Gary McDonald had a pretty serious case of imposter syndrome when he walked onto MIT Sloan’s Cambridge campus in June of 2022. He was there as part of an 18-person cohort from the North East region of Scotland, which planned to attend MIT Sloan Executive Education’s intensive six-day Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP). Interestingly, though, only a small percentage of the participants who had flown more than 3,000 miles to be there had ever started a business. In fact, they actually are part of an ecosystem that supports other businesses and entrepreneurs on their growth journeys.
“I did not come to this program as an entrepreneur. I did not have a business ready to go or one that I wanted to take to the next level,” explains McDonald, a market development manager for Opportunity North East, the private sector economic development catalyst driving transformational change to diversify North East Scotland's economy. McDonald works within the food and drink team helping NE of Scotland businesses take their products to markets across the globe. The cohort in which he participated formed around a funding opportunity from the Scottish government that was designed to help recover and restart the economic growth of the region after the COVID pandemic. And the participants had no idea what to expect from the program.
“As a cohort, we came into this with open eyes and no real expectations. Our goal was to learn how to accelerate entrepreneurs and stimulate entrepreneurship in our region. We were thrust into the deep end, which was daunting but exciting. And I have to say that I can’t think of anything I’ve ever done in six days that has delivered so much for me professionally and personally,” McDonald says. “It was an amazing, immersive learning experience.”
A Different Perspective
“The information we learned from EDP enables us in a completely different way when we’re having conversations and meetings with businesses and entrepreneurs who are working to build their companies and brands,” observes McDonald, who shepherds businesses through the process of taking their products to market in his role with Opportunity North East. For him, the knowledge he gained through EDP had him viewing the product development element of entrepreneurship in a whole new light.
“For us, especially in food and beverage manufacturing in Scotland and the UK, everything is about the product first. Food and drink manufacturers are predominantly focused on the product itself,” McDonald notes. “Interestingly, during EDP, we surprisingly didn’t even talk about product until we were rather far into the process. We learned that there’s a whole persona surrounding the customer and the importance of figuring out what they need before you even get to the product. Who is your customer? What problem are you solving? How would the customer use the product you have in mind?
"We were thrust into the deep end, which was daunting but exciting. And I have to say that I can’t think of anything I’ve ever done in six days that has delivered so much for me professionally and personally."
How would they consume it? There’s a whole market validation piece that needs to be considered. So now, when I talk to entrepreneurs and businesses, I find myself suggesting that they do more research and figure out more market-based details before we even get to the product. I can challenge them in a new way.”
The program also gave McDonald a completely different view of entrepreneurship in general. “In Scotland, there sometimes is a common misconception that you need to be born an entrepreneur. But entrepreneurship can be learned. There is a systematic approach to entrepreneurship that can be taught,” he says, adding that entrepreneurship is also a “team sport” that allows people to collaborate with others who have complementary skills. “In the UK, we’ve always seen entrepreneurship as an individual pursuit. However, it doesn’t have to be such a lonely thing. It works well when you work together.”
Igniting a Spark
For McDonald, EDP did more than provide him with a new way to talk to the entrepreneurs who are looking for support in the food and beverage industry. “When I left, I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” he muses. “I wanted my own business. I wanted to go home and really delve into something. I was in a room with all of these incredible entrepreneurs, and I was a bit jealous of the work they were doing. It really lit a spark in me.”
Of course, for now, he plans to continue the important work he is doing with Opportunity North East and relishes the opportunity to help entrepreneurs in the region take their ideas and their businesses to new heights. “We are all excited to find more innovation-led entrepreneurs in our region,” he says. “The food and beverage sector can be quite a functional and traditional market. It’s a rather formulaic model. But EDP showed us that we can look for those businesses that are led by innovation and put a lot of support behind them. And we can help them reach their goals quicker with the knowledge we now have.”
McDonald also looks forward to recommending MIT Sloan’s Entrepreneurship Development Program to those established companies and startups with which he works. “We all came back from MIT as fanboys and fangirls,” he concludes. “We definitely see the benefit of recommending the EDP to the people and businesses we work with. It’s the kind of program you need to experience and immerse yourself in. It’s really fantastic.”
Learn more about the Entrepreneurship Development Program.