Roadside MBA Trip #1 began in Memphis, Tennessee and ended in Omaha, Nebraska. Our trip began, as any Great American Journey should, by spending a … [More]
Multimedia: Big Lessons from America’s Small Business
Road Trip Archives

Trip #2: Denver to Oklahoma City
Despite, you know, being economists, the three of us do have our limits on how much economics we can take over a short … [More]

Trip #3: Charlotte to Atlanta
Roadside MBA Trip #3 took place in May 2011. We flew into Charlotte and out of Atlanta, and in between visited Hickory, NC, Johnson City, TN, … [More]

Trip #4: Missoula to Portland
Road Trip #4 took place in August 2011, and went from Missoula, Montana to Portland, Oregon. Along the way, we visited a composting business in … [More]

Trip #5: Chicago to Cincinnati
Road Trip #5 took place in April 2012, and went from Chicago to Cincinnati. Highlights included an outdoor advertising firm in Bloomington, Illinois, … [More]

Trip #6: Atlanta to New Orleans
Dothan, Alabama might be our favorite city. There, we found two amazingly interesting businesses, as well as the Peanut Capital of the World... or, at … [More]

Trip #7: San Francisco to Las Vegas
Roadside MBA Trip #7 went from San Francisco to Las Vegas, and was accompanied by a professional TV crew. Let's bust out some adjectives to see if we
Blog Highlights

The Roadside MBA MOOC: Strategic Thinking for Growing Your Enterprise
The Roadside MBA team is partnering with Stanford GSB to offer our first MOOC! After years globe-trotting, book-writing, and trying out new course material on unsuspecting MBA students, we’ve picked the best ideas from the Roadside MBA canon and packaged them together in a free, online course. During the course, we’ll ask you to think about questions […]

Emmy Nomination for Roadside MBA!
The Roadside MBA Multimedia Project has been nominated for an Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, San Francisco/Northern California Chapter. See the press release here! We are nominated in the “Informational/Instructional-Program/Special” Category. The other nominee is a fun piece on the one-year anniversary of San Francisco’s new Exploratorium from […]

The Roadside MBA Multimedia Project Wins Gold!
We just found out that the Roadside MBA Multimedia Project — Big Lessons from America’s Small Businesses — won “gold” in the News & Research Video category of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Western district awards. We beat out Cal and the UC system. A hearty congratulations to everyone at Stanford […]

Oyer in today’s New York Times
Paul Oyer was featured in today’s New York Times Frequent Flier column, discussing the journeys that led to the Roadside MBA! Check it out here.

Schaefer on HBR.org: “It Depends”
Scott Schaefer’s blog post on Roadside MBA ran on the Harvard Business Review web site last week. A small excerpt: What happens when you put three business professors in a rental car and send them out to talk to owners and managers of small- and medium-sized businesses? Would they discover their MBA frameworks to be […]

Roadside MBA Launches Column on Inc.com
We have interviewed 100+ small businesses in the last few years, but only had space for maybe 45 in our book. What to do with the great stories, insights, and “It Depends” examples from the other 55+? Our friends at Inc.com have been kind enough to bring us on as columnists, and we’re pleased to […]

Mazzeo and Schaefer on CBS This Morning
Mike Mazzeo and Scott Schaefer enjoyed chatting with hosts Anthony Mason and Vinita Nair (Northwestern alum!) on CBS This Morning last Saturday. Big fun in the Big Apple, and you can catch the video here.

The Economist Reviews Roadside MBA
Roadside MBA got a (mostly) nice review in The Economist this week. Here’s a snip: The book… succeeds admirably in its main aim, providing fresh examples to illustrate the basic tenets of MBA theory. In doing so it cleverly addresses two different markets: MBA students who want fresh grist to their mills and roadside businesspeople […]

Roadside MBA Spring Tour!
Roadside MBA will be back on the road June 12 through 16! We’ll hit two countries, two states, two provinces (and our windshield will probably hit many thousands of bugs!) Yes, we’re flying to our neighbor to the north, starting our trip in Thunder Bay, Ontario. From there, we’ll hit Duluth, Minnesota, Grand Forks, […]
Controversy on the #StrategyGrowthMOOC
The Roadside MBA team has been enjoying presenting our MOOC Strategic Thinking for Growing Your Enterprise this month! In our live sessions, we’ve been hosting interviews with growing businesses from around the world, and we’ve also started a new feature: Controversy of the Week! In this segment, we try to kick up some controversy by […]