My Day As An HBS Influencer

Jake Goodman (MBA ‘26) shares the script to make you go viral

I know everyone wants to know what a day in the life of a HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL student is like, so I’m going to show you what it’s like. Oh by the way, I’m a founder, just to get that out of the way. Let me walk you through a day in the life; let’s go!

7:30 A.M.

Woke up, yeah even HARVARD students do that too, haha. Did normal Harvard things like brush my teeth and eat my protein cereal. Oh my god, protein cereal is such a goated business idea. I think I’ll wear this super fun sweater I thrifted last weekend in NYC. I’m like barely ever in Boston on the weekends because it’s really hard living in a Tier 2 city where the food within the 2 miles of campus I voluntarily choose to limit myself to kinda sucks, you know. Nothing is New York, after all. 

Anyway, everyone thinks at HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL you wear suits or something dumb like that but no we just dress casual.

8:49 A.M.

Boston winter is like so terrible. At least in New York I could like Uber everywhere but my Canada Goose is a godsend, literally, protein cereal level goated business too. All it does is snow and be grey, but I’ve been taking vitamin D pills and have an Oura and a Whoop so I still feel functional. 

Even though I literally just came from my on-campus apartment, I had to get an iced latte just so I can make it through class and not fall asleep, which is hard because we do these things called cases where you are supposed to read 10 pages and debate things. Even though I’m a full time student and pay $80k+ in tuition and it only takes 20 minutes and even 10 minutes if you’re fast, I don’t really read the cases because I’m smart enough to make super intelligent and extremely thoughtful comments without doing any reading. That’s how I know I’ll be a successful founder because I can read the room well and improvise. I got this, everyday, all the time. Also, all my professors totally love me which is how you know you made it, when a HARVARD professor loves you.

9:10 A.M.

Okay, going to class now. We aren’t supposed to use our phones so I’ll have to leave soon, but don’t worry I’m still checking Twitter under the table. We have these silly white name tags but they feel very HARVARD, look see them. Everyone has them and we sit in these big rooms where the professors use chalk. Chalk, like the kind from the 1800s or whenever Harvard was founded. Everyone has these bright red Herman Miller desk chairs that honestly are more comfortable than they seem because my back hurts sometimes, like actually only sometimes though. Brb, they hate phones here and are archaic about technology, so I’ll come back after class. 

12:10 P.M.

Class is finally over. Thank god, I was about to pee my pants. I’m going to grab lunch with my friend Jane Deer. See this is Jane, she’s super nice and we have a lot of compatible interests like squash and espresso martinis. Plus, she’s also a founder so sometimes we bond over like the struggle, you know, of having a business idea in your head that no venture capitalist will deploy LP dollars towards, well yet anyways. We’re both pre-revenue and I guess pre-product too, but the pre-product doesn’t really get you any cache so I usually drop that.

Anyway, there’s only one main dining hall, which is so sus, this school just wants to bleed us dry. It’s called Spangler since some old geezer donated like a cajillion dollars to have me think of him every time I’m hungry. Ugh, I love walking through and feeling like I’m at a mixture of a wedding venue for accountants and Hogwarts. Even though I’m like super broke, I eat out all the time. Cooking is bad for my aura as a founder because it’s not a good use of my precious mental energy so the cafeteria gets the job done. Like I’m not going to come to school with a lunch box like I’m in third grade again, plus I’ll be rich soon so eating out is like a loan to myself. The options can be healthy and cheap, especially if you have a plate of only spinach and one hard boiled egg. 

1:00 P.M.

After lunch, I’m definitely not reading cases, because, like I said, I don’t do that. I usually write my to-do-list which has like a million things on it. I never go to sleep with my to-do-list done.

I finally remembered to sign up for another free AI tool with my student discount. You honestly can never have too many. AI is like my brain now, literally. I think I’ll print out some notes from ChatGPT for my next class since I haven’t spoken all semester. HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL gets really touchy if you don’t speak a lot since we have these weird number grades where they tax you for being quiet. I literally don’t even have to think anymore, it’s crazy. 

Oh I also need to pick up a case for next week which I won’t read. See this is the guy in the case pick up area. Say hi. 

3:10 P.M.

Ugh, today was also rough since it was a three case day. It’s crazy as a full time student that we’re in classes for most of the day. Like this isn’t supposed to be a 9-5 gig. Anyway, because I’m so burned out, I’m going to go to the HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL gym. Shad is where I ensure I get the proper work-life-balance I need, especially as a founder. Burn out is real. It’s kinda crowded, but the locker rooms are so nice, and god, I need the sauna in this Boston winter to sweat out my stress.

4:30 P.M.

My Peloton workout felt amazing, and now I’m freshly showered so time to be productive for a little bit. Maybe I’ll send out two customer discovery emails. I love discovery, feel like I’m the Magellan of vertical AI for the niche within the niche industry I was in before HBS that actually isn’t that niche and has a good of amount of Tier 1 VC-funded competition already. I can’t wait to be in SF soon where I can talk to people all day who do the same amount of discovery that I do, but it’ll definitely be weird being around people who didn’t go to HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL and actually think an MBA is kinda dumb and a waste of time considering I could have just been discovering and even maybe building all day, like Bob the Builder, me yeah the founder Bob. But it’s okay, I’ve always wanted to pay high taxes and high rent to live in an overpriced suburb and sell software.

4:44 P.M.

I’m exhausted now, but I’m still going to socialize. I’m meeting up quickly with my friend John Doe to chat about our summer plans and how we’re going to be super locked in. Locking in is so sweet. I can’t wait to spend 8 weeks working on something instead of going to class and not reading cases. My work ethic is so ready for this. 

5:02 P.M.

Quietly sneaking into the Alix Earle talk. It’s so cool that we get all these amazing guests at HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL who are super famous. I never feel more seen than when people who are just like me and building their personal brand all the time come to campus. I could definitely be like Alix Earle and she’s more relatable to real business today than all of these dumb Warren Buffett cases we do. Anyway, I see celebrities all the time which I guess is a perk of going to HARVARD. Here’s a quick pic of me and Alix. I didn’t pitch her on my startup yet. Need to be post-product, but that’ll happen the next time she’s on campus, which is seemingly all the time now.

6:00 P.M.

About to head to dinner at this cute Thai place in Harvard Square. I love Cambridge because it has all these nice little restaurants (again not NYC restaurants though, sadly). I’m going with the Entrepreneurship Club which charges us dues to be in it, which I hate. Most of the clubs charge dues here, which sucks but money isn’t real. Anyway, the dinner is subsidized so it’s more like I gave interest-free financing for a future meal (see I learned something in FIN 1, but not FIN 2). 

8:00 P.M.

Ugh, I should be tired but socializing wakes me up. I need to quickly go to my friend’s birthday drinks, which features a very select group from our section that clearly only associate with each other and no one else in the section and furthermore don’t attend any section events out of a staunch separatist vibe that mostly stems from feeling like we’re the presumed “cool” crowd or at least that’s what our aura displays. 

10:02 P.M.

Finally going home. My Whoop is going to hate me tonight, but I’m so glad the Chase Reserve covers a year free now, goated money losing business idea, but the card has good thunk value. Hope you enjoyed learning what a day in the life of a HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL student and founder is like. Follow me for more real talk on what HARVARD is like and how my startup is going. I also need to end this video by telling you I’m a founder because Kevin O’Leary said it was good to have a personal brand. This is my personal brand, hope you were influenced to like me.

Jake Goodman (MBA ’26) is originