Before entering Harvard Business School, Mollie Breen (HBS, ‘20) knew she had a passion for solving a problem in Cybersecurity, and an interest in building a company to do just that. Breen joined a startup accelerator in Boston while she worked on her startup which provided her with invaluable experience. In this interview, Breen shares her startup journey, and her lessons learned from the experience.
MBASchooled: Coming into HBS, did you know you wanted to pursue your own startup, if not, how did it form?
Yes and no. I knew I had a passion for a problem area (cybersecurity) and wanted to pursue it and hopefully start a company around it. At the same time, I gave myself permission to explore other professional opportunities because when else do you have so many different careers paths right in front of you? Plus, I knew that by exploring other job opportunities it would help build conviction that pursuing my own venture was right for me.
I joined professional clubs that interested me, I went to career conversations, and even took an internship in VC during second semester while also building my own company. With this approach, I learned that building a company was the right thing for me, as well as other valuable lessons about myself and various industries along the way.
MBASchooled: How did you use your “internship” to work on your startup?
I joined an accelerator in Boston which supported me over the summer as I worked on the startup. They provided space, mentors, and weekly sessions called “Startup Secrets.” It was an awesome experience, and some of the most valuable lessons I learned came from sitting beside other founders and working through challenges we faced together during the 12 weeks.
MBASchooled: What resources (if any) did HBS provide to help you work on your startup?
HBS was an invaluable part of the startup journey. Perhaps the most useful element was the Alumni Directory. Especially in the beginning when I was building out a network in cybersecurity, I would log on every day and send 30 emails to any industry experts I could find in the database and ask for 20 min to talk about IoT cybersecurity. I had an incredible response rate and still keep in touch with many of the folks I spoke with. Often those conversations led to more introductions which continued to build relationships between the startup and the rest of industry.
MBASchooled: What classes, programs, experiences, etc during your first year at HBS have been helpful to your startup experience?
There are too many – It is easy to point to The Entrepreneurial Manager, Finance, Lead, and Marketing as having a direct impact on helping build a startup. I think the most under-appreciated class is Financial Reporting & Control (i.e. Accounting.) I use accounting every day to keep track of expenses and budgeting for the future. In addition, when I think about compensation and benefits, I remember the importance of aligning incentives of the employee and the employer to get the most value.
MBASchooled: What are some of the highs and lows of working on your own venture?
One of the highs of starting my own venture and what keeps me motivated is talking to people who have the problem we are solving and sharing why we are in a unique position to solve it. On the other side, one of the other highs includes talking to someone, whether it is a potential customer, industry expert, investor, friend, etc. and they really see how it is a world-changing solution. My goal is to convert more people to be full on believers in the full vision, and it’s incredibly motivating to have those passionate about it with you at the start.
On the subject of Lows, I have kept a “failure resume” for a while now. The idea being: a resume is to keep track of the things you do get, and a failure resume is to keep track of the things you don’t get. What I love about it is every time I open it to add an items, I see a history of items I didn’t get and realize how I have grown without them. Perhaps not getting a project at work enabled a different opportunity or learning about myself. After this summer, I have a couple of items to add to the failure resume, whether it’s a meeting that went horribly, or someone telling me why what I was doing would never work. It’s an exercise I look forward to knowing I will one day look back and see how it was all meant to be.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have for students who think they might be interested in using the MBA experience to pursue their own idea?
When people ask for my advice I always like to make it super practical. In that vein, my advice is the MBA experience is a great time to start a company if for no other reason than the power of a “.edu” email address. One reason I think I was successful in getting responses on cold emails to C-suite executives is identifying as a student and the sense of nostalgia someone ties to that when they read the email. Another reason having a .edu email is helpful is I got access to a lot of conferences and events by requesting a free pass because I was a student.
On the more theoretical side, my advice to be okay with uncertainty. Counter-culture to the rest of the MBA experience which is about making decisions from a set of concrete facts, being a founder means making decisions from often a set of incomplete facts. Anytime I find myself questioning what I am doing, I remind myself that an essential part of starting a venture is learning to live with those questions and make the most of the information you have.