Joshua Herzig-Marx

Today was my first day as an MBA student at Babson College, class of 2008. It was exciting to meet as many of my 169 classmates as possible (almost 50% international, very cool) and to learn more about the unique curriculum, alumni, and networking opportunities. We also had our first case conversation, about the movie Startup.com, and since I didn’t get to make two points I thought I’d include them below:

1. A lot of attention was paid to the interpersonal relationship between the founders and to marketing failures of their product. I don’t think enough attention was paid to their ability to deliver. Software development isn’t technology (just like running a factory isn’t engineering) and their company seemed to be lacking that delivery expertise
2. There only seemed to be enough funding to develop the product once. It seems highly unlikely that the first release of anything will be correct–it’s too much to get the management, operations, product design, and marketing spot on at your first try. If you can’t secure enough funding for a few attempts, you’d better find a way to make your early attempts less expensive.

Like I said, a great first day, and I look forward to tomorrow.