MBA Idea No. 15: Affordable Luxury Cars
In a world of Groupon and LivingSocial driving down the price of services and restaurants, a new startup aims to make the luxury car market more affordable.
“People don’t realize they can get a nice BMW for the price of a Toyota Camry,” said co-founder Corey Hulen, “they just need to know which locations and model years sell at the most affordable prices.”
As a demonstration, if you’re looking for a for sale within 300 miles of Menlo Park, California. Pricini shows you what a BMW X5 typically lists for across model years, and in which counties the average price has been higher or lower than the mean.
Developed at Stanford, Pricini is currently in a closed beta program. You can apply for access to the closed beta at http://pricini.com/sign-in
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.10: Flying windmills
Joby Energy develops airborne wind turbines.
The machines generate electricity high in the air where winds blow powerfully and consistently compared to winds available for land-based windmills.
Other companies in the space include Magenn, which makes a balloon-based solution, Ampyx, which uses a plane-based solution, and Sky Windpower, which uses helicopters.
There are some kite-based projects as well, including: aeroix, KiteGen, and Laddermill.
Plus, China is investing in the field with projects from Hummer Dynamo and the city of Foshan.
Here’s what the balloon-based windmill looks like:
If you’re interested in the industry, check out: The Airborne Wind Energy Consortium and their September 2010 conference at Stanford.
Joby Energy was founded by JoeBen Bevirt, who holds mechanical engineering degrees from Stanford and University of California, Davis.
** Special thanks to Jim Wilson (Stanford MBA ‘11) for the links and info.
Founder
JoeBen Bevirt is an inveterate entrepreneur born with a passion for engineering that has driven the formation of four successful companies over the past 10 years.
In 2000, JoeBen co-founded Velocity11 which developed high-performance laboratory equipment. He served as President & CEO until 2002, as President until 2006, and as a board member until the sale to Agilent Technologies in 2007. Under his leadership, Velocity11 repeatedly achieved record organic growth.
JoeBen founded Joby, Inc. in 2005 to develop, market, and sell useful, unique, and delightful consumer products. Profitable almost immediately, Joby continues to deliver new products and record profits.
JoeBen turned his focus to renewable energy and in 2008, founded Joby Energy Inc. to develop groundbreaking airborne wind turbines to harness the abundant power of high-altitude wind. Airborne wind turbines generate electricity at prices that promise to transform the way we power the planet.
In 2009, leveraging the control systems and electric propulsion systems developed at Joby Energy, JoeBen founded Joby Aviation to revolutionize how we commute. Joby Aviation is developing a compact electric personal aircraft designed for efficient high speed flights. Electric propulsion enables our aircraft to takeoff and land vertically while retaining the efficieny of an airplane.
JoeBen holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Davis and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. JoeBen holds 12 U.S. patents.
MBA Idea No.8: Fan-funded Fashion Designers
StyleTrek.com helps emerging designers find funding and marketing support from fans and admirers.
The site is for two kinds of people: First, those who want to support fashion designers—style trekkers—both by buying their products and contributing financially as they develop their designs.
Second, emerging designers from around the world passionate about design, but unable to access the financial and marketing resources to launch their careers in a highly competitive, hits-based market.
The business builds on the concept of “crowd funding”, a new trend using social media and fans to fund new ideas.
The trend seems to happen more typically in the arts, on sites like Kickstarter.com, where funding is more difficult to find, and financial returns are likely modest.
StyleTrek.com is led by CEO Cecilia Pagkalinwan, who studied communication arts and journalism at Hofstra University:
CEO – Cecilia Pagkalinawan – cecilia at styletrek.com Cecilia has a track record in launching and marketing successful e-commerce businesses. She has launched and marketed online stores for Nine West, Burberry, Frette, and La Perla. She has grown sales from 40 – 70% year over year for fashion brands.
She has experience in running and working for internet start-ups such as K2, RichFX, Abilon, and was CEO of BoutiqueY3K, an ecommerce consulting firm. After working at dot com start-ups, Cecilia joined established multi-national luxury and fashion brands in senior and executive management positions and was involved in ecommerce, merchandising, marketing and operations for Burberry, Frette, and La Perla.
Cecilia was recognized in 1999 by Silicon Alley Reporter among the ” Top 100 Internet Executives in NY.” She was named the National Association of Women Business Owner’s “New York Businesswoman of the Year” in 2000. Cecilia is among 96 executives featured in the book “Distinguished Asian- American Business People” published in 2004. She has been featured in WSJ, Asia WSJ, VOGUE, Asiaweek, BusinessWeek, Fortune Small Business, Entrepreneur, Advertising Age, E-commerce Times and was on CNN’s “Entrepreneurs Only.” She is a frequent speaker at conferences on E-commerce, Multi-channel Marketing and Entrepreneurship.
