Former Harvard Business School Entrepreneurs Hit It Big: MBA News

Former Harvard Business School students Oisin Hanrahan and Umang Dua have successfully raised US$30 million in their second round of funding for their business, Handybook, taking its total funding since inception to US$49 million, reports Forbes.

Handybook to Expand to New Markets 

Since first launching their business in 2012 in Boston, while at Harvard Business School, entrepreneurs Hanrahan and Dua have used earlier funding to expand across to 26 US cities. Handybook, which aims at making the process of finding handymen easy, is currently based in New York City.

The experience of sharing a messy apartment at Harvard Business School in 2005 is what prompted roommates Hanrahan and Dua to become entrepreneurs. “From ease of booking to working with trusted professionals to providing best in class service, our goal is to build an ongoing relationship with our customers who continue to turn to us for all their service needs within the home,” says Dua.

The recent round of funding from Revolution Growth, a venture capital firm headed by AOL co-founder Steve Case, will allow the entrepreneurs to expand to new markets, challenge competitors and offer new services, “We want to own the home. We think of Handybook as a remote control for the home” explains Hanrahan to The New York Times.

Despite the pair dropping out of school after founding Handybook, perhaps giving ammunition to those who believe MBAs are not necessary for entrepreneurs, their story also is testament to the entrepreneurial environment at Harvard Business School and other top-tier schools. Where else could something as simple as a messy apartment lead to a US$39 million business?

As well as the organic process, of course, such schools also do a lot to encourage and facilitate startups.

Growing number of entrepreneurs at HBS and other business schools

Evidence suggests that entrepreneurship at top-tier business schools is on the rise, according to a report in the Valley News. The number of entrepreneurs at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has increased fourfold since the recession, from 1.6% in 2007 to 7.4% last year. The Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley saw students interested in entrepreneurship double from 5 to 10% between 2012 and 2013, while 20% of the Stanford Graduate School of Business’ 2013 graduating class were entrepreneurs.

The education, connections and availability of options graduates possess upon completing business school are cited as some of the reasons for the high rate of MBA entrepreneurs. “The cost of failure feels really low,” Bryce Meredig, a 2014 MBA graduate from Stanford and co-founder of Citrine Informatics, a data mining company that helps design advanced materials for applications, told Valley News. Stanford, of course, is renowned for its spirit of entrepreneurship.

“If Citrine tanks, none of us feels like we will have lost career opportunities as a result.”

Harvard Business School and MIT’s Sloan School of Business have also reported an increase in the number of MBA graduate entrepreneurs.