s Kellogg School and entrepreneurial/business management at Harvard.