Stern Alum Chris Cook Shares his Thoughts on Entrepreneurship
Aliza Lakhani and Deborah Garcia
Issue date: 9/8/09 Section: Voices
We have been told that regardless of where you are in the world, you can locate a Stern Alum who is willing to give generously of their time and provide advice. We had the privilege of experiencing this first hand during summer break when we met Chris Cook (MBA 2003), former serial entrepreneur turned investment banker.
Chris' story is especially inspiring as it is one of a young kid who turned a bedroom based snow and skateboarding company into a national distribution business. He not only built several companies but took a $100 million company public. Now at Hawk Capital Canada, Chris has transitioned into the world of banking to help them salvage troubled assets.
L&G: Why did you decide to get your MBA?
Cook: I did the Executive Program so I came into it older than most students who take the full time program. I started when I was 33 and, by that time, I was a serial entrepreneur. I took the dot.com crash as an opportunity to frame my practical business experience in an academic manner because my intuition and gut feelings had no structure. The MBA was a chance to review some of the decisions I had made and the paths I had taken. The MBA also rounded out some of the weaker points of my business insight. In running a business, your awareness is heightened in financial aspects whereas marketing and strategy can be less obvious. The whole MBA experience took varying levels of strength and weaknesses in my business abilities and brought them all up to a much higher level.
L&G: Tell me more about some of your serial ventures…
Cook: The company I took public had a 100 mm market cap. Also, my partner and I started a business in his bedroom. We were just two young kids selling snowboards and skateboards making it up as we went along. When we got out of it, it was a national distribution business importing from Europe, Hong Kong and Indonesia. It was a fun business but if we knew then what we know now, we would never have started it. A lot of it was ignorance. We broke every rule taught in strategy class. Specifically, there were two entrenched players with 50% of the market. There was no way we should have ever done what we did.
Chris' story is especially inspiring as it is one of a young kid who turned a bedroom based snow and skateboarding company into a national distribution business. He not only built several companies but took a $100 million company public. Now at Hawk Capital Canada, Chris has transitioned into the world of banking to help them salvage troubled assets.
L&G: Why did you decide to get your MBA?
Cook: I did the Executive Program so I came into it older than most students who take the full time program. I started when I was 33 and, by that time, I was a serial entrepreneur. I took the dot.com crash as an opportunity to frame my practical business experience in an academic manner because my intuition and gut feelings had no structure. The MBA was a chance to review some of the decisions I had made and the paths I had taken. The MBA also rounded out some of the weaker points of my business insight. In running a business, your awareness is heightened in financial aspects whereas marketing and strategy can be less obvious. The whole MBA experience took varying levels of strength and weaknesses in my business abilities and brought them all up to a much higher level.
L&G: Tell me more about some of your serial ventures…
Cook: The company I took public had a 100 mm market cap. Also, my partner and I started a business in his bedroom. We were just two young kids selling snowboards and skateboards making it up as we went along. When we got out of it, it was a national distribution business importing from Europe, Hong Kong and Indonesia. It was a fun business but if we knew then what we know now, we would never have started it. A lot of it was ignorance. We broke every rule taught in strategy class. Specifically, there were two entrenched players with 50% of the market. There was no way we should have ever done what we did.
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