News from My Own Business Institute
MOBI Newsletter - 20.2024.03 Edition
Welcome to the first MOBI newsletter of 2024. Each quarter we reach out to our alumni and readers to share important highlights from the My Own Business Institute at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. We hope you will enjoy these updates and continue your relationship with MOBI on your path toward entrepreneurship!
Feel free to opt-out of this newsletter by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom. Para leer este boletín en español, haga clic aquí.
Thank you from MOBI!
Introducing MOBI On Demand!
For the past several months, we’ve been dropping hints about a very special project that we are now ready to share with you! We are so excited to introduce MOBI On Demand, a new way to pursue your entrepreneurship education with MOBI. MOBI On Demand brings our popular content to you in an audio and video format for even greater accessibility! We are piloting MOBI On Demand in English with a new MOBI course available exclusively on our learning management system. Visit Monday’s blog post to learn more about MOBI On Demand and the new Small Business Essentials course. With the addition of audio and video curriculum, MOBI brings a new chapter of free entrepreneur education to life.
New Curriculum for 2024!
MOBI is excited to introduce two new curriculum updates now available: Customer Experience & Feedback and Develop Negotiating Skills.
According to a recent post by the U.S. Small Business Administration, customer experience is one of the small business trends predicted to shape 2024. In fact, the article states, “Customer experience is everything.” We could not agree more! MOBI tapped the expertise of Industrial Organizational Psychologist and the President & CEO of Volunteer Odyssey Sarah Petschonek, PhD, MBA, to update this critical aspect of business ownership. Visit the new curriculum to learn how to create a customer experience framework for your business and understand the importance of customer feedback, as well as strategies for gathering feedback, using feedback to improve your business, and responding to feedback professionally (templates included!). The Customer Experience & Feedback curriculum is part of MOBI’s free Business Expansion course, and can be viewed here on our website or by logging in and choosing Business Courses 2023-2024 and then Business Expansion.
Negotiations play an important and impactful role in many areas of entrepreneurship (and daily life!). Our new Develop Negotiating Skills session shares the insightful strategies of veteran entrepreneur and small business expert Brian Moran. Brian is the host of popular podcast Small Business Edge, a business of the same name that he founded and leads. He is also founder and CEO of Brian Moran & Associates and Bricks or Sticks. Brian brings 30+years of experience with small to midsize businesses and their markets in MOBI’s new negotiation session. Visit this new curriculum to learn the basics of negotiation, preparation strategies for negotiations, skills to master for successful negotiations, and more. The Develop Negotiating Skills curriculum is also part of MOBI’s free Business Expansion course, and can be viewed here on our website or by logging in and choosing Business Courses 2023-2024 and then Business Expansion.
MOBI Annual Impact Survey
Each year we survey MOBI Certificate and badge recipients to learn more about our students, gather information about the types of businesses you are starting, research your curriculum preferences, and more to better understand how we can continue to improve our programming to help you be successful in achieving your business goals. This year we had more responses than ever and here are a few of the results. Visit our blog post about the Impact Survey to learn more.
It’s wonderful to learn about your businesses and business aspirations! Thank you to everyone who responded. We appreciate your time, your feedback is extremely valuable!
Glossary of Business Terms
MOBI’s Glossary of Business Terms in one of our most popular online destinations, on both our English and Spanish websites! So we are excited to let you know we have updated our glossary with more terms and a user-friendly search navigation to help you improve your business vocabulary. In addition, each of our Starting a Business course sessions now include a list of business terms used in that session. We hope this will enhance your learning experience!
Marketing Tips Campaign
This holiday season MOBI launched an Instagram Reel campaign featuring 45 Holiday Marketing Tips. In case you missed it, we have created a web page with the full list! The year is filled with holidays you can celebrate to promote sales for your business! Need inspiration? Just visit our Holiday Marketing Tips page for new ideas!
Partner Spotlight
MOBI partners are an important part of the MOBI program! By forming partnerships with diverse communities of students around the world, MOBI can inspire entrepreneurship in ways that best meet the specific opportunities of each group, and always for free. This quarter we feature US Africa Initiatives (USAFI), an organization striving to catalyze, convene, and connect US professionals with civic, nonprofit, and educational leaders in Africa by providing technical assistance and capacity building. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to USAFI Founder and General Manager Solomon Belette for providing this information for our readers.
