ThePowerMBA: 2 Week Update.
Some of you may or may not know but I recently enrolled in ThePowerMBA. Why? Here is a quick recap: I did an MBA almost 10 years ago and while I loved the experience, the business world has changed a lot over the years. Sure I picked up concepts through work but I’ve always wanted to ground this in some formal training. But, no time. Besides working full time, 3 kids, and with the pandemic and kids doing online school it’s impossible to get anything else in…unless I forego sleep. Not happening. Enter ThePowerMBA. In short, it’s an alternative to your traditional MBA program, taught by founders and CEOs but the best part is that it fits into my schedule.
Today
Fast forward 2 weeks and I’m done with the first chapter and I’m realizing ThePowerMBA is not only a completely different experience from a typical MBA but even a typical online course. Here is a couple of reasons why it’s working for me.
Time: Getting it in.
I wasn’t too worried about this but it did take some trial and error to find the right 15 minutes in my day to carve out. I tried before work in the morning but settled on carving out some time before getting back to work after lunch. The problem I didn’t anticipate was a desire to do more. Thankfully, I found out 15 minutes is not just a recommendation but ThePowerMBA actually locks out future classes to ensure you don’t do them all in one sitting. Having said that, I have on occasion missed 1 or 2 days and then “binged” watched them after work or on the weekend. The latter was actually not hard to do and that leads me to my next point which is it's been really easy to stay engaged with ThePowerMBA and I owe it to the quality of production and the overall approach.
K-tip: If you’re used to podcasts and audiobooks, you’ve probably sped up the audio. No different here. I found out my preferred listening speed is 1.5 without compromising comprehension or retention. If you think about it, that makes 15 minutes just 10 minutes….every minute counts!
Quality of Production: The Devil is in the Details.
Setting aside the actual content and concepts for a minute, I’m really enjoying the overall user experience. When I hit the homepage, ThePowerMBA has a really clean interface and they make it easy to jump right in where I left off.
Moving into the actual courses, if you’re familiar with Typeform, it's used extensively throughout the platform to help guide the experience. The reason why this is important is because of Typeform’s focus on “people-friendly” surveys where the use of simple UI and animation work together to make surveys more conversational. ThePowerMBA leverages this really well in two ways; 1. Setting up the module and providing a quick overview of what I can expect to learn before diving into the more detailed video presentations and 2. surveying me at the end of the module to give me the opportunity to provide feedback. Finally, it’s also used for chapter tests as well as delivering any materials to be downloaded.
Now, it’s obvious that each micro-course is built in a way to set you up to consume the more engaging aspect of ThePowerMBA and that is the video content. The video production is top-notch in terms of video quality, sound, and the use of on-screen graphics to visualize concepts the presenter is talking about. Combine this with multiple presenters as well as different formats (presentations, interviews, etc.) and the content never feels repetitive or boring.
Approach: Learning from the founders.
One of the biggest selling points of ThePowerMBA is the idea that you would be learning from CEOs and founders. At first, you may think that perhaps they come in to teach a course or their companies serve as case studies. The good news is, it’s a lot more involved than that. ThePowerMBA does an awesome job of not only explaining a concept or framework but then working through it with a founder to show its real-world applicability.
Take for example determining value proposition and market sizing. Two things you tend to do very early on when either starting a business or a new venture within an existing organization. To understand these concepts, we get to hear from Aaron Montgomery, co-founder of Carlotz, who candidly takes us through how they determined their solution and whether there was a market for what they were proposing. Below is an example of what you see. What I love about ThePowerMBA is how they combine video, on-screen graphics, and fill out the framework as you go so you understand it in real-time.
Or take the business model canvas; a fairly recent framework that helps clearly and concisely visualize a company’s business model. Although fairly straightforward, I’ve always had some reservations as to whether there was a right way to fill it out. Thankfully, we get to watch Jennifer Fleiss, co-founder of Rent the Runway, walk us through her company’s business model using the canvas.
This type of real-world application of frameworks makes it really easy to understand. It also makes you realize that there is wiggle room in these frameworks and while most companies approach them fairly similarly they also have their nuances. This is good news because from my perspective, I realized it's not about applying the framework in the “right” away but rather when using the framework it’s about considering and thinking through each of the components.
So that’s it. These are the main things that have kept me excited and engaged with ThePowerMBA so far. Definitely looking forward to keeping you updated and next time I’ll talk about how I’ve been applying what I’ve learned.
What do you think? Have you been thinking about ThePowerMBA? If so, great news, because ThePowerMBA starts their second global cohort this month and you can still enroll here.
Until next time.
K
