About the Class
Faculty
This class is about "scaling" entrepreneurial ventures, not "starting" entrepreneurial ventures. It focuses on the journey from a startup with tens of employees and a little revenue to a scaleup with thousands of employees and a lot of revenue. The course explores several different unique elements to a scalup, including leadership transition for the CEO, the evolving value of the board, the changing dynamics of the GTM engine, raising capital, etc. The course is taught through the lens of different scaleups such as HubSpot, Chewy, and PillPack. And, in some cases straight from the folks that lived it!
Brian Halligan
Brian Halligan is the co-founder and Executive Chairperson of HubSpot, a customer relationship management (CRM) platform he started while studying at Sloan in 2006. The company is listed on the NYSE, has over $2billion in revenue and 200,000 customers. Brian was a frequent member of Glassdoor's top CEO's list while he served in that role.
In addition, Brian is a senior advisor at Sequoia Capital where he focuses on coaching scaleup CEO's. He is also co-founder of Propeller Ventures, a climate tech vc focused on ocean related investments.
He has co-authored two books, "Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs" with Dharmesh Shah, and "Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead" with David Meerman Scott and Bill Walton. He is a senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School Of Management where he teaches Course 15.392 called "Scaling Entrepreneurial Ventures."
He has a BSEE from the University Of Vermont and an MBA from MIT's Sloan School Of Management.
Jenny Larios Berlin
Jenny Larios Berlin is an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Martin Trust and a Lecturer at MIT Sloan.
Jenny was the co-founder and Chief Operations Officer for Optimus Ride, an MIT spinout, whose mission was to deploy inside of geofenced communities safe, sustainable, and equitable autonomous mobility solutions through shared and electric vehicle fleets.
Before getting acquired by Magna, a global innovator in mobility technology, Optimus Ride deployed operations in California, Massachusetts, Washington, DC, Virginia, and New York, growing business operations to over 200 employees and fundraising over $75M in venture capital. It was featured in multiple news outlets, including the New York Times.
Jenny also partnered with others in the MIT community to co-found and advise limeSHIFT, another MIT spinout. limeSHIFT is a socially-driven creative agency, working at the intersection of business, community, and art. Taking a bootstrapped approach, it quickly realized revenue by partnering with organizations like Life is Good, Yale School of Management, and YouTube to implement socially engaged art.
Prior to her entrepreneurial endeavors, Jenny was entrenched in the car sharing technology industry, leading operations teams at Zipcar, Flexcar, and Hertz. At Zipcar, she scaled their university campus program and, as National Member Services Manager, was responsible for all service operations in all Zipcar cities worldwide.
She earned her bachelor’s at the University of Maryland, College Park, and two master’s – an MBA from MIT Sloan and a master’s in City Planning from the MIT School of Architecture and Planning.
Jenny has a background in public private partnerships and incorporating new business concepts or leading edge technologies to create businesses that improve everyday living. She is passionate about positively impacting the way people engage with themselves and the world around them, and is excited to bring these skills to the Trust Center.