BabyBox (MBA Thesis)

You can find four featured work products from this project below.

Date: January 2022 - March 2023

Key skills demonstrated: creating workback timelines, entreprenuerial thought leadership, developing new systems & processes, building from scratch, data analysis & insights development, primary customer research, quantitative & qualitative research methodologies

Description: UCLA Anderson has a couple options for students to fulfill its MBA thesis requirement. I chose the Business Creation Program (BCP), which "gives students the opportunity to formulate strategies for the sales, marketing, operations, finance, accounting and management departments, develop and test hypotheses, and conduct effective research that leads to a strategic business or implementation plan for your startup."

For my BCP project, I collaborated on a team of 5 classmates to develop a business plan and deliver an investor pitch presentation for our business idea, BabyBox – a baby clothing subscription company for first time parents.

June 2022: Submitted Project Plan

December 2022: Midpoint Presentation

March 2023: Final Presentation to a panel of investors

March 2023: Final Business Plan Deliverable

March 2023: Our Team & Advisor

Taking the business idea behind BabyBox through two courses starting in the Winter 2022 quarter of our first year, Entreprenuership & Venture Initiation (EVI) and Business Plan Development (BPD), all the way through the Business Creation Program ending in the Winter 2023 quarter was extremely rewarding and a huge learning experience.

Through gaining the experience of what it's like to start a business via BCP, I developed a newfound appreciation for and perspective on entreprenuership and startups.

I'm excited to continue bringing these learnings along with me through my career journey. I'm incredibly grateful thankful for having such an amazing group of people on my team as well as a phenomenal advisor through the process, Allison Silvers of Crosscut Ventures.

Our founding team and advisor after the culmination of our MBA thesis in March 2023: our pitch to a panel of investors. Pictured from left to right: Akebono Nakamura (FT'23), Ben Zhao (FT'23), Allison Silvers (Advisor, Crosscut Ventures), Fanny Pinoul (FT'23), myself, and Kyle Montalto (FT'23).