This summer, 22 MBA students embarked on IESE's 10-week Summer Entrepreneurship Experience, transforming innovative ideas into viable business models. Guided by lecturers Mathieu Carenzo and Mauricio Prieto, they engaged directly with customers, partners, and suppliers. Every year, this hands-on course allows them to apply their first-year knowledge in a fully immersive, practical environment, refining their projects through direct feedback and agile methodologies. Check out this video to get a behind-the-scenes look at what makes this journey so special.

The EIC Scaling Club's has released the first 4 reports in the "Challenge Roadmaps" series, elaborated in partnership with IESE. These reports (Go-To-Market Strategy, Strong Board, Investment Thesis, and Lead Investor) delve into the strategies that the analyzed European deep-tech scale-ups plan to employ to overcome significant hurdles over the next year. They highlight key areas such as refining their go-to-market strategy, enhancing board effectiveness for market expansion, and optimizing customer funnel and readiness level to attract lead investors. The reports provide actionable insights to help these companies grow. Access the reports and read our insight highlights in our blog post.

In this interview with Stan Yu, the recently graduated MBA and entrepreneur from Taiwan reflects on his journey from launching a failed fitness equipment project to co-founding Nocera, which went public on NASDAQ in 2022. Stan credits IESE for strengthening his business knowledge and facilitating connections that led him to join a European VC firm. His key lessons in entrepreneurship include the importance of grit, embracing anxiety as a tool for caution, and carefully selecting partners to navigate challenges. Join us in discovering what makes Stan tick, and his predictions for future business trends.

EU-LAC Digital Accelerator has now published its second Open Call for EU-LAC Partnerships. The Call is open to EU-LAC partnerships that address digital transformation challenges through open innovation. As the academic partner of this European project, at IESE we look forward to continuing to enable collaborations from Europe to Latin America and the Caribbean between established corporations and innovative start-ups and scale-ups, with the view to accelerate their digital transformation journey. Does your organization want to boost digital transformation through open innovation? Learn more about this Call.

On September 19th, the EMBA Madrid Entrepreneurship club is hosting an information session on Search Funds with investor, entrepreneur, and Senior Lecturer José Martin Cabiedes, who will be joined by an investor, a searcher, and a fund. Cabiedes started investing in early-stage tech startups in 1998; and in search funds in 2014, alongside his brother and Co-GP in the VC funds, under a pure principal basis. Nowadays, after +80 search fund commitments, Inversiones Cabiedes SL, their investment arm, has a live portfolio of 22 companies and they are exposed to +40 active searchers, mostly focused in Europe and Latin America. Sign up here!

In this episode of the This is Real Leadership podcast, Elena Betés, a Forbes Top 100 entrepreneur, and Associate Professor Iñigo Gallo explore how their biggest mistakes have shaped them into better leaders. Elena, who launched and sold the insurance comparison platform Rastreator, shares her journey as a "fighter" who turns setbacks into successes. Named among Forbes' Top 100 Most Creative and a winner of the International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge award, Elena reveals whether her resilience helps her bounce back or occasionally gets her into trouble.

In this Forbes article, Professor Desirée Pacheco encourages entrepreneurs to enhance their public impact by effectively measuring it. Implementing robust impact measurement tools allows businesses to align their goals with societal benefits, fostering transparency, accountability, and long-term success. This approach is vital for building trust with stakeholders and ensuring that entrepreneurial efforts contribute positively to our communities. According to Professor Pacheco, understanding and quantifying impact is crucial for entrepreneurs committed to making a meaningful difference.

"In today’s complex world, competitive advantage is about more than just performance," emphasizes Professor Jeroen Neckebroek in this World Economic Forum article. In a study of 14,000 Belgian firms, he highlights the importance of considering value created for non-shareholder stakeholders, like employees. Workforce rents—differences between actual and market-appropriate salaries—can be significant. By incorporating stakeholder rents into performance metrics, companies can demonstrate broader value creation and a more sustainable competitive advantage.