Tag Archives: MBA+ projects

Guest Blogger MBA ’12 Carlos Dinkins Follows Up One Year Later…

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Published by Angela Zerda/Article written by Carlos Dinkins

A year ago, then first-year MBA Carlos Dinkins, wrote an article about his MBA+ project experience with Silicon Valley startup Identified.com. Now, as a second-year student, Carlos follows up with us on the continued growth and excitement from his MBA+ project experience as he watches the company grow from a ‘relatively unknown startup’ to an online vehicle that’s shaking up the social networking world…

MBA+ 1: Catching up with my MBA+ Project Identified.com a Year Later
By Carlos Dinkins, McCombs MBA Candidate C/O ‘12

“How do you measure a year?” First and foremost I want to apologize if that quote just made you start humming the title song to Rent because it happened to me when I starting penning this. But how do you measure a year in your MBA program? For me, those five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes are measured by the impact I have on my class, my friends, my family, my school, my professional network, but more importantly the impact they have on me. As I jog my memory back a year ago to a guest blog I wrote on my MBA+ Project, I take great pride in acknowledging a group of individuals from a small Internet start-up company in Palo Alto that has had a tremendously positive professional and personal impact on me.

“For a career switcher like myself, my LinkedIn network of combat hardened veterans just hasn’t created the types of leads that I was hoping to find in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry :)  !”
– Carlos Dinkins – October 25th 2010

That excerpt from last year draws on the market pain I was looking to assuage with my MBA+ Project. From transitioning out the Army to the civilian sector I wanted to leverage the leadership of my combat veteran network for a career in the CPG community. My best friend, prior Army Captain and Stanford MBA graduate Nick Padlo, connected me with two brilliant entrepreneurs out of his Stanford MBA class, Brendan Wallace and Adeyemi Ajao, who had the answer to said pain. They created Identified.com; a revolutionary Internet start-up that utilized a proprietary algorithm to match the professional aspects (school, work history, and networks) of your Facebook with prestigious companies interested in full-time and part-time candidates, and launched the beta version just prior to the start of my MBA+ Project. With the help of my classmates Cassandra Stoklosa, Guilherme Sessa, and Rohan Singal, our MBA+ team tackled the challenge of building user acquisition and increasing platform usage on the University of Texas at Austin. It was a highly demanding, time-consuming project, and frankly there weren’t any standard operating procedures for our MBA+ team. While other classmates were micro consulting for mature Fortune 500 companies we were in the trenches with a new, relatively unknown start-up. At the end of our project however we all knew it was worth every single second and believed in the potential of this new “LinkedIn” killer. We accomplished our goals on campus, were able to fly to Boston to help Identified.com target Boston College, and were able to truly engulf ourselves in the tactical and strategic aspects of an Internet start-up.

At Boston College

So “How do you measure a year?” The benefit from working with Identified.com is more than just the fact that nearly a 1,000 UT Longhorns signed up and that Identified.com personally extended summer internships to some fellow classmates; from a personal aspect I gained two new friends in Brendan Wallace and Adeyemi Ajao. I was able to travel with them to Spain for vacation and they stay in constant contact with me providing mentorship and guidance as I finish the 2nd year of my MBA. But more importantly I, along with Cass, Gui, and Rohan, get to see this amazing start-up grow to the point where they are highlighted as a breakthrough technology company in Forbes, TechCrunch, Fastcompany, Bloomberg, and as seen below in the Washington Post. With over $5.5 Million raised from investors such as Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman & former CEO, and a post-money valuation of $50 Million, I am positive that Identified.com is about to shake up the social networking world!

identified-MBAstudents

“Our personal long-term goal is that handshake, that email, that smile, that moment of gratitude when a classmate tells us that they received their internship or full-time hire through Identified.com.”
– Carlos Dinkins – October 25th 2010

So “How do you measure a year?” After witnessing the success of Identified.com and knowing that my McCombs MBA+ Project had a hand in that success, you could measure it by the glowing smile on my face! Hook Em’ Horns!

social networkingclass of 2012

Respectfully,
Carlos L. Dinkins

 

Top 10 Reasons to get your MBA at Texas

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I’m going to countdown my top ten reasons why you should get your MBA at McCombs. Note these are my top 10 reasons, not the administration’s. I’m also not necessarily a representative sample of the student body. I did ask about 50 current students what their top 3 reasons are, and used that to inform some of my recommendations.

Without further adieu, here goes:

# 10: You get to be a Longhorn.
When you look at anyone’s list of the top mascots in college sports (Sports Illustrated, Fox Sports, ESPN, etc) Bevo (the real Texas longhorn that attends football games and other university events) is always in the top 10. But Bevo himself is just the tip of the iceberg – the Longhorn brand is so universally recognizable and unique that in the college football hall of fame, every school but one has letters representing their school’s logo. Texas has the longhorn logo, as that’s all that’s needed to identify the university.

The power of the brand is evident – Texas is the #1 school in terms of raking in licensing royalties, according to Collegiate Licensing Company. The new Longhorn TV Network should only increase it.

The fact that the shape of a longhorn’s head naturally lends itself to the greatest hand signal in sports doesn’t hurt. Nor does the accompanying phrase of “hook’em horns” either. The burnt orange color is unique as well – classier than traditional oranges, it is said to have been picked by Darrell Royal to match the color of a football in order to confuse opponents.

