Henry Tam And The Mgi Case Analysis

We have to evaluate the performance of a distinctly diverse team aiming to create a business plan for MGI’s “Music Puzzle” Game to enter the HBS contest. The team comprised of MGI founders, Sasha, Igor and Roman, two HBS students Henry and Dana and subject matter experts Alex and Dav. In addition, we have to recommend actions for Henry Tam, which would foster better team dynamics to accomplish the task at hand.

The clip from Silicon Valley showed many entrepreneurs pitching their trivial products under the slogan that the products “will make the world a better place” and is “local, mobile, social”. These pitches essentially strung big words together in hopes that the investors will fund the products. This satirical portrayal of the entrepreneurs contributes to the conversations we had on the current climate of entrepreneurship and the goal of entrepreneurial ideas. As described in Avery Wiscomb’s article “The Entrepreneurship Racket”, many students and faculties are feeling the pressure of being entrepreneurs. Under this pressure, students develop ideas that are as trivial as those portrayed in the video and the contradiction between the slogans and

Poor management is another contributing factor and reason the project fails. Initially, the company, “allowed [the team] as much autonomy as possible” (700). The firm intended to give the team “freedom to see the project through from start to finish by coming up with their own ideas, hiring someone to film the commercial once the idea was in place, creating and maintaining a budget, and presenting the final commercial to the client.” However, this proves to be too much autonomy for a team which worked together for only a week. The team is not given enough guidance or information by management to properly pursue this “home run” project. Management does not provide the necessary steps the team should have taken to effectively complete the assignment. In addition, as stated before, a strong bias exists towards the choice of which members would comprise the “home run” team. Management failed to choose group members based on group performance. Rather, they chose members based on surface-level attributes, such as age, time within the company, and sociability.

The art center forced on education and made it their number one goal. The company had a good stagey plan that work for them, through their structure and leadership within in the company with their ability to execute and carry out the plan. They plan ahead and focus on the business low cost stagey as a whole instead of as just one thing on their agenda. They would have had a different outcome if their focus would have been only to make a proof and not consider their client at the center. The center would have suffer because they would have cut corner to make sure they were not losing money but, making money. I think that they did as best to could because of what was at stake. The center worked together and came up with the best solution considering the

This case study is focused on a company called Vigor Skin Care. Initially known as the “sleeping dog,” Vigor was barely raking in a profit during its initial years of development. However four years ago, Peter Markles, the current head of Vigor, accepted the challenge of reviving the company. Markles first step in solving this problem was forming a team whose members were committed towards achieving a common goal; bringing success to Vigor. In addition to Markles, Sandy Fryda, Vigor’s marketing director, and Josh Bartola, a creative entrepreneur at Vigor, became the constituents of “Fearsome Threesome.” All three members contributed to the team in different ways. Markles was the overseer of all the operations while Fryda helped them avoid

Barringer, B. R. (2009). Preparing Effective Business Plans: An Entrepreneurial Approach. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

The following questions were presented to prove/disapprove whether or not the Rust College business department is adequately preparing its students to be entrepreneurs. The results were determined by conducting a widespread research. In order to address the following questions, statistical data was gathered from a survey conducted on its current students.

Coming into ECON 125 you could classify our team, made up of three first-years and one sophomore, as inexperienced and unaware of the complexity of the entrepreneurial process. Once we were assigned our team and decided on an idea we assumed all that was left was hashing out the fine details and coming together with a business plan. After meeting with our coach for the first time we realized our original idea was vaguely connected to IOT and we struggled to connect our customer to user. After a few group meetings, we came up with a new idea that we saw potential in. After another meeting with our coach we were able to precisely connect our idea to, but we still needed to define our target customer and user. This required us to pivot from a water tracking bottle to a water tracking bottle and nutrient dispensing bottle. This crucial pivot allowed us to expand our customer base from a smaller market of people who have the need/desire to track their water to a customer base who has the need/desire to keep track of their nutrients and water. After we had a solid idea nailed down, we went to the people who mattered most, the customers, and asked them to depict their ideal smart water bottle. We originally thought people wanted a tall skinny bottle, but an overwhelming majority of the people we talked too drew a canister shape bottle with a wider cap. Fortunately, this pivot worked in our favor as it made it easier to fit all the technology into the cap. The team’s ability to pivot allowed us to create a viable product with a stable customer

