Welcome to the quarterly MOBI newsletter for Fall 2021. Each quarter we reach out to our alumni and readers to share important highlights from Santa Clara University’s MOBI program. 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. To read this newsletter in Spanish, please click here.

Thank you from MOBI!

As a quick reminder, MOBI resets its program each calendar year. If you are currently taking a 2021 course, be sure to finish before February 1, 2022. Any work-in-progress will not be transferred to 2022 courses. **Partner courses are not reset.**

Don’t have time to finish your course before February 1? No problem! Just use your same account login to enroll in a 2022 course. Registration for 2022 courses will open in late December. You will have to start at the beginning if you switch courses, but that's just more entrepreneurial training!

If you finished your 2021 course earlier this year and have not yet downloaded your Certificate of Completion from your account, now is the time! When the courses are reset for 2022 you will no longer be able to access your previous courses. Click the button below for instructions to download your Certificate.

Stay tuned for MOBI’s 2022 Business Expansion course, which will feature an update to our Advanced Ecommerce session. The focus of the new session will be Digital Marketing strategies and tactics for each stage of the customer journey. The new curriculum will explore ways to reach new audiences and convert prospective customers to paying customers through paid advertising on social media and search engines, content marketing through social media, search engine optimization, and more. MOBI's 2022 courses will be live January 1, 2022.

Caramel Caravan Co. co-founders Courtney Robinson and Celia Glowka, both Santa Clara University MBA graduates, recognized the power of packaging early on. It was important to them to showcase their beautiful caramels—the handmade quality and variety of flavors offered—and to promote the candies as both a tasty treat and a special gift. When they brought their caramels to market, their clear wrap and pretty gift boxes and bags accomplished both objectives. Courtney shares six packaging tips in this new MOBI guest blog post.

Read blog post

We are so proud of the accomplishments of our MOBI students around the world. Each quarter we will share the story of one MOBI entrepreneur. This quarter we feature Atalie Friedrich, co-owner of Ivy & Stone concept salon in San Diego, California.

Atalie is an accomplished hairstylist, and mom of a busy toddler, who has been in the business for 14 years. The past 10 years were spent at a salon where she had also become the manager. Covid-19 hit the personal service industry particularly hard, and when her salon closed during shelter-in-place, Atalie went back to school to gain new knowledge and skills. “With salons being shut down for much of 2020 due to Covid-19, it gave me time to think about what I really wanted for my future. I used the time off to go back to school and took entrepreneurship and other business classes at my local community college. This education and MOBI gave me the motivation and foundation to open my own business.” 

Read about Atalie’s entrepreneurship journey, and how MOBI helped, in our newest Success Story.

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 Ahmedabad University.

The Integrated Master of Business Administration (IMBA) Program at Ahmedabad University is a five-year full-time master’s program with a purpose “to create leaders for the society” who are curious, energetic, enterprising, and confident individuals driven by entrepreneurship or family business management. The program has been carefully crafted by keeping in mind various facets of entrepreneurship and business management where students are groomed to start a new enterprise or take charge of their existing businesses.

The course EFB609 Business Expansion and Growth touches upon appropriate expansion and growth strategies to create opportunities by leveraging existing products, knowhow, infrastructure, and goodwill. MOBI’s curriculum covers considerable content for the course requiring students’ engagement of about 20 hours. Additionally, the faculty at the Ahmedabad University customized the content to bring Indian context in the course and increase the rigor by adding four sessions (6 hours) to the module conducted by industry experts which involved extra reading materials, assignments, and projects for the students.

Why you chose MOBI? The MOBI sessions cover all important expansion and growth strategies like growing by duplication, buying another business or franchise, inviting public funds, integrating vertically, expanding globally, and selling the existing business. MOBI’s curriculum is rich in content and easy to understand, covering not only the basics of each strategy but also the pros, cons, and risks. Moreover, quizzes included with each session assure learning.

How is MOBI making a difference for your students? The topics covered in the MOBI sessions were a great value addition to the Entrepreneurship courses at Ahmedabad University. MOBI has definitely contributed in enhancing the knowledge related to the growth and expansion strategies of businesses.

Anything else? Students are highly appreciative of the understanding they have received through the MOBI curriculum. A joint certificate from Ahmedabad University and MOBI for successful completion of the sessions added immense value for the students.

Do you know an organization or school that might be interested in partnering with MOBI?

Here are some highlights from the past few months.

MOBI highlights one theme every week on our social media platforms. We post blogs, videos, lists, and articles on a variety of topics relevant for aspiring entrepreneurs. Based upon reader activity, here are some top stories from the past quarter. 

We wish you good health and all the best in business success!

The MOBI Team