By Marilyn Harris

 

Alumnus Yorick Ser launched his software development company, Novalsys, with the help of the Berkley Center.

hile still a student at NYU Stern, Yorick Ser (MBA ’05) developed CollegeMailer, a powerful software tool, to help his entrepreneurs’ club officers better manage the club’s activities. Because CollegeMailer was well designed and easily adopted by the students, Stern’s Student Activities Office decided to buy the system and provide it to all the other student clubs. And with that, Novalsys, Ser’s software development company, was launched.

For two years after graduation, Ser ran the company part-time while toiling away in the London trading office of a major bank. “The salary was good but I wasn’t happy,” he recalled. So in June 2007 Ser quit his day job and returned to the States. That fall, he entered the business plan competition run by Stern’s Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. The process was grueling, but before it was all over, Ser had completed his business plan, made it to the semi-finalist round, and landed his second client, the University of Michigan. Today, Novalsys licenses its software eCampusGroups, eCampusNet, and eAlumniAffairs to top schools around the country.

“Students take one look at what’s happening in today’s economy – once venerable companies disappearing over night, tens of thousands of high-paying jobs simply vanishing – and suddenly entrepreneurship doesn’t seem like the risky way to go.”

Successes such as Ser’s – and the number and variety of students’ other innovative ideas for startups – are especially rewarding for those at the Berkley Center as it marks 25 years at Stern this year. “Acknowledging the talented students and committed faculty who are working to bring these ideas to life is a special way to celebrate our 25th anniversary,” said Jeffrey A. Carr, clinical associate professor of marketing and entrepreneurship and an entrepreneur himself. Carr has served as the Center’s executive director since 2007. “Our mission at the Berkley Center is to nurture entrepreneurial talent and, through research, to add to the knowledge base. In the classroom, we teach students the skills needed to start a business, but when it comes to entrepreneurship there is no substitute for actually doing the work.”

The Berkley Center, established in 1984, was organized to create new knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation, to prepare the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders in the business and social sectors, and to provide intellectual leadership for the business and academic communities. Programs for teaching entrepreneurship are in their infancy, and Stern’s Berkley Center is “virtually alone in the US and probably the world” in its efforts to systematize such methods, said William Baumol, Harold Price Professor of Entrepreneurship, professor of economics, and academic director of the Berkley Center. “We want to connect teaching methods with subsequent careers,” he said.

The Berkley Center Advisory Board: (from left to right, back row) Vern Kennedy (MBA ’94), Stephen McCarthy (MBA ’79), and Markus Deutsch (MBA ’91), (second row) Mary Ellen Georgas (MBA ’93), Loretta Poole, and Robert Simon (MBA ’84), (front row) Jeffrey A. Carr, Cynthia Franklin (MBA ’92), and Stewart Satter (MBA ’82, Parent ’01); not pictured: Matt Heyman (BS ’84) and Jill Kickul.

Accessible to students and alumni alike, the Berkley Center’s flagship program is its rigorous, eight-month-long business plan competition, now in its 10th year. A record-setting 450 students and alumni entered this experiential learning program last fall, competing for a share of seed money to launch their ventures. Thanks to the generosity and foresight of Stern Overseers Ira Leon Rennert (MBA ’56, Parent ’00), chairman and CEO of The Renco Group, Inc., and Stewart Satter (MBA ’82, Parent ’10), CEO of Consumer Testing Laboratories, Inc., $175,000 in seed money is available this year to winners of the competition and will jump to $200,000 next year.

David Steinberger (MBA ’08) was one of those winners in the 2006-2007 competition. “The seed money from the competition was extremely helpful,” said Steinberger. His startup, Iconology, provides software and web solutions that connect comic book enthusiasts with retailers and publishers. In addition to the cash received, Steinberger was able to leverage the coaching, mentoring, networking, and pro bono services the program provided. “Not only did we meet our chief source of funding through the Berkley Center and our work in the business plan competition, but one of our judges also funded us at a very early stage,” he noted.

