My Year in MBET Condensed into 1:58

I’ve been asked countless times over the past year about my Master’s program at the University of Waterloo, and what exactly we did in the program. Often, people immediately think….MBA? Well, not quite.

As the MBET program enters it’s eighth year (or version 8.0 as us MBETers like to refer to it as) the program is very much still in it’s infancy. Building a name and a reputation not only domestically but internationally takes time. So it’s understandable if people aren’t quite familiar with the program, and how unique it really is.

I usually begin by telling people that MBET differs from an MBA in several ways, but most importantly ‘MBETers learn to create, while MBA’s learn to manage‘. While that’s not always true of all MBA programs (cue the angry emails from MBA students), it’s generally applicable to most programs.

MBET – Where Ideas Come to Life

While it may not always be fair to say that MBA’s are always taught to manage, it’s simply the best way to contrast what we do in the MBET program with that of a typical MBA program. Simply put, the focus of the MBET program is to take a concept from idea to commercialization, all within one year. We call it, our practicum. While that can be a tall mountain to climb, all of us set that as the benchmark at the beginning of the year. MBET doesn’t promote students to write business plans, marketing plans, five forces model, or SWOT analysis (although one can expect to come across one or another during the course of the year!). The program pushes students to examine the current market environment and to identify possible opportunities that may exist.

MBET is all about collaboration, and each idea is cultivated within a team and multi-disciplinary environment. This allows each group to incorporate as much diversity as possible into the practicum. Having an engineer, a business, arts, or a even psychology student work on the practicum encourages each individual to provide their own unique view of the problems encountered during the life of a start-up and possible solutions that we may otherwise not have considered. While each student engages in idea exploration in his or her preferred vertical, each course is taught to compliment where each student is at during the life cycle of their venture. Topics in finance and accounting address items such as pre-revenue issues, or what to think about from a capital perspective before launching a product, not how to manage capital when you’re bringing in a $100 million in revenue annually. Each student is just not at that point yet. In that respect, course content is very unique and the program isn’t structured like a traditional university course where you have 5 different courses each semester. All MBET courses are set up to extend beyond one semester and continue for the entire year. It’s a unique way of teaching that allows students to learn and grow with the course and apply those theories and techniques into their respective practicum.

There is plenty more to write about the program and the lessons I’ve learned over the past year while working in a start-up. I’ll break down each relevant issue in the coming weeks, but for now feel free to take a look at the video below to get a glimpse for what I did in the program and in my practicum this past year.

If you are interested in learning about some of the other practicums students in the MBET program have worked on in recent years, head here to see a listing of the projects.

MBET Blog Post: ‘CBET Continues to Grow & The Clip Mobile Team in Vancouver!’

The following post appeared on the Conrad Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology blog by students in the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology program. This particular post provides a brief snapshot of some of the experiences I had within the program.

Since my inaugural post, it’s been a whirlwind of a month.

To begin, if you haven’t heard the great news, local philanthropist Manfred Conrad and his family have generously donated $5 million to the The Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology which will now appropriately bear his name.  The donation will be used to support the culture of entrepreneurship and outreach both locally and abroad that CBET has been building here at the University of Waterloo. For more information you can check out the press release and article in the Waterloo Record.

During my hiatus (although after one post I’m not sure if you could classify it as such) I’ve been busy working on Clip Mobile, and what a month it’s been. For those of you who don’t know, Clip is Canada’s first mobile coupon application that’s currently available on the Apple iPhone and Google Android powered smartphone. (You can download the app from the Apple App Store here.)

During the past month, the Clip team have been busy traveling to various technology conferences and events across North America in order to gain a better understanding of where technology is headed, network with both industry leaders and potential clients, as well as showcase our app. We’ve attended MobileX in Chicago, the CTIA Wireless Conference in Las Vegas, and most recently as exhibitors at the F5 Expo in Vancouver last week.

Since I had the opportunity to play with Apple’s new iPad in Vancouver, I think it’s appropriate to highlight our experience from there!

Clip has had some very early success in the region of our Olympic host, with both a strong following of users and merchants. When we were approached by Lindsay Smith, the CEO of Massive Media, to attend the Expo as exhibitors we couldn’t say yes quickly enough. After all, the F5 Expo is all about pressing the reset button. It was designed to highlight how businesses can leverage technology in new and refreshing ways, while encouraging them to look and think outside of the box. In fact, it really sums up what we are all about at Clip!

The Pre-F5 Tweetup!

The week started off with the Clip Mobile team attending a pre-F5 Tweetup at a local Vancouver pub. For those of you who don’t know, a Tweetup is a meeting that’s organized over Twitter, and is often completely random and spontaneous. The Tweetup was a great way to connect with those who were attending the F5 Expo and find out what their motivations were for going. In true Clip Mobile fashion, we couldn’t let a great opportunity for self-promotion pass us up, and anyone who opened up our app would have noticed we had a great little deal on there. (Hint: Check out the photo below). It’s safe to say that the free pint was a rousing success; it was also a great way to work with no words, and let users understand exactly how the app works!

The F5 Expo

Lindsay’s grasp of business and emerging trends in technology was on full display at the Expo, which included an impressive lineup of speakers and a keynote presentation by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw. Unfortunately for the Clip team, we were unable to catch his talk because we were busy chatting up attendees and technology fans all day. If Vancouver is known for it’s beautiful scenery, Lululemon, and site of the 2010 games, let it be known that the people who wear yoga gear on the regular absolutely love their technology. In fact, they love talking about it even more, to the point that we ran out of marketing material and business cards by the mid-afternoon, and it’s not like we didn’t c0me prepared!! I could talk more about the Expo and the great people of Vancouver, but there’s about 150 business cards on my desk that need a follow up!

As for this blog, since I won’t be jet-setting around for the next little while, you can look forward to more frequent posts and thoughts about what my colleagues and I are up to. In addition, I’ll be highlighting some of the personalities, talent, and projects that are taking place here in the walls of the Conrad Centre.

I should also point out that if you want to stay in touch with me and are interested in my musings; everything from technology to sports you can follow me on Twitter here. You can also stay up to date on the latest Clip Mobile news by following us on Twitter as well.

Enjoy your weekend,

Paul