MBA Idea No. 14: Free MBA labor
31Projects connects MBA students with consulting projects from companies.
“Our vision is to provide an open platform where all organizations, regardless of size or resources, can easily and effectively identify and recruit the talent they need to be globally competitive. The projects and competitions are win‐win situations for both organizations and students, and can be used by employers to create a highly effective pipeline of top student talent into their organization.” says founder and CEO Jon Reifschneider.
Market Guesstimate: According to the Graduate Management Admission Council there are around 1,900 business schools in the world and 4,750 graduate management education programs in 2010. Suppose each business school had 100 students interested in 31Projects. That’s a potential audience of about 190,000 students. Given a 80 hour project at $50 an hour, that’s about a $760M free labor market.
The site is preparing to launch in fall with an impressive line-up of top tier programs:
Alternatively, you can post projects at MBA schools directly, such as Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Cornell’s Johnson School.
More on founder of 31Projects:
Jon Reifschneider, Founder & CEO
31Projects founder Jon Reifschneider has seen first- hand the value of employing students to address business challenges, having both conducted projects for companies as a student and led such projects as an company sponsor. Jon founded 31Projects after finishing business school to serve the needs of businesses and students, which have been further exacerbated on both sides during the recent recession.
Prior to founding 31Projects, Jon assisted in the management of a corporate venture fund and led commercialization efforts for new service innovations in the U.S. and Europe for SES. He also worked in technology commercialization and new ventures for Siemens Technology Accelerator and W.L. Gore & Associates. Jon holds an MBA from the European Business School, a Master of Engineering Management from Duke University, and a B.S. Summa cum laude from the University of Virginia.
MBA Idea No.13: Commercial Infidelity
AshleyMadison is an online dating service—6 million users strong—serving people in existing relationships looking to have an affair.
Controversy surrounds the site, and Superbowl XLIII, the Toronto Transit Commission and the City of Phoenix, Arizona banned its advertisements.
Trish McDermott, co-founder of Match.com, accuses AshleyMadison of being a “business built on the back of broken hearts, ruined marriages and damaged families”.
Despite the setbacks, founder Noel Biderman (pictured above) continues to rationalize and promote the site with events like Mistress Day.
“Mistress Day is the day before Valentine’s Day. It’s the day when men with mistresses should make sure that they don’t forget about them,” explains Biderman.
Other promotional campaigns include sponsoring the “Tiger Woods Mistress Beauty Pageant” on the Howard Stern morning radio show.
Tiger woods mistress Jamie Jungers (pictured left) was this year’s winner, who reportedly slept with Tiger the night his father died. She received $75,000 in prize money from AshleyMadison.
Noel Biderman compares negative views of maritl affairs to past views of interracial or gay marriages, noting that social norms change over time and 30% of people on existing dating sites are in pre-existing relationships.
Other notable Canada-based dating sites include MillionaireMatch.com for pursuing relationships with wealthy partners.
About founder and CEO Noel Biderman: Biderman was previously Vice President at JumpTV, General Manager at Move, and Director of Canadian Operations at Interperformances Inc. He was educated at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Canada. He’s been featured on Larry King Live and CNN.
