Innovating for Business Opportunities Where Ideas Never Sleep

New York City is an assault on the senses – overwhelming, loud, a home to almost 9 million people. While some would describe this combination as big, bold and brash, it is a strangely welcoming city. 

At every corner there is a feeling of incredible opportunity and abundant evidence of a long history of entrepreneurship. Backed by the belief that failure drives important lessons, a desire to discover and innovate, and a strong venture capital funding network, it is little wonder that New York is one of the main cities outside Silicon Valley that is named consistently as one of the best start-up locations in the US. 

The main objective of the US Study Tour is to learn how to create opportunities in business with a commercial impact. Twenty Bachelor of Commerce (and combined degree) students were selected to participate in the two week program at NYU, Stern Business School’s start-up lab. 

Informed by design thinking principles, the unit offered students practical and theoretical insights into identifying opportunities, research skills to build an understanding of customer needs, pitching skills to sell an idea and cross-cultural skills via insights into business in the US. 

With a profound interest in start-ups, the opportunity to carry out the methodologies behind the development of a product was immersive. Upon listening to presentations by key figures within the start-up space and having the privilege to hold personal conversations with co-founders and investors, I gained invaluable insights that enriched my perspectives on potential career opportunities. - Daniel Tran 

Luke Williams, Founder of NYU Innovation Labs & CEO of Meta Idea Labs

The program broadened my horizons on what it means to be an entrepreneur and innovative. Hearing the thoughts of so many founders and individuals in this space made me realise you don’t have to wait around until you have an amazing idea. Some of the best advice I heard was to just jump in, because it is okay to fail. - Cameron Gonzalez 

                           

Hosted by Professor Cynthia Franklin, the program at NYU Stern Business school incorporates a unique and outstanding line-up of academic insights, startup panellists who speak genuinely about their lived experience, investors who provide reflections on what they look for in start-ups and pitch experts who challenge students to think about how to 'spin' a story and engage an audience.  

Student Tom Serrone described the US Study Tour as a "first-class learning experience" that allowed him to "witness and interact with the start-up economy in New York whilst also thinking about design thinking and disruption."

This first-class learning experience also proved to be of practical value, with Marketing student Chelsey Jayadiwangsa believing her ability "to apply design thinking tools to reimagine problems and ideate customer-centric solutions" will be carried into her future professional endeavours. 

In addition to learning about innovation and entrepreneurship, students are exposed to career and personal brand building tips, networking events and activities and business insights through site visits to Boston Consulting Group (Digital Ventures) in Sydney and NY, the American National History Museum, cultural consultancy and trend spotters Sparks & Honey, and a network event hosted by the North American Alumni Association. 

"The alumni event was a great chance to mingle with former University of Sydney students and really get a feel for how this university stretches our opportunities," said student James Scott. "As someone who is eager to work in New York at some point in my career, it was very refreshing to see so many people making the leap and giving me a lot of confidence in making this big move myself within the future.”"

The opportunity to listen to the experiences of entrepreneurs and the exposure to the dynamics of New York City provided "invaluable knowledge, amazing memories, newfound confidence and excitement for the future," said third year Commerce Law student Rowena Young. 

"I ended up having incredibly genuine and fun conversations with people who imparted all sorts of wisdom. Living, eating and breathing with my group members was also a new experience that taught me patience and the power of collaboration. My only regret? The program was over before I could grab my third slice of artichoke pizza."

US Study Tour 2019

Business start-ups: Why small sometimes trumps big

 

Being a member of the Sydney University Business School team that won last semester’s Deloitte Fastrack Innovation Challenge was an invaluable experience for a number of reasons.

Apart from the chance to develop a business idea with solid market potential, my involvement also offered a new perspective on two different business approaches - entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. While the former refers to building a business external to other companies, the latter involves building something within the constraints of a pre-existing company structure. (For the record, we approached our task more from the entrepreneurial side, essentially creating a start-up relevant to Deloitte.)

It all got me thinking about the idea of small companies versus large, and the way that large organisations can try to compete with smaller entities. This can be harder than it sounds. True, small companies don’t have many resources, many people, much money, or even any connections. But if they have a great team, a great idea and have identified a market opportunity, they can make decisions quickly, expand rapidly and fill that gap potentially faster than a large organisation. Having some large organisation experience, I know that many can’t move as fast. For example, one business I worked for took six weeks to approve an update to one paragraph on the company website.

Interestingly, some larger companies are trying to overcome their inherent limitations in order to remain ahead of the curve. Deloitte themselves are a classic example, promoting a culture of innovation and trying to remain flexible and mobile. The fact that after we won the innovation challenge they entered into negotiations with us around incorporating our business idea into their existing framework, is highly indicative of this strategy.

We've now decided to take our idea to market for real. This is a hugely exciting opportunity as we’ll potentially be competing with other larger organisations that perhaps aren’t as flexible. But regardless of what happens from here, the experience of competing in the innovation challenge has been fantastic. Being involved in every facet of building a business - from finance to marketing and strategy - was a really steep learning curve. Nonetheless, it was an incredible experience that complemented my degree perfectly.

Author: Rory Aston James – Master of Management student