Especially if you went to a school with a color for a mascot (like I did), coming to Texas is like hitting the jackpot. You’ve got an endless supply of awesome swag to wear around, people on the street to flash the hook’em to, and a brand to be proud of.

#9: Electivity

MBA students pose with traditionally dressed Indians on a McCombs global study trip in 2010.

You may have heard the first semester at UT is a bit of a punch in the face with a lot coming at you all at once. It’s true – we took 9 courses in the first semester, and even though we spent only 7 weeks doing basic accounting and finance, our professors crammed in a full course’s material in the short time frame. This meant an all-out blitz and many long days trying to synthesize what was coming at us.

But it also meant that after the first semester, we were mostly done with our required courses. And that means more electives over the next 3 semesters. Required courses are good – employers expect newly minted MBAs to have certain skills, after all – but it also means you have less time to take the classes you really want to take.

Overall, what I found most refreshing about my liberal arts undergraduate experience was the opportunity to take classes I was interested in, rather than having to take a prescribed list of courses that were necessary to get a certain degree. It’s been nice to know that I can continue that experience in business school.

#8:  Leadership Opportunities per capita
With over 40 clubs and organizations but just 260 students in your class, there’s an outsized opportunity to take on leadership opportunities at McCombs.

Think about it this way – every business school is going to have a consulting club, a marketing club, and a finance club. But every club can only have one president and a few other officers; this is a huge benefit in McCombs’ favor.

Our clubs at McCombs range from the industry/professional clubs like the aforementioned to affinity clubs like Latin American and Hispanic MBA to purely networking clubs like the MBA Golf Club. Students have the opportunities to join as many clubs as they like, but most find it difficult to take on leadership in more than two clubs.

For a listing of the organizations on campus as well as more details about each of them, see http://new.mccombs.utexas.edu/MBA/Full-Time/Student-Life/Student-Organizations.aspx.

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MBA+ Projects have started!

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MBA+ Projects have started!

One of the main reasons I came to McCombs was all the extra programs that are offered to students.  One of these programs is the Texas MBA+ Leadership Program.  In this program you get to work on an actual project with an outside company.  This company can be from a predefined list provided by UT, or you can source your own project with the company of your dreams.  We had our first meeting this past week and I’m really stoked about this program!

If you could work for anyone, who would it be?

I ask this question to a lot of my friends, prospective students and second years.  I think this is a really important question to answer and the MBA+ program can help.  Considering one of my passions is photography, I reached out to Adobe.  I’m now leading a team of six students working on a marketing project for this company.  I think this is going to be a great experience, but I don’t think I would have had this opportunity at other schools.  Even if you’re not sure where you want to be, this program gives you the chance to “test the water” if you want to see how it would be to work with a certain company or a new function.

Reaching out

I was surprised how open companies are to students.  If you want to source a project it’s not that hard; you just need to reach out to them.  If you need help with that process the staff at McCombs is great and they will help you every step of the way.   If you have other questions about this program, want to see some of the companies we’ve worked with, and get more program details, feel free to check out the MBA+ Program website or email the Program Director, Deidra Stephens at deidra.stephens@mccombs.utexas.edu.

The all-you-can-eat buffet called MBA

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Business school is like a fifty-item all-you-can-eat buffet. You need to know how to handle your appetite; else you can end up with a very bad stomach! Your core courses are the staple cereal that you carry on your plate throughout the semester. You will find that your plate is consistently filled with homework, quizzes, midterms and finals. The side dishes include student organizations, career fairs, company meet-and-greets and career planning sessions. There is a plethora of choices available and there is much more than what you can take. Then, there is the meat – case challenges and MBA+ projects. Skip this if you are an MBA vegetarian. However, if you are a meat lover, these can greatly enhance your MBA experience. Case challenges prepare you to solve real life scenarios in very realistic settings. Last week, during the case challenge, teams had a chance to present their solutions to real company recruiters. MBA+ projects can give you the opportunity to work in a functional area that you’ve always wanted to know, but never found the time. As if this weren’t enough, you can try the heavier, richer items on the menu like the practicum where you can team with a professor to work on a problem for an entire semester.

Along the way, if you are not sure about what you should eat, do not hesitate to discuss your concerns with an academic advisor, a career advisor, an MBA+ coach, a professor or even a second year student. They will patiently listen to you and create options that you had never thought about. And yes! This buffet is unique – if you want to be sure before you reach out for an item on the menu, you can ask the people who ate here before you did. Asking an alumnus for her opinion of a course/program is as easy as sending an email or making a phone call. Everybody is out there to help.

If you are ready for dessert, you can think of the tail gate parties on football game days, the think-and-drinks every Thursday, Prof Magee’s semester end party at his house or our very own cohort get-togethers.

Feeling that you ate too much? Need to relax? You can go to Carpenter Center or the Atrium for some good times with your friends, or work out at Gregory Gym or even hang out with friends at Jester. This buffet never closes; so you need to know when to stop!

I once ate more than I could swallow at a buffet and regretted it an hour later

I once ate more than I could swallow at a buffet and regretted it an hour later