First of all, I met numerous people have no idea what they want in life; all they want is to party. I truly believe in growing, I must surround by the growth one. Base on U.S news, Haas was ranked among the top business school program for high school during the summer. So far, what I understand about the business world only in theory. Come to the program, I hope I can cultivate my knowledge on economic and put it into action. In this 2 immensely weeks, I will obtain the foundation of developing a business. The program will teach me book-keeping, group management, marketing, advertising, negotiation, effective communication, and leadership – all skills an entrepreneur must possess in order to be successful. Through the collaboration with a selective group of 50 people that has the similar backgrounds, or common interests as me, I shall expand my connection network, and gradually maturing in speaking and thinking as a businessman. The program will also provide me copious opportunities to seek suggestions, wisdom, enlightenments from guest speakers and professors from one of the most famous business schools nationwide are unquestionably worth every penny. Not to mention, I will also receive a UC Berkeley Business Academy for Youth Certificate of Completion on my transcript for college, increasing my chance to get into a great business school. I’m aware of formidable obstacles in front of me, however, I will always to do the

In the year 2000, Music Games International (MGI) was founded as a company that produced music and sound effects for websites. Three friends, Alexander (Sasha) Gimpelson, Igor Tkachenko, and Roman Yakub were the founders of the company. Roman and Igor, professional musicians and composers, formed the creative part of the group, while Sasha, a graduate from Harvard Business School, ran the business operations of the company (Polzer, Vargas, & Elfenbein, 2003). After the launch of the company, the future seemed very promising. However, after the Internet bubble burst, business went down because people could no longer afford their services. The group then came up with the idea of a promising product— an interactive music-based game. The creative force of the group, Roman and Igor, had no problem as their department depended on their musical talents. Sasha, however, who ran business operations such as production, sales and marketing, was overwhelmed by being the sole businessperson in the company.

Starting a business is hard and requires a lot of commitment, learning, and determination. It is a challenging thing that can lead to a huge success or to a huge failure. So, the Startup.com documentary shows us the success and quick failure of govWorks Inc. a dot-com company founded in 1998 by Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman. The documentary gives the audience an insight of how difficult can be mixing friends and business. The dream of Kaleil and Herman, entrepreneurs and co-founders, came to reality pretty fast because they presented to the market pioneering ideas of what we know nowadays as, e-commerce. The company was a huge success in the first months and they raised over 60 million dollars along the way but it also became a failure in just two years when it went bankrupt. What was the mistake? What could they have done differently? Even though the idea of the company was revolutionary by that time, this whole project demonstrated to Kaleil, Tom, and future entrepreneurs, that the key rules to start a business, and succeed on it, are good management, teamwork, and leadership.

Research shows that business plan competitions throughout time have always provided a substantial opportunity to improve entrepreneurial education. Student entrepreneurs originally were interested in business plan competitions because it was a place for them to create and pitch their business ideas to real investors and get incredible feedback. However, over time, the location of the competitions, the people competing in the competitions, the robustness of business plans, and the outcome of the competition have changed. These four factors affect each other and have changed how people go about growing as entrepreneurs.

Deciding to invest in a business that will put your skills to work can be tough. Most have the mindset of, “starting from the bottom, and now you’re here.” Establishing a business from the ground can be challenging at first, but after years of evolution in the business can be rewarding. Little did Larry and Bonnie Merritt know, their baked goods would become high demand for the community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Starting the business themselves, the Merritt’s pursued their business that is still to this day open for the public. Taking a deeper look into their organizational structures, can create a positive impression that this family worked hard to keep up with the demand.

Jack Ma and Indra Nooyi share very common similarities regarding their leadership stories which appear to be strong catalysts in shaping their leadership purpose. They both came from rather simple beginnings, Indra was raised by a strict conservative Brahmin family in Southern India and Jack was repeatedly rejected for his plans of starting an internet company in America. Not deterred by that experience Jack then returned to China with no money but a solid business idea. While it is clear in watching them that these are leaders who remain quite humble about their achievements, Jack especially is someone who happily admits he has made a lot of errors on his path to success, stating his plans to write the book ‘Alibaba’s 1001 mistakes, that

This was an absolutely memorable time and group I was able to work with. It gave me a whole new experience and perspective on working with so many different types of personalities, work ethics, and emotions. I will always have a better understanding and different outlook of why things don’t always go smoothly, and why goals, so often, are never met. Girls were always coming and going, so dynamics of the group were often changing, fights occurred frequently, and many people were even let go or transferred. Throughout all of the years of loses/additions in group members, the monthly goal sets, and even new leadership for certain periods of time, every month could have had a better outcome regarding the accomplishment of our goals. It was extremely difficult getting 10-13 people on the same page, and motivated for the same goal. A lot of the problems did stem from the leadership of the group, though many people say you can’t make someone want something, if a group leader doesn’t even try to provoke their team members to do better, you can guarantee less of what you expect. Each month, whether there were new group members (stylists), or not, we always experienced at least one form of a group dialectic and in many months, we did not meet our goals.