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Business Casual

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From Fashion Editor to Business School Grad: What I Learned About Being an Entrepreneur

Well, I’ve graduated from business school. Call me a master of business administration! I wanted to spend a few minutes looking back on my two years at MIT Sloan and pulling out some takeaways for any of you considering applying to business school or matriculating this fall. I wrote my first Business Casual column in August 2011. I said that, “I wanted to write this column because some fashion friends have expressed an interest in swallowing the grad school pill themselves and tumbling down this crazy rabbit hole.” Now on the other side of the rabbit hole, here’s what I would tell future students...

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Seven Things I’ve Learned as an Early-Stage Entrepreneur

Last we spoke, I was living in Cambridge, MA working on StyleUp between my MIT Sloan classes. Now, I’m in Mountain View, CA working StyleUp full-time. It’s amazing and crazy and daunting and strange and wonderful. Recently, my co-founder and I even raised a little bit of investment capital which makes me feel like I’m just starting to make it as an entrepreneur. There is a very long road ahead, but I thought it might be useful to hear a few things I’ve learned so far.

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Business Casual: Introducing StyleUp, the 'Pandora of Fashion'

Kendall is a former fashion editor who has written for NYmag.com, Lucky, InStyle, and NBC. She recently scrapped that glamorous life and is pursuing an MBA at MIT Sloan, in hopes of becoming an entrepreneur. My second year at MIT Sloan is in full swing: classes, meetings, trips. All of that is wonderful, but what I care most about, what consumes my life is… StyleUp! I came to business school inspired by the Gilt Groupe and Rent the Runway women. I knew--we all know!--there is so much potential for fashion startups to take off, but I had no clue how to make it an actual business.

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Business Casual: Focus On Fashion Start-Ups

Kendall is a former fashion editor who has written for NYmag.com, Lucky, InStyle, and NBC. She recently scrapped that glamorous life and is pursuing an MBA at MIT Sloan, in hopes of becoming an entrepreneur. I’m sitting on my couch, struggling to focus on how to begin writing. But, I can’t pick among any of the what-am-I-doing-here moments I’ve had recently to start with. To be blunt, my life lately has been crazytown. Meeting with one of Pinterest’s co-founders. Shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Playing with robots at Intuitive Surgical. Touring Sequoia Capital’s office. Listening to Polyvore’s CEO. Though these experiences might appear varied and disconnected, one motif binds them all: entrepreneurship. A driving force in my choice to go to business school was to learn more about entrepreneurship in the hopes that (gulp!) I could one day start my own venture. A quick and obvious counterpoint to this is: why go to b-school? Join a start-up! Get real on the ground experience! That’s great for some people. For me, I wanted an MBA. After all, I decided to go to b-school when Gilt Groupe rose to fame, and just as Rent the Runway and Birchbox were starting to--both of which were started by Harvard Business School women. While magazines were on the decline--losing advertisers, cutting staff--things were getting exciting in the start-up world. Today, the lid’s been blown off.

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Business Casual: Travel, Travel, Travel!

Kendall is a former fashion editor who has written for NYmag.com, Lucky, InStyle, and NBC. She recently scrapped that glamorous life and is pursuing an MBA at MIT Sloan, in hopes of becoming an entrepreneur. A colossal part of business school I’ve yet to cover is the travel. At least in my program, there weren’t a ton of opportunities in my first semester. We were all busy meeting hundreds of new friends, exploring our new city of Boston and trying to keep up with homework and internship searches. But now first semester is O-V-E-R! I have my bearings and some great friends; I’m signed up for super interesting classes next term – it’s time to get on a plane!

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Business Casual: What Business School Is Really Like (Hint: Hard Yet Fun)

Kendall is a former fashion editor who has written for NYmag.com, Lucky, InStyle, and NBC. She recently scrapped that glamorous life and is pursuing an MBA at MIT Sloan, in hopes of becoming an entrepreneur. Last we left off, I had highlighted some ideas for funding business school and deciding which programs to apply to. Now it’s time for the big reveal: what business school is ACTUALLY like. Spoiler alert: it’s crazy. I’ve been at MIT Sloan for three months now, and I’ve gone through almost every human emotion: elation, frustration, contentment, sadness, exhaustion, delight, etc . This portrayal might seem overly dramatic (and ok, maybe it is), but at least among my friends, this rollercoaster is pretty standard. Let me start from the beginning.

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Business Casual: How To Apply To (and Then Pay For) Business School

Kendall is a former fashion editor who has written for NYmag.com, Lucky, InStyle, and NBC. She recently scrapped that glamorous life and is pursuing an MBA at MIT Sloan, in hopes of becoming an entrepreneur. Hey guys! Business Casual is back! This time, I’ve got tips for applications and, by commenter Shyema A’s request, ideas for financing your MBA, too. Let’s imagine you’ve just finished the GMAT, pressed enter and—voila!—your score pops up instantly. You’re either elated or deflated. Being the-Céline-shopper-is-half-full-types, we’ll assume it’s the former. You head home and over the next few days, catch up with friends you missed during your sad GMAT studying and soak up some Bravo marathons. Life, it seems, returns to normal. (Insert the sound of the other Theyskens’ Theory wedge dropping).