Leveraging GSB to Build a Business During COVID-19

Starting a business at the GSB is exhilarating and daunting. Kicking off a business just as COVID-19 changed the fundamentals of our day-to-day was particularly turbulent. But the process of commercializing a new idea — precisely when new business models should be particularly hard to justify — revealed the foundational strength of Stanford’s entrepreneurial community.

Getting Off the Ground

A few encouraging conversations with fellow GSBers and an extremely well-placed piece from good friend and fellow first-year Hannah Sieber took me from a state of continuous flaw-finding to one willing to fail outright. Hannah rightly notes that 100,000 new U.S. companies were formed from 2010–2015 — a surprising, if not wholly counter-intuitive figure. I felt no choice but to conclude that the opportunity cost of starting something from scratch will never be lower (The Patio is closed, etc.), so one’s rationale should invert to “why not now?”

I quickly realized that I might even have market timing. Elevate is a platform pairing those with graduate-level and industry expertise to organizations and individuals looking to grow. With unemployment reaching heights not seen since the Great Depression, many organizations are furloughing or laying off millions of workers; 7.5 million small businesses are on the brink, and large organizations are far from exempt.

What if a small business could hire a highly trained professional to support essential functions for a few weeks at a time? A half-dozen organizations have reached out in the past week through LinkedIn, various freelancing platforms, and a host of other sources to partner. On the supply side, many MBAs now have more time than they care to admit — a function directly correlated with Zoom patience and access to Codenames (and whatever One Night Werewolf is).

Drawing from GSB’s Academics

My three electives last quarter imparted unexpected, yet indispensable pieces of wisdom. In Investing for Good, I connected with two different VC partners who provided me tangible advice on how to focus and define potential business verticals. Professor Charles Ewald and I even caught up a month or so after our course ended, and when the topic turned to business, he provided some critical tips to navigating the first six months of start-up work.

Seemingly every time we met for Alyssa Rapp’s Dynamics of the Global Wine Industry (and in reading her book, Leadership & Life Hacks), I found myself scribbling down an “aha” moment as to how I might commercialize what was then a largely nascent idea. In particular, our discussions on making markets as an intermediary were instrumental to the construction of what became our current business model. A bit further down the line, understanding when to pivot, or how to meld your offerings to the time at hand, could not have proven more applicable.

In an evening d.school session in Design for Extreme Affordability, Professor Coulson brought up the possibility of designing for the opposite of what you want. Try to actually create something worse than you would have imagined possible. In (de)constructing a house, make the foundation unstable, the walls permeable, the running water walk. This concept has helped me orient our branding and market outreach strategy, uncovering new ways to reach consumers and more effectively communicate our value proposition.

Stumbling on Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Backbone

LLC or C-Corp? Incorporate now or later? Seek out funding soon, later, or never? With practical insight from Stanford’s Venture Studio and some Slack-generated advice from classmates, the time needed to answer these questions was cut dramatically. Everyone was incredibly charitable with their time despite their inability to connect in person.

I ended up doing independent research into what previous start-ups had done, including many founded by GSB alumni. One alumnus who I connected with insisted that I use the very platforms through which I’d started generating business to find talent and help it grow. I took her advice, hiring multiple administrative personnel and setting up conversations to bring on B2B go-to-market experts. It’s already reaping rewards, and this upcoming week is projected to drive more revenue than the past two combined.

Looking Beyond Current Events

GSB has offered a phenomenal scaffolding for the initial stages of Elevate and many of our fellow classmates’ new businesses. As we usher in a “new normal” on a seemingly bi-weekly basis, I see tremendous opportunity to continue drawing on Stanford’s flexible network of curious minds and entrepreneurial resources.

When all is said and done, there may (or may not) be a halfway decent company to show for all the time dedicated. Hopefully — and more importantly — this piece helps formulate a playbook for other start-ups who want to take to full advantage of the entrepreneurial community at GSB.