An Online Startup Pitches a New Kind of MBA

Roy Wellner and Ariel Renous have known each other since they were 10 years old. They graduated from the same high school in Brussels and then from the same university in London. In 2018 they each enrolled in the MBA program at HEC Paris. And both soon found it wanting. “Most of our teachers were academics or researchers, sometimes consultants,” Wellner says. “It was really great for my colleagues who wanted to go into consulting, into finance. But it is not the place if you want to launch your startup.” They could learn more about that, Wellner and Renous concluded, from podcasts and YouTube clips. So they decided to create their own version of business school.

Their startup, Augment.org, opened its virtual doors in March to students willing to pay $1,750 for an online curriculum that consists of six modules, or courses, on topics mostly related to opening a business. The courses comprise hundreds of 15-minute lessons meant to be completed over a few months. The centerpieces of the curriculum are presentations—they’re definitely not lectures—by well-known founders, such as Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia and Chris Barton of the song identification app Shazam, lushly filmed in the style of MasterClass. Some 300 people have enrolled so far, and about 50 have earned their certificate of completion.