Among a flurry of business start-ups and eager entrepreneurs, six University MBA students found themselves competing in the kick-off event of The Idea Village’s New Orleans Entrepreneur Week.
IDEAcorps, hosted by Loyola University and Idea Village, is an MBA consulting case competition in which teams of six partner with local business start-ups to tailor a business plan to move the company forward in three days.
MBA students Parker Cramer, Trevor Grant, Lauren Breaux, Steven Goyne, Sarah Gardner and Sayre Phinney represented the University at the competition Sunday, competing against Loyola and Tulane University.
The University students were partnered with Tim Kappel, the founder of Echo Music and Memories Mobile Application.
“The whole concept of the entire weekend was moving the needle for [Kappel],” Phinney said. “We came in and essentially assessed where his business was and asked him where he wanted it to be and did everything we could in a matter of three days to get him as close to the future as possible.”
Kappel was in the “classic conundrum” of wanting to improve and expand his business but not having the means to do so, Goyne said. The team “weaponized” Kappel by initiating a big marketing push, creating a new logo, implementing a social media presence and preparing him to speak with potential investors.
While the MBA team has previously participated in other case competitions across the nation, IDEAcorps presented a different challenge in that the teams worked with a real entrepreneur, instead of being given a hypothetical situation, Gardner said.
IDEAcorps provided the MBA team with experiential learning, which Goyne said is the most valuable thing in business education.
“You can theorize from multiple perspectives, and it doesn’t make sense unless you bring it all together and have to make decisions under competing priorities and limited budgets and things like that,” Goyne said. “The experiential part is what’s huge.”
The event also provided great networking opportunities, allowing the MBA team to meet and talk to C-Suite executives, Goyne said.
Another takeaway from the competition is building the Univeristy’s brand, Cramer, who previously worked for The Daily Reveille, said. To create a culture of case competitions on campus, the MBA team wants to instill an ambassador program, where teams are sent out to other competitions to represent the University.
Phinney said students would excel in these kinds of environments, showing other schools and cities what the University’s students can do outside football.
“In general, LSU students are great speakers, intelligent, work hard and can do the things that are necessary to be successful in a competition like this,” Phinney said.