In our “What I Learned at…” series, MBAs discuss the tools and skills their business schools provided as they launched their careers.
mbaMission connected with Chris Brusznicki, founder of Gameday Housing, the leader in the sports vacation rental market. In the final part of this four-part series, Chris acknowledges how important the Kellogg community was, and still is, in shaping his business.
When people think Kellogg, they think “marketing,” and while the marketing program is great, people miss the importance of the community—the social/networking aspect of the MBA was invaluable to my business, GamedayHousing.com, and its growth. At Kellogg, everyone lives a mile from school, so it is easy to be on campus all the time—I treated my MBA experience like a job. I was there 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., every day of the week. This immersion experience gave me a real comfort and made me feel at ease sharing ideas and asking questions—and asking questions to the right people.
As I built Gameday, I was constantly getting feedback from professors and my fellow students. I would show people my logo, would reach out to professors with questions constantly. I remember thinking, “If I was not a student, my professors would be charging me $500 per hour—I need to soak up as much as possible while I am not on the clock!” Even today, I have a great friend who is a JD/MBA from Northwestern, and we talk all the time. I send him screen shots of our new Web site. We go back and forth about our pricing strategy. We have not seen each other in two and a half years, but we talk all the time. This socialization with others and this shared experience still is one of the most valuable and enduring impacts of my MBA. I have a way of thinking and testing that I did not have before Kellogg.
