Entrepreneur turned academic Myra Hunt told about 20 students about the pitfalls of starting a new business, in a speech last night in a Thayer School of Engineering conference room.
Hunt went from a management position at a chain of grocery stores to the founder of Staples office supply stores, a company whose sales surpassed $3 billion last year.
Hunt is now a professor of entrepreneurial management at Harvard Business School.
Hunt said ideas are never enough to start a successful business.
"A great idea may lead you out of the darkness," Hunt said. "But it may be a kick in the butt."
Hunt said another problem is finding initial funding for a business.
"It is sort of like the chicken and the egg problem," Hunt said. Entrepreneurs have trouble finding investors until they can guarantee other investors are interested in a project.
The four months prior to the opening of the first Staples store in Brighton, Mass., and the subsequent years were hectic, Hunt said.
We rented rooms next to the location of the first store and were "literally working 24-hours-a-day seven-days-a-week," Hunt said. "We took four hour naps."
The only time Hunt and her colleagues got eight hours of sleep was when the electric company cut off the power, she said.
Hunt said existing computers were insufficient, unable to keep track of the merchandise and customer data.
"We had to cobble something together from existing systems," Hunt said. "There was no one computer or piece of software powerful enough for what we needed."
Hunt said Staples' basic concept of a low-cost, no-frills office products store is attractive to customers.
Each customer's sales receipt prints the product's list price, the actual price and the amount the customer saved, she said.
Hunt said competition with other retailers has helped make Staples a better store.
"Staples would not be as good as it is today if it were not for Office Depot," Hunt said.
Unpredictable problems can always sideline a potentially burgeoning business, Hunt said. She cited a labor dispute early in Staples' history, which slowed the pace of building and expansion.
Hunt described the thrill of success, showing a slide of Staples' first delivery truck. Hunt said seeing the truck was one of her life's most exciting moments.
It "made me want to stop my car and get out to yell hooray," Hunt said. "It was such a wonderful feeling to know that I had helped create something that wasn't there two years before."
Hunt left Staples in 1990.
"Academia seemed like a wonderful option," she said.
Students in the audience said they were excited to meet Hunt.
"Myra is fantastic blend of experience and raw intelligence that is so fun to see for someone who is young and interested in business," said Ryder Sherwin, vice-president of the Dartmouth Entrepreneurship Society.
Hunt's speech was sponsored by the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Society in conjunction with Tuck School Entrepreneurs.
