Summer School 8: Graduation and the Guppy Tank
Planet Money
NPR
4.6 • 29.8K Ratings
🗓️ 30 August 2023
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, you become masters of business administration... spelled with lower-case letters for legal purposes. Your diploma is waiting for you just across the stage.
But first, there's one final skill to impart: the pitch. We wouldn't be doing our job as a half-baked parody of a business school if we didn't leave you with the confidence and opportunity to stand in front of an investor and ask for money. We understand what you ambitious business school graduates really want is the chance to launch something and get rich.
So we're combining graduation with a little test of ideas, a showdown of startups, a competition of companies. We are going to put our own spin on a pitch competition like you see on Shark Tank. We hear from five listeners with real ideas for startups.
Can they make a successful pitch? What will investors be looking for in their presentation? Can they come prepared with persuasive total addressable market analyses? Who will have the sharpest customer pain points to solve? We shall see.
Our business expert will give us a rare glimpse into the mind of investors and what they're looking for. Only one graduate will be crowned the winner as this year's valedictorian.
If you want to get your diploma right now, take the 2023 Planet Money Summer School Quiz to earn your diploma!
If you share it on social media, tag us so we can celebrate with you.
Find all episodes of Planet Money Summer School here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Planet Money, from NPR. |
| 0:11.0 | Welcome Summer School Class of 2023. |
| 0:15.0 | We gather today on the imaginary lawn of Planet Money University to celebrate what we have achieved. |
| 0:21.0 | You worked hard this summer by pressing play on a podcast, adjusting the volume, |
| 0:26.0 | occasionally paying attention, and now you are ready to become a master of business administration, |
| 0:33.0 | spelled without capital letters for legal reasons. |
| 0:36.0 | Of course, you will have to pass a short online quiz first. |
| 0:40.0 | You can find it in the show notes, or at npr.org slash summer school. |
| 0:45.0 | Answer ten easy questions and you get a diploma-like image suitable for putting up on the fridge, |
| 0:51.0 | or in your office, if they have a sense of humor. |
| 0:56.0 | But I'm going to be honest with you, what really matters for an MBA is not that diploma, |
| 1:01.0 | sure it looks nice on the wall, but what really matters is the confidence. |
| 1:06.0 | The confidence to take everything they've learned in business school, |
| 1:09.0 | and stand in front of an investor and ask for money. |
| 1:14.0 | That's what the MBA is all about, and that's what we're going to do on today's graduation episode. |
| 1:19.0 | As a treat, we are going to do our own version of Shark Tank. |
| 1:26.0 | Five Planet Money listeners, one shrewd investor. |
| 1:31.0 | I'm excited to hear all of your pitches. |
| 1:33.0 | Angela Lee teaches classes on VC, venture capital, at Columbia Business School. |
| 1:37.0 | She's also an investor herself, the founder of 37 Angels, |
| 1:41.0 | where she's heard 20,000 startup pitches and funded a hundred of them. |
| 1:46.0 | So I have to ask Angela, do you always know in the first minute or so whether it's worth funding a particular business? |
... |
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