Microbrewer with an MBA: How Business School Fosters Entrepreneurship

This article is sponsored by the Sheffield University Management School. Learn more about their MBA program.

Statistics can be discouraging. Most small businesses fail within five years. This however, has not put off would-be entrepreneurs. Despite a slowdown, there are 27 million in the US alone according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, while record numbers of startups are being founded in the UK and growing interest in the Western startup model is being reported in Asia.

MBA courses are designed to engender an entrepreneurial mindset in students – and not even just those who aim to start their own business. To learn more about the benefits of making entrepreneurship a core value, let’s take a look at Sheffield University Management School’s program…

The University of Sheffield aids Sheffield revitalization

Sheffield, one of the UK’s largest cities, flourished during the Industrial Revolution, and was known for its steel industry in particular; it suffered, however, like many UK cities with the effects of deindustrialization in the 70s and 80s, as manufacturing shifted out of the UK. The 21st century has treated a revitalized Sheffield more kindly.

As a conduit for some of the country’s best and the brightest, the University of Sheffield has played a significant role in the city’s reemergence. The university is a member of the UK’s prestigious Russell Group. Comprised of 24 public research universities, including the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, the Russell Group is somewhat analogous to the highly selective Ivy League in the northeastern United States.

A top 80 University according to QS World University Rankings 2015/16, it boasts a newly refurbished US$21 million building and partnerships with other leading business schools in countries like Germany, Sweden and Dubai. The University of Sheffield is an urban university, yet it offers the advantages of a smaller, more easily navigable scale than b-schools in cities like Shanghai, Paris, London or New York. 

Across the globe, some 13,000 universities offer MBA programs. Many differentiate themselves by promoting a variety of specializations, preparing students to work in the rarified world of finance, sports management, fashion and a host of other endeavors. Sheffield University Management School’s MBA characterizes itself through a trio of themes that underpin its content: entrepreneurship, leadership and consultancy.

All MBA programs hope to instill leadership qualities, while consultancy might be considered the closest thing to a default MBA career there is. The third pillar is, however, also key. Entrepreneurial skills are difficult to quantify, but teaching this skillset fulfills a growing need. “We feel we are unique in having this focus as part of our MBA; entrepreneurship is important whether students want to set up their own business or work for an established organization as they need to be innovative and creative,” says MBA Director, Dr Vasilios Theoharakis.

After all, when you are in charge, you are the one responsible. Acting like an owner means taking ownership of your decisions – regardless of the consequences. For Sheffield University Management School, the philosophy is demonstrated by the many MBA grads who now run their own companies.

From MBA to microbrewery

Leaving the relative security and stability of employment for the uncertain future of entrepreneurship requires fearlessness. That’s one reason Rebecca McIntyre named the microbrewery she co-owns ‘Intrepid’.

McIntyre’s background is in fundraising and charity work. When she enrolled on Sheffield University Management School’s MBA program, she expected to continue in this field. After earning her MBA in 2008, however, she found herself on a different path. “I decided that I wanted more control over my working patterns, so I went freelance and started doing my bid writing and grant applications on a freelance basis,” McIntyre, explains in an interview with the school’s alumni magazine, Catalyst.

By then, she had settled in the nearby Derbyshire Peak District, an area in which one can live an outdoorsy, adventuresome lifestyle, against a stunning natural backdrop. From horseback riding to cave exploring, the Peak District helped inspire McIntyre to take risks. After a couple of years freelancing, serendipity produced an unlikely opportunity. Along with her husband Ben, (a fellow Sheffield alum with a degree in engineering) and a friend, Rebecca became involved in the 300 person community buyout of The Angler’s Rest public house in Bamford.

The new pub brought unexpected rewards. McIntyre says her husband was a really keen home brewer. Their new business offered Ben McIntyre an informal focus group. Patrons who tried his microbrew often said, “If it was available in the pub we would buy it,” she remembers.

Today small breweries in cities like Portland and Seattle have made significant inroads in a market once dominated by multinational, multibillion dollar corporations, mass producing beer. The transition began in the 1970s when UK brewers began crafting beverages that, like wine produced in small batch vineyards, was more flavorful than mass-produced products. “They’re not one-dimensional beers,” Rebecca McIntyre notes in Catalyst. “That was the aim, to make beers that were interesting – we’re surrounded by beautiful scenery and we kind of wanted to make something that fitted with the Peak District.”

Besides the free market research provided by The Angler’s Rest’s beer-drinking patrons, Rebecca McIntyre was able to draw upon entrepreneurial skills she’d developed during Sheffield University Management School’s MBA program. She focused on the business development end while her husband engineered the brews. The pair also reached out to their friend who’d joined them in purchasing the pub. Since he had a background in the hospitality business, he was a natural fit to help sell and market their beer.  The Intrepid Brewery produced four core beers with names referencing the Peak lifestyle – including ‘Explorer’, a bestselling blonde ale and an IPA they named ‘Traveler’.

If running a small business means cutting through a thicket of red tape, opening a brewery is akin to thrashing through a jungle. Besides dealing with the intricacies of setting up a microbrewery, they also faced a trademark infringement case when a larger company attempted to use their name. Since everything from delivery trucks to labels carried the Intrepid name, rebranding would have been extraordinarily expensive. Although they ultimately prevailed, McIntyre advises anyone with a great product or a great name to protect it immediately.

Can universities arrest entrepreneurship’s decline?

Although declining stock indexes across the world have made headlines in 2016, in both Europe and North America, the unemployment rate has been declining. Mark Zondi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, has however identified a cause for worry. “It all feels pretty good,”  he admitted to The Washington Post last year. “But I think there are things to be worried about, and the state of entrepreneurship is one of those things.”

Entrepreneurs do more than create businesses: they create jobs. In the US, business creation peaked 10 years ago. During the global recession, it plunged by nearly a third and hasn’t recovered to that level.

In the 1990s, businesses less than one-year old in the US added as many as 7.5 million employees annually. In June of 2014, it was just over 5 million – despite a growing population; indeed, the number of people 25-54 – the prime age for entrepreneurs – has grown significantly. Younger people haven’t recovered from the recession; dealing with debt and high housing costs has made many risk averse.

MBA programs like the one at Sheffield University Management School seek to reduce the tension between entrepreneurship and the need for stability. Future MBAs at the school are exposed to the various problems they may encounter. Every year, Sheffield provides its MBA students with a list of organizations… and their problems. From multimillion-dollar multinationals to local startups, the challenges are wide ranging. For the students, it is an opportunity to involve themselves in a wide variety of day-to-day functions. This immersion is a preview for their future careers. Rather than drafting a blue sky dissertation, they are able to present to their cohort an examination of a real business and its challenges. Helping solve problems for others can train students to one day solve problems for themselves as entrepreneurs.

“It’s easy to talk about setting up a business,” McIntyre points out. “It’s a lot harder to actually go on and do it. But until you start, you don’t know what the potential really is.” She recommends that anyone with an interest in being an entrepreneur should pursue their dreams. MBA programs like Sheffield University Management School help you to build a strong foundation in the fundamentals of business, as McIntyre did. After all, there’s a difference between intrepid and foolhardy.

This article is sponsored by the Sheffield University Management School.