The role of innovation and start-up companies in the US and global economies can hardly be overstated. “The small firm, home of the independent entrepreneur and the independent inventor, has been the primary source of the technical ideas and radical innovations that serve as the foundation for the unprecedented growth performance of the world’s industrial economies,” Baumol said. “The data also suggest that small firms are the major source of new jobs.” According to a recent survey by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the world’s largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship and a major funder of the Berkley Center, more than 70 percent of voters say the health of the economy depends on the success of entrepreneurs, and many see entrepreneurs as the answer to the current financial crisis.

 

Five of 25 Tips for Entrepreneurs from Entrepreneurs Visit www.stern.nyu.edu/berkley for the remaining 20 tips. 1. Listen critically to others but don’t let people dissuade you from pursuing your own ideas. Be willing to go it alone. -Stewart Satter (MBA ’82, Parent ’10) CEO, Consumer Testing Laboratories 2. Just remember that everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you expect it to. -Matt Heyman (BS ’84) President, Grupo Cinemex 3. Set clear achievable goals for each day, month, and year. Let nothing stand in the way of achieving those goals. -Liz Elting (MBA ’92) Co-founder/Co-CEO, TransPerfect 4. Be responsive and treat everyone with kindness and respect. -Robert J. Simon, Sr. (MBA ’84) Senior Managing Director, Bradford Equities Management, LLC 5. Follow your gut. So much about doing well in business is about making good decisions – for your company and for you. -Mary Ellen Georgas (MBA ’93) Principal/Owner, Georgas Consulting, LLC

Academic Innovators

The late Professor Zenas Block was an early proponent of teaching entrepreneurship at Stern. Soon after offering to teach a course in corporate venturing as an adjunct professor in 1981, he organized and led the faculty task group that, with an initial $500,000 grant from the Louis and Harold Price Foundation, established the building blocks for today’s Berkley Center. Block was supported in his efforts by the late Gloria W. Appel, president of the Price Foundation and later a member of Stern’s Board of Overseers. “The goal we set was to become a significant center for research in the area, because entrepreneurship was not regarded as academically respectable,” Block recalled some years later. He started a competition for the best academic paper, held retreats in which students presented business plans, and, most significantly, developed and taught two elective courses: Patterns of Entrepreneurship, and Entrepreneurship and Venturing in Corporations.

The entrepreneurship program at Stern made another quantum leap in 1993, when Stern alumnus, NYU Trustee, and Chairman of the Stern Board of Overseers William R. Berkley (BS ’66), chairman and CEO of W. R. Berkley Corporation, presented a naming gift to develop cutting-edge entrepreneurship courses, co-curricular programs, and research activities. Five years later the first formal business plan competition was held, with 88 teams vying for $50,000 in seed money. In 2000, an endowment by Rennert made that $50,000 an annual award, and in the same year, the Price Foundation established a $100,000 endowment to support the Harold Price Entrepreneurship Award, which is given to an MBA student pursuing an entrepreneurial career who has attained outstanding achievement in entrepreneurial studies and student leadership.

As financial support grew, so did programs. A social entrepreneurship initiative, now headed by Clinical Professor of Management and Organizations Jill Kickul, was launched to offer programs aimed at creating innovative approaches to solving societal problems. Satter funded the Satter Program in Social Entrepreneurship that supports its own competition, with a $100,000 prize, as well as an annual conference and award. A recent conference on social entrepreneurship was oversubscribed. In January, more than 500 alumni and students packed a lecture by microfinance guru and Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus. And last fall, when 100 students applied for 20 spots in a new 12-week laboratory on innovation and entrepreneurship, the Center was persuaded to double registration. Underpinning this growth have been donors such as Beny Alagem (Parent ’09), an entrepreneur and co-founder of Packard Bell Electronics, whose $3 million gift supports a broad range of programs, and Ira Rennert, who recently expanded his support of the Berkley Center with a $3.5 million gift to support the business plan competition and endow a faculty chair in entrepreneurship.

 

Alumnus David Steinberger (left) and his partners credit the Berkley Center’s business plan competition with helping them start their company, Iconology.

