Good deed - Harvard - Business school application essay help course

Business school application essay help course

In the course of only a few months, my Bain colleague Graham and I transformed an idea into a company. We raised $1.8 million in venture funding, brought together a powerful and motivated board (including a former postmaster general and chief of staff under Lyndon Johnson), and hired nineteen incredibly talented individuals. We built the most feature-rich and user-friendly online address-change service available to the forty-four million annual U.S. movers.

By the late fall, revenues were growing nearly 50 percent month to month. This was not, however, sufficient to cover our cash burn rate. Though we had allocated resources with significant conservatism, we had always known that we would need an additional round of approximately $5 million to generate positive operating cash flows. In a series of frustrating setbacks, several strategic and venture capital investors pulled back their once overwhelming interest, leaving us with dissolution as our only option.

Despite our profound feelings of loss, Graham and I approached the wind-down with the same degree of professionalism and courage as our initial fundraising. We identified every stakeholder involved in our business, and made a joint decision that the welfare of our employees would come first and our personal financial considerations would come last. We leveraged our network of Atlanta business contacts to help each of our workers find jobs and arranged to sell the assets of the company to our business partner, moving.com, for enough money to avoid bankruptcy and return some money to our preferred shareholders.

Despite the financial failure, the learning experience transcends the dollars and cents—Graham and I learned how to inspire a group of individuals to follow a vision and create something out of nothing. And we learned that, despite the risks and uncertainties we face, the only true mistake is to be afraid to make one.

Note: Certain identifying information has been changed to preserve confidentiality.

Analysis

Jordan’s story is a terrific illustration of what makes a successful failure essay. It demonstrates his individual drive, adaptability, and personal integrity. Furthermore, these characteristics are framed within a compelling narrative, striking a balance between its depth and being to the point. The text is tightly constructed with a beginning, middle, and end—a fundamental structural element of storytelling.

From the get-go, Jordan presents a scene that will be recognizable to many pre-MBA students. Jordan does not come across as a young hothead, expecting undeserved reward, but rather elicits sympathy as someone who cares deeply about the people who work for him and deeply regrets having let them down. Jordan is cognizant that his setback affects a great many constituents. Furthermore, he is concerned about his fiduciary duty to the stakeholders, placing himself at the end of the line for financial compensation. This shows tremendous maturity and leaves the reader with a sense that these characteristics will stick with Jordan throughout his career.

From 65 Successful Harvard Business School Application Essays edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2009 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group