I’m happy to report there’s another question from the interwebs (to borrow a phrase from my old buddy, Bill Maher). This one is from Alice and covers the First Year Project (FYP).
The FYP is the culmination of the core curriculum at Tuck, a chance to put that broad education and those well-honed teamwork skills to the test through one of three types of project: consulting, entrepreneurship, or M&A.
There are a very wide range of projects, covering almost every discipline and industry you could contemplate. Two teams worked on VG’s $300 house idea (one in India, one in Haiti – funding was provided by the Allwin Initiative). Other teams worked with private equity portfolio companies; others looked at the economics of new renewable energy projects; others pursued start-up ideas, such as a roll-up of a highly fragmented market in the amateur sport area; others worked with early stage companies, such as a bottled fruit juice manufacturer, to advise on where to focus the next stage of its expansion. There are many, many cool projects each year and the world is your oyster.
Students select their own teams and decide what they want to work on. Tuck sources a good range of projects for those who don’t want to come up with their own, but students are entirely free to find or come up with their own projects. (In fact, I think there are few better ways of opening a conversation with a company you are interested in than by offering to have a group of smart MBA students do a free project for them!)
My group’s project was a hybrid of consulting and entrepreneurship, looking at a US market entry strategy for a Parisian cashmere brand, NKo. We did deep dives on US market demand for branded cashmere apparel, and researched the product mix, brand positioning, implications of channel selection, and funding requirements to bring the product into the US market.
I conducted interviews with buyers at major US department stores, and spoke with many local boutique owners to understand their decision making processes, contract terms, key ‘hot buttons’, and opinions of the branded cashmere market. Getting access to key trade shows proved considerably easier and less costly with a student card! The project was a great way to put the academics of the Tuck core into practice in a practical setting.
When we started the project, NKo had nine stores across France and Belgium. The company plans to pursue pan-European expansion in the short term, but may use our recommended market entry strategy as a blue-print for coming to the US in the next few years. Watch this space!
The NKo team – Ken, Jen, Andres, Julie, and Grace.
Read the full article: First Year Project