斯坦福商学院创业工厂解密

    去年9月份，T.J.杜安开始在斯坦福大学商学院(Stanford University's Graduate School of Business)学习创业车库(Startup Garage)课程，他计划打造一个面向律师的封闭在线网络。

    这门课程为期24周，但上了大约8周后，他和他的团队抛弃了这个想法。

    “我们改弦易辙，决定打造一个面向社区的工具，”杜安说。他最近刚刚放下手头的工作，返回校园休整。杜安的团队试图帮助研究生根据各自的技能和学术背景找到合适的创业搭档。

    创业车库鼓励失败。创业车库指导老师、斯坦福商学院的运营、信息和技术教授史帝范•赞尼奥斯说，尝试，失败，再次尝试，这个周期有助于学生再三锤炼自己的创意，做好接受天使投资人拷问的准备。

    赞尼奥斯说：“创业车库侧重于种子期融资，也就是说要让你成长到能够站在投资者面前，要求获得25万、50万，甚至100万美元投资的程度。”

    斯坦福大学商学院目前有809名在校生，其中大约95%的学生至少选择上一门创业课，无论是创业车库，产品发布(Product Launch)，还是新创企业的组建( Formation of New Ventures)。在斯坦福创业工作室(Stanford Venture Studio)，申请常驻的学生正在利用这片空间设计和打造公司。其他人正在利用工作室提供的各种服务，比如产品宣传练习、与导师配对，以及点对点辅导。

    尽管选修课程是斯坦福培育学生创业精神的核心方式，但这所学校相对于其他商学院的另一个明显优势是，它位于硅谷。此外，斯坦福距离最大的风投公司集中地、加利福尼亚州门洛帕克仅几英里远。自1996年成立以来，斯坦福大学创业研究中心(CES)充分利用了这个得天独厚的地理位置，不断地从硅谷招募人才，同时还与硅谷领袖缔结了各种合作伙伴关系。

    斯坦福大学与硅谷的联系“对商学院的影响更加迅速，更加深入，”天使投资人，凯鹏华盈风险投资公司(KPCB)前合伙人拉塞尔•席格曼这样说。席格曼目前在斯坦福商学院讲授创业车库和其他课程。

    结果是：斯坦福大学往往会吸引相当多打算自主创业的学生。一旦学生进入硅谷，学校会提供足够多的机会来提升他们成功的几率。2013届斯坦福MBA项目毕业生中，选择自主创业的学生比重再创新高，达到了18%，较90年代末期的12%大幅增长。在社交网站Poets&Quants发布的MBA初创公司100强榜单上，斯坦福和哈佛商学院占据的份额超过一半。（跻身这份榜单的MBA初创公司至少需要募集160万美元。）

    T.J. Duane began the Startup Garage course at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business last September planning to build a closed online network for lawyers.

    About eight weeks into the 24-week class, he and his team ditched that idea.

    "We pivoted ... and decided to instead build a community tool," he says, during a recent break on campus from working on his company. His team's startup will help graduate students find each other based on their skills and academic backgrounds.

    In Startup Garage, failure is encouraged. That cycle of trying, failing, and trying again helps prepare students to pitch bullet proof ideas to angel investors, says Startup Garage instructor Stefanos Zenios, who is also a professor of operations, information, and technology at Stanford.

    "Startup Garage focuses on the seed-stage of funding -- getting to the point where you can stand up in front of investors and ask them for $250,000 or half a million or maybe a million," Zenios says.

    About 95% of Stanford's Graduate School of Business's 809 students opt to take at least one entrepreneurship class -- whether it's Startup Garage, Product Launch, or Formation of New Ventures. At the Stanford Venture Studio, students who apply to be residents are using the space to design and build companies. Others are taking advantage of services like pitch session practice, mentor matching, or peer-to-peer coaching.

    While the elective courses are at the core of Stanford's approach to entrepreneurship, another obvious edge the school has over others is its location in Silicon Valley. It's also just miles from the biggest venture capital firms in Menlo Park, Calif. Since its founding in 1996, the Stanford's Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) has taken advantage of that proximity, hiring from Silicon Valley and creating partnerships with its leaders.

    Stanford's ties to Silicon Valley "rubs off quicker and more deeply at the school," says Russell Siegelman, an angel investor and former partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who teaches Startup Garage and other courses.

    The result: Stanford tends to attract a very high percentage of prospective students who want to do their own thing and, once in Silicon Valley, the school serves up enough opportunities to push the odds in their favor. A record 18% of the 2013 Stanford MBA class chose to form a startup, up from 12% in the late 1990s. According to a Poets&Quants list of the top 100 startup companies founded by MBAs, Stanford and Harvard's business schools together accounted for more than half of the list. (To make the list, an MBA startup had to have raised a minimum of $1.6 million.)