This is the second in a 2 part series based on an interview with Monica O’Brien. Come back next week for my interview with Johnnie Moore, subscribe to the blog, or become a fan on Facebook. Read other posts from the interview»
I graduated in 2006, with a degree in computer science. I quickly realized, though, that I didn’t want to be a programmer for the rest of my life and decided that I wanted to get a degree in management—I just wasn’t really sure what area of management.
Within a couple months of graduation, I applied to the Chicago MBA program.
I had about a year in between my undergrad and my graduate. During that time, I had a few different jobs. I worked at Caterpillar, a financial services firm, and a few web startups.
I discovered that I’m the type of person who, if I was going to work at a startup, I would want to be one of the founders. The founders in a startup tend to be really tight and it’s hard to get any ideas through. I think this can be a cultural issue especially as a company grows from being just the founders to including living, breathing employees.
You pretty dramatically changing the culture of the company when you add that first employee and it’s hard sometimes to let go.
With a startup, I found that I was much more passionate about my ideas than I was in the corporate world.
You invest a lot more your self and your time when you work at a startup. And because you’re so passionate about what you’re doing, it’s frustrating when you’re ideas are being ignored. Corporate is different. It’s probably equally as difficult to push your ideas through, but you’re only working 40-50 hours a week so you don’t care as much.
After starting the MBA program, I felt that I had to take action to gain the type experience required to be qualified for the roles – marketing and management consulting – that I really wanted. So, I started my own marketing consulting company.
I’m graduating soon. Over the next few months, I’ll be applying to several jobs in my field. While I like the prospect of running my own company, the experience I would gain and relationships I would build working at one of the brand name consulting firms would open a lot of doors in the startup and venture capital worlds.
If I don’t get hired there, I’ll continue to run my company and will even look for more entrepreneurial opportunities.
I’m not sure we’ll see more women from Generation Y become entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is still very much a guy’s world. I think men and women go into entrepreneurship for different reasons – for men, it’s ego. For women, it’s work/life balance. Women start small businesses, and men start businesses like Twitter and Google. Men are not afraid to go for venture capital, and women like to self-fund and grow slowly.
Juggling work and school is difficult. What ends up happening, a lot of times, is that you are thinking about work during your class or you’re trying to get a presentation for school done during work. It’s stressful. It’s a lot easier to focus on one thing rather than have two huge things in your life. And then sometimes there’s just not enough time, so you end up kind of skimping a little on both.
Something I’ve learned along the way? Decisions are rarely right or wrong. They’re made, and then they’re lived with. ♦
Monica O’brien is an ambitious young woman who has only started her dream-chasing and something tells me that she has great things in her future. Read her blog. Follow her on Twitter.
Published Tuesday, October, 6, 2009