The Next 25 Years

Interest in entrepreneurship has grown dramatically at Stern and it’s a trend that is expected to continue and even accelerate. “Students take one look at what’s happening in today’s economy – once venerable companies disappearing over night, tens of thousands of high-paying jobs simply vanishing – and suddenly entrepreneurship doesn’t seem like the risky way to go,” said Cynthia Franklin (MBA ’92), senior associate director of the Berkley Center. An entrepreneur who started a successful business shortly after receiving her MBA, Franklin underscored the lesson: “It’s all risky. More students are concluding that if I’m going to assume risk, why not do so while building a venture that is my own.” Another contributing factor to the popularity of entrepreneurship she cited is the rock star status of innovators such as Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, and Sergey Brin, who have helped make the dream of starting and growing a successful company seem much more accessible.

In response, the Center has created more opportunities. As of 2008, both undergraduate and graduate students can choose to specialize in entrepreneurship, and a specialization in social innovation and impact was offered for the first time to MBA students.

As the Berkley Cen-ter’s 25th anniversary passes and its next quarter century begins, both Carr and Franklin are focused on its role as a complete resource for nascent entrepreneurs. As part of that plan, they are recruiting mentors and coaches from among the alumni population who will be matched up with students hoping to nurture new ideas.

For his part, Baumol has co-edited the first of a three-volume series of books on entrepreneurship, History of Entrepreneurship: From Mesopotamia to Modern Times, which will be published this year by the Princeton University Press under the Berkley Center imprimatur, and he is looking forward to a period of heightened activity at the Center. “We are designing a very ambitious, long-range program for carrying out the required research and for designing imaginative, systematic programs for teaching entrepreneurship,” he said.

Such plans bode well for would-be entrepreneurs at the Center. As he closes in on his second round of financing, Iconology’s Steinberger said, “My three years at Stern were defined by the competition. It changed my direction, connected me with high-performing, like-minded entrepreneurs, and helped me define my direction in my working life. Those were memorable Stern years for me, and it’s thanks to the Berkley Center.”

 

Celebrating 25 Years: Support for the Berkley Center Like every good entrepreneur, Professor Zenas Block, from the outset, had a sound academic and co-curricular organizational plan as well as an aggressive fund-raising strategy to launch the Center. Starting with a most generous seed gift from the Louis and Harold Price Foundation, the Berkley Center today is a success because Stern alumni and friends have dreamed, invested, and labored with us as we discover, teach, grow, and launch. Below is a list of many of these donors, which Stern and the Center would like to thank. To see a full list, visit www.stern.nyu.edu/berkley.

Individuals Beny Alagem (Parent ’09) Gloria W. and Edwin M. Appel William R. Berkley (BS ’66) Mr. and Mrs. Richard Block Professor Zenas Block Karen Chase (MA ’93 (GSAS)) Michael R. Cunningham (MA ’96, PhD ’05 (Steinhardt)) Markus Deutsch (MBA ’91) Barry K. Fingerhut (MBA ’69) Professor Avijit Ghosh Jay Golding (MBA ’69) Mr. and Mrs. Howard L. Goodkind Charles T. Harris III Norman Himelberg (BS ’58) Ilan Kaufthal (MBA ’71) David D. Kimball Professor Matthew Klein Louis Krouse Charles Lazarus Susan E. Miller (MBA ’84) Daniel A. Nathanson (MBA ’75) Thomas B. Pennell (MBA ’93) Loretta Poole Kenneth A. Preston (BS ’50) Inge and Ira Rennert (MBA ’56, Parent ’00) Laura Robbins (MBA ’05) Stewart Satter (MBA ’82, Parent ’10) Robert J. Simon (MBA ’84) Frederic Slater Jonathan S. Smiga (MBA ’91) Paul Sperry Irwin Tantleff (MBA ’91)

Roy B. Trujillo (MBA ’93) Michael A. Tunstall (MBA ’86) Robert Vukovich Professor Jeremy Wiesen Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Foundations Atlantic Philanthropies Blue Ridge Foundation, Inc. Citigroup Foundation David Himelberg Foundation Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Houston Jewish Community Foundation Jewish Communal Fund LJ International Inc. Louis and Harold Price Foundation Merrill Lynch & Co Foundation Inc National Christian Foundation New York Community Trust Public Forum Institute Thomas L. Thomas Family Foundation Corporations American Express Barclays Capital Breitling Ventures Deloitte The Dexter Coporation Eden, LLC EuclidS Knox Lawrence International, LLC Lowenstein Sandler PC Pennell Venture Partners, LLC Yahoo!