For MBA Startups, High Potential, Mixed Results

In a difficult economy, everyone wants an edge—no one more so than aspiring MBAs. But in an increasingly tough job market, what is the most valuable skill an MBA can have? For many, it’s a knack for entrepreneurship. B-schools around the country certainly seem to think so: Four of the five top full-time MBA programs cite entrepreneurship as a leading area of study, and more schools are developing programs every day. But with entrepreneurial programs more popular than ever, a lot of MBAs are wondering: How hard is it to actually succeed as an entrepreneur?

To find out, Bloomberg Businessweek attempted to track down the 2007 winners of the Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC), the world’s richest and largest graduate-level competition, to find out what’s happened in the last five years and where their companies are now. Five years was enough time for the ideas that won over the judges to succeed or fail on their merits, and by focusing on the winners we hoped to discover how the ideas with the best chance of success fared in the real world. As it turns out, they fared more or less as well as most new businesses do: Of the seven competition winners, three are still in business and in some cases have started generating revenue. David Lucchino, whose team from MIT’s Sloan School of Management won second place in 2007, puts it bluntly: “If you want to be an entrepreneur, be careful what you wish for—it’s a great and rewarding experience, but you are going to fail more than you succeed, and that’s O.K.”