Business Course Advisor is the first site that allows busy professionals and the general public alike to find, search, and compare all the executive courses held by AASCB (Association to Advance College Schools of Business) accredited business schools in the United States. Now, filter by subject, state or both to find the ideal course listing from within the largest database of executive business programs on the Internet. Business Course Advisor is 100 percent free and allows users to apply to their desired class without ever having to leave the site.
Who is your startup aimed at?
People signing up for an executive business program, for the most part, are already professionals. They have full-time jobs already. Many of them have families. No one has time to go trudging through the Internet to find something as basic as an enrollment date. And as soon as I realized I wasn’t the only one who had gone through that frustration, it occurred to me that there was no good reason why all the relevant listings couldn’t be aggregated in one place where they were actually accessible to the people who needed them.
How does your startup stand out against its competitors?
Business Course Adviser experts seek out executive business programs across the Internet, grouping classes according to state and subjects – including communication and negotiation, creativity and innovation, finance, HR management, IT management, leadership, real estate, and many others – and providing information such as price, class type, and relevant dates, as well as access to online application forms.
With a powerful search engine, clean, easy-to-use interface, and the largest database of executive business course listings available, Business Course Advisor is the go-to source for busy professionals looking to diversify their trajectories and knowledge base.
From where did the idea for the startup come?
It was one of these things where I just stumbled into this giant hole that needed to be filled. It was totally obvious that something like Business Course Adviser needed to exist, I just happened to be the first person to do something about it.
It frankly amazed me how difficult it was to find good information. Here are these classes supposedly open to the public, and everything you need to know is buried behind five hyperlinks and a homepage, and that’s if it’s even online at all. It just made sense that there should exist one place online where people looking to study could go for information.
Did you have any concerns when starting your business, if so what were they?
Not really. There was no question that a database like this is a must. It is clear that there is a demand on the market. It was a lot of work to collect the database and build the first MVP website. The real concern is how and where to find those people who are interested in the open-enrollment courses.
What is your business background, and what got you interested in startups?
I have a long history of working with startups in various roles. Perhaps my first experience with startups (if you can call it that) was when I was 10 years old in Hungary and I sold picked plums from our garden at the local market. From there I went on to become one of the pioneers of the Hungarian Internet, founding an Internet company in 1998 and then launching the best known Hungarian Health portal, HáziPatika.com. I was also among the first in Hungary to launch e-commerce activities in 1999. I came to the U.S. in 2012.
How did you initially raise funding for your company?
I haven’t raised any funding so far. I managed to bootstrap and build the beta site and what we have now as a Minimum Viable Project (MVP). A friend of mine supported the technical background and I structured the website and collected the whole database.
What has been your greatest achievement so far?
Regarding BusinessCourseAdvisor.com, the greatest achievement is the existence of the website. I tried to build it based on the lean startup method and so far it is working.
Regarding my whole business carrier, the greatest achievement is HaziPatika.com. You can find more about it on my LinkedIn page. Basically, we built the largest Hungarian healthcare website, saved some lives with it and after 11 years we sold the company to a multinational media company.
How long has the your startup been in the making, and who is the team behind the business?
We just launched the website a few weeks back. Like I said earlier, it was a real ground-level undertaking and my friend with the tech know-how helped put together the site and I’m currently maintaining it, along with collecting more info for the database, marketing, etc.
What has been your biggest challenge so far as a startup owner?
To find out who is our real target audience and how we can reach them.
In the coming year, what would you like to achieve with your business?
My goal for the first year is to reach 10 percent of the people who enroll into open-enrollment business courses in the United States with the site.
What has been your most valuable lesson so far since starting your business?
Even building just an MVP website, like Business Course Advisor, takes much more time and energy than one could imagine.
Finally, if you could give one piece of advice to someone thinking about starting a business, what would it be?
Just do it! You have to give it a chance. If it fails, go ahead and try to execute your next business idea until you are successful.
