"ROLLIN" 2013 (BEING the CHANGE One WANTS to BECOME!)

MBA STUDENTS’ ROLLING THINK TANK

Detroit was 1st stop on 8-city journey to aid budding entrepreneurs

By Frank Witsil Detroit Free Press Business Writer

   An off-hand suggestion last fall to take a summer road trip became a much bigger project for four Harvard Business School students that, in many ways, reflects how the depressed economy has shaped the attitudes and ambitions of a generation.

   This summer, four friends — Casey Gerald, 26, of Dallas; Amaris Singer, 28, of Albuquerque, N.M; Mike Baker, 27, of Gaithersburg, Md., and Hicham Alaoui, 27, of Casablanca, Morocco — are driving across America in two cars they’ve dubbed R and V to help budding entrepreneurs and meet business executives.

   The students plan to travel about 8,000 miles, and spend a week in eight cities. Detroit was their first stop this week.

   “This place represents the great challenges and great resilience of America,” Gerald said Thursday, after seeing the Motor City for four days. “You’ve got people who — because of and in spite of those challenges — are building extraordinary stuff.”

   In addition, the MBA candidates said, they aim to create a lasting organization, MBAs Across America, that would help other students volunteer what they’ve learned in class to benefit entrepreneurs.

   While most students still follow the traditional path of finding summer internships, professors say it is more common now for students — who have seen stable organizations falter in uncertain economic times — to strike out on their own.

   “That is the zeitgeist these days,” said William Lovejoy, co-director of the Master of Entrepre- neurship program at the University of Michigan. “The upside is they develop the problem-solving skills that will benefit them the rest of their lives.”

   The downside: Missing out on opportunities that often lead to jobs.

   Building friendships

   The students said they are having fun, but also working — and living together — with no pay.

   “I don’t remember who, but someone said, ‘It would be awesome to do a road trip,’ ” Baker recalled. But, he added, they wanted to do more than have a great time. “We felt like we could have a much bigger impact by going out and finding stories of people doing things versus taking a typical path.”

   Along the way, they are learning more about America, themselves — and each other.

   In Detroit, they worked with Sebastian Jackson, founder of the Social Club Grooming Co., showing him how he could shift his employee compensation model to maintain better quality control.

   The students also visited Detroit haunts such as Slows Bar B Q, Eastern Market and the Joe Louis fist.

   Jackson, 26, started his company, a Midtown salon, about a year ago with $27,000. In addition to cutting hair, he collects the hair clippings, composts them and uses them as fertilizer for trees. So far, he said, he’s collected about 60 pounds of hair.

   “You hear Harvard Business School and you get excited,” Jackson said. “I thought it would be more about them, but it wasn’t. They were here to help. They offered the help for free — and their friendship so I have a new group of people to give me advice.”

   Next stops: Boulder, Colo., White Sulphur Springs, Mont., Las Vegas, Albuquerque, N.M., New Orleans, Asheville, N.C. and Washington, D.C.

   Research, rewards

   To prepare for their project, the Harvard students met with professors and went to the university’s innovation lab and social enterprise institute. Then they started writing to companies for financial support.

   They hoped to raise enough to make their way across America in an RV. Instead, they are traveling in their own cars, a 2004 Honda Accord and a 2002 Audi A4.

   They made lists of potential donors — and sent thousands of e-mails to alumni of Harvard, their undergraduate colleges and even high schools. They created a website and even spent two long weekends together to see if they could get along.

   They ended up raising more than $12,000, including a $5,000 check from a hedge fund manager. They also convinced Starwood Hotels to sponsor them. The company is putting them up in its Sheraton Four Points hotels — and Fritz van Paasschen, the CEO, wants to meet with them at one of the stops.

   In some ways the trip is more than a chance to learn. It is a chance to create something that is their own.

   Singer, who worked in New York as a consultant during the banking collapse and before she entered the MBA program, said it was scary to watch big, established companies struggle and friends lose their jobs.

   “Some people did ask us when we were first planning this, ‘Are you worried about this hurting your unemployment prospects next year?’ ” Singer said. “We’re going on the assumption the types of places we want to work for are going to appreciate we made this choice.”

   Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022.

Sebastian Jackson, owner of the Social Club Grooming Co., center, meets Harvard MBA second-year students Mike Baker, Casey Gerald, Amaris Singer and Hicham Alaoui outside his business in Midtown Detroit. The students offered business advice for free. ANDRE J. JACKSON/DETROIT FREE PRESS

WHO THEY ARE

   The four Harvard MBA students: Hicham Alaoui, 27, of Casablanca, Morocco, graduated from Princeton University. He worked in product and sales marketing at Google. He plays the drums. Mike Baker, 27, of Gaithersburg, Md., graduated from Georgetown with a degree in English, Spanish and business. He worked for Yodle, a venture-backed tech startup, and plays guitar. Casey Gerald, 26, of Dallas, graduated from Yale University with a degree in political science. He played football in college and finished an internship with McKinsey in Dallas. Amaris Singer, 28, of Albuquerque, N.M., also is a Yale University graduate with a dual major in ethics and politics and economics and international relations. She worked in New York for five years.

Casey Gerald, a Harvard MBA student, meets with Unique Fields, hair designer, and Alexandria Rogers of Flint while at the Social Club Grooming Co. Thursday in Detroit. ANDRE J. JACKSON/DETROIT FREE PRESS