USAFI’s mission is to facilitate, build and strengthen organizational capacity through US-Africa partnership programs and initiatives in the following domains: African diaspora, civil society, higher education, nonprofit and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), philanthropic networks, and social enterprises. USAFI aims to take the lead in establishing a global engagement network that is committed to sustainable and equitable solutions to challenging issues faced by organizations in Africa.
Why you chose MOBI? We approached MOBI to seek and develop the partnership because of its commitment to help develop and strengthen social entrepreneurships in Africa and around the world by sharing information and resources that are free and readily available.
How is MOBI making a difference for your students? Since USAFI chose to be a Collaborator partner, we have introduced MOBI to some of our African NGOs including a more recent connection with tuiFUND. This relationship bodes well for expanding the collaboration with the many institutional partners that USAFI works with in Africa. tuiFUND is a dynamic Kenyan organization providing a holistic and innovative approach to empower grassroots initiatives for sustainable growth and positive community impact. tuiFUND will offer MOBI courses to select social businesses in Kenya to create a long-term curriculum for business sustainability.
Visit our Partnerships Page for more information, to submit a Partnership Request, to view some of our inspiring partners, or to view our Partner Comparison Chart.
MOBI Special Events:
Here are some events from the past few months.
| Latino Business Foundation Silicon Valley GraduationMOBI was honored to attend the first 2024 graduation held by the Latino Business Foundation Silicon Valley (LFBSV) for students of its Business Management for Small Business course featuring MOBI’s curriculum. Approximately 80 students received their Certificates of Completion. Drew Starbird, PhD, MOBI Executive Director and Leavey School of Business Professor of Information Systems & Analytics, congratulated the students along with government officials and representatives at all levels. LBFSV presented MOBI a Special Recognition in honor of our partnership together impacting the small business community. The MOBI and LBFSV partnership also received a Congressional Resolution from the offices of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and Congressman Ro Khanna. MOBI is grateful for this very special partnership and the opportunity to create impact together. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to LBFV and wish all the graduates continued success on their journey to business ownership! To learn more about the event, visit our blog post here. |
| New MOBI Team MemberThose who follow MOBI on social media may have spotted a new face among some recent posts and photos. MOBI was delighted to welcome Annasofia Zuleta as the newest member of our MOBI team here at Santa Clara University in October. Annasofia Zuleta joins MOBI as Operations and Communications Manager, bringing a wealth of experience from her previous roles in higher education. Annasofia earned a Master’s degree in Higher Education, Student Affairs from UCLA and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Gender, Ethnicity, and Multicultural Studies from Cal Poly Pomona. You can visit her profile here on our website. |
| Impact Survey Backpack WinnersCongratulations as well to this past year’s Impact Survey backpack winners! As mentioned above, our annual Impact Survey of Certificate recipients is an important part of MOBI’s commitment to continually updating and improving our programs to support aspiring business owners around the world. Survey participants are entered into a drawing for a Santa Clara University backpack. Here are two of this year’s winners: Kenneth from Costa Rica, and Veronica from California. Thank you to Kenneth and Veronica for sharing your selfies! And thank you again to all Impact Survey respondents! Visit our blog post to learn about the survey results. |
| BOS Exploring Entrepreneurship EventMOBI partner Business Owner Space (BOS) in San Jose hosted an event for entrepreneurs this fall. Partners were stationed at tables representing the various stages of starting a business from education to funding, licenses and permits, marketing, and more. Programming supported key entrepreneurship areas of interest as well. Annasofia Zuleta attended on behalf of MOBI and is pictured here with Porter Wong of MBDA/ASIAN Inc., another wonderful MOBI partner. |
MOBI Newsletter Poll
Thank you for reading our newsletter! As a reward for making it to the end, we’d like to invite you to answer this edition’s MOBI Newsletter Poll: What is your biggest challenge as a business owner?
Click here to answer and then keep your eye on our social media to see the results!
Thank you for reading!
We wish you good health and all the best in business success!
The MOBI Team
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