How to focus on the entrepreneur side of me in essays ?

[supratims]

Along with my work, I have been involved in a startup for last 1 year or so, a small website which started as a tech project but its now a budding company (though not full fledged now). I have been funding it from my personal savings and there is no external funding as of now. It is not yet registered, there is no income/sales as such from it as well.

I have been involved right from the scratch, starting from conceiving the idea, designing the portal, developing it, building user base (we are more than 4000 registered users now) etc. Now I have a few friends working with me on this and I am planning to move on and do an MBA, and may be join them after an MBA.

How do I focus on this in my essay ? I am doubtful as I do not work full time on this. Also there are a few achievements, leadership and otherwise in my work front (where I am employed full time) as well. How should I strike a balance ? How should I approach ?

Will it give a wrong impression on the adcom that having being working with a company full time, I have been involved in a venture of my own.

Help !

[mbamission]

Hi - thanks for your inquiry.

Schools like to see entrepreneurial spirit so I would definitely encourage you to incorporate it into your application. There are a number of ways to do this. First, in your goals essay, if the start up is directly relevant to what you want to do, you can certainly incorporate it in there. This is particularly effective if it is different than what you do full-time, as it softens the "career changer" angle and shows that you are doing everything you can to prepare yourself for that career change.

If that doesn't work, there is probably an essay topic that you can use to discuss the venture. Essays on going beyond expectations, working with a team, persuading or motivating others, for example might all be possibilities. Or even a failure, if there is something about the venture that you had to modify or that did not go as well as you would have liked.

And be sure to put it on your resume as well. A venture like this is something that schools will respond well to, so don't hesitate to feature it in an essay or your goals essay.

I hope that helps.

Jessica Shklar
mbaMission

Our blog: www.mbamission.com/blog

[supratims]

Thanks a lot for the help. You cleared a lot of doubts. I can see the clear sky now, the clouds seem to have gone away :)

[mbamission]

That's one of the nicest responses I've ever received!! Good luck!