Dean Strauss, the Associate Dean of Sy Syms School of Business, recently sat down with The Observer to speak about the Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program, a program initiated to help students develop and launch their entrepreneurial business ideas.
Through the Program, Dean Strauss not only offers students his dedicated attention, valuable advice, and friendly conversation. He offers students beneficial business advice that hundreds of people would pay big bucks to get. Mr. Strauss is the business coach who gives student entrepreneurs the tools and strategies to actualize their entrepreneurial goals. Sometimes this requires putting together a business plan, marketing plan, funding plan, or perhaps speaking to lawyers or investors in niche industries. Dean Strauss offers to help students shape and launch their business from its early conception to its actualization.
Dean Strauss recalls a pair of students from St. Louis who loved to barbeque, and wanted to create a cookbook for men. After close work with Mr. Strauss, these students launched their cookbook at Barnes and Noble in St. Louis and sold a remarkable amount of copies. Another student who worked with Mr. Strauss wanted to develop glasses with a Bluetooth chip attached, so Dean Strauss helped this student create and market the glasses, secure investors, and sell them at Home Shopping Network. The student sold fifty pairs in the first fifteen minutes. There are plenty more stories that Dean Strauss has in his repertoire, and in each case he uses his life experience and knowledge about business that he picked up firsthand from working with American Express, private equity groups, and his small consultant business, to help each student secure their entrepreneurial goals. In some cases, Dean Strauss contacts industrial manufacturers, patent attorneys, and investors in order to help launch these student businesses and inventions.
To appreciate the service Dean Strauss provides, one must first understand what brought Dean Strauss to this position in the first place.
Recounting his early years, Mr. Strauss explained, “I’m not an academic, I’m a business guy.” Born and raised in Israel, he came to the United States, went to City College, and studied for his MBA at night while his wife was pregnant with their first child. He then pursued a business career over the next 35 years of his life, spending the largest part working for what he called “Corporate America,” which includes a number of companies such as Citibank, American Airlines, and American Express. Mr. Strauss eventually left American Express; from which he explains he had risen to become one of only three executive Vice Presidents in the Travel Related Services division of American Express. Although he had rose through the ranks at American Express and many thought him crazy to leave such a coveted position, he found that it was time to move on.
From there, he became involved with companies for a number of years, where his primary goal was to enter as CEO and do, as he explained, whatever needed to be done to improve and turn around these companies. Through this experience, Dean Strauss worked with a number of private equity groups and high-net-worth individuals. Twelve years ago, he formed his own consulting business, where he explains that he applied basically the same strategies he used to turn around the large companies on a smaller business scale, working with family businesses and young entrepreneurs. Dean Strauss elaborated on his reasoning for stepping away from the large, lucrative companies, “in the hope that I could share some of my experiences, and the mistakes I made, with [smaller businesses and entrepreneurs] so they wouldn’t have to go through that themselves.”
Professor Nissenfeld first brought Dean Strauss to YU. Mr. Strauss was asked to make a presentation as part of the Kukin Lecture Series. Regarding the experience, Dean Strauss raved, “I loved the students… they were nice, poised, inquisitive, smart, polite, and all those wonderful things.” From there, Mr. Strauss was invited to teach a course at YU, to which he happily accepted. Since his background was in turning around businesses, Dean Strauss developed a course called “Turn Around Business Strategy,” fueled with personal knowledge and experience in the subject. Michael Ginzberg, a new Dean at the time, came in and suggested that Dean Strauss help YU students who have great ideas for businesses but don’t have the contacts, experience, and knowledge to take their business idea and make it a reality. It was this advice that lead Dean Strauss to create the program, and he explained that “the more I did it, the more I enjoyed it.” Eventually, he gave up his small consultant business to be here at YU full time.
It’s been about three years since the start of the Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program, and since then Dean Strauss has seen around one hundred (or more!) students per semester. These students come from Stern, YC, and Sy Syms, from all different majors and backgrounds, but the uniting factor is the passionate and dedication of the individuals who are willing to do what it takes in order to see their dreams actualized. Since the start of the program, Dean Strauss has heard countless business ideas from students. Some of these ideas do not take off; perhaps because the student becomes caught up in school or other activities, or their business ideas are lofty and impractical. However, there are some students who are dedicated and driven to see their ideas through, and are willing to put in the research, preparation, finances, and dedication necessary to achieve them.
Students are enthusiastically appreciative to Dean Strauss for the avid dedication and beneficial business advice they received through this program. Albert Pinhasov, a Sy Syms graduate of 2007 who has worked closely with Mr. Strauss on a social networking website and a classified website, said of his experience, “Mr. Strauss is always willing to help in any way he can and I keep in touch with him sometimes on a weekly basis… Some [new students] just started their first year at YU and don’t have the knowledge and experience to start their own business, but they have the idea and passion for it. Being aware that Mr. Strauss can help them is a great jumpstart.” Another Sy Syms student, Ari Raskas, who expects to graduate in January 2014, explained, “Dean Strauss has helped me tremendously from day one. He has guided me all the way through and helped me take an idea and turn into an actual company. Dean Strauss tells me to call him on his cell phone at any time whether it’s day, night, weekend, summer—it doesn’t make a difference. He is always available to students.”
Dean Strauss, the self-made man who came to YU after a lifelong experience in business, is willing to meet with students for hours on end and take calls in the summer in order to help the students of YU achieve their business dreams. Mr. Strauss reveals that the secret to the Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program’s success is the passion that the students bring to the table and his love for his work. He exclaims, “My only regret is not doing this ten years earlier!”