What I Learned at Wharton

It's a little more than 3 months since I last walked the halls of the Wharton, San Francisco campus where for two years, I undertook my MBA. With a little time to pause and reflect, I can only now begin to truly appreciate the magnitude of change instilled in me from the experience, the learnings and the cohort. 

Doing my MBA was definitively one of the best decisions I ever made as an entrepreneur. I stopped counting at 40 different learnings that I brought back to my business. To show my appreciation and give back to all the entrepreneurs who don’t have the time or opportunity to do their MBA, I have decided to start a blog called “What I Learned at Wharton.” Here is the first post.

I have been the owner/founder of several small businesses for the past 20 years. As an entrepreneur and a huge fan of the entrepreneurial spirit, I arrived at Wharton with a lot of pre-conceived notions of what a successful business model and a real entrepreneur looked like.

As I walked into Management 806 – Entrepreneurship, I kind of figured this would be more of a review than a learning.

Boy, was I wrong!

For a 41-year-old entrepreneur, this whole class was upside down. First, you learn about financing (angel investors), then, you build the product. If the path to profitability isn’t clearly outlined, it’s fine as long as the problem solved is ubiquitous and the market is large enough.

There were many things I learned in that class, from the start-up mentality to how to create a proper pitch deck. But my most impactful lesson from Professor Ethan Mollick was a single question he cited called the Entrepreneur's Dilemma by Noah Wasserman.

"Do you want to be rich or do you want to be king?"

I realized at that moment, I can't be both.

I had spent the last 15+ years being king, where all decisions went through me, all shares were owned by me, and all control was held by me - as was all the success, failures and stress.

I took “rich” in this question metaphorically to mean “richness.” Richness of learning, of experience, and of growth (financially, yes, but also personally and professionally).

I realized my subconscious need to be king was limiting the growth of my organization, my people and, in many ways, my own success.

So with that little nugget in hand, I began the transformation.

The first step was an employee stock option program at VistaVu. This allows our staff to participate in the upside of the business, but also have a greater voice at the table around issues and opportunities.

We have also begun a process to merge/marry with similar firms into a business that is material and more influential in our industry. With this has come the realization that I would have to surrender more ownership and control it order to make it happen more successfully.

Even prior to Wharton, I began relinquishing more and more control over the business to key staff. But especially after that class, I stepped on the gas and began accelerating the transfer of the daily operations to our Executive VP, daily programming decisions to our Director of Products and financial management to our Accounting Manager and part time CFO.    

Since doing that, over the past two years, daily operations, daily programming and financial management are all running more smoothly than ever before.

I won’t lie; it’s hard at times to know if I am going too fast and giving too much, leaving voids where I should be leading or going too slow and losing opportunities and people who could help us improve, grow and win.

To be sure, it’s a balancing act. But to all the king-like entrepreneurs, let there be no doubt: it has been liberating.

This is not necessarily the answer for every entrepreneur, especially lifestyle entrepreneurs. But for those of you searching to soar higher, achieve more and really make a splash with your business, I would ask you "Do you want to be rich or do you want to be king?" 

Good luck and keep swinging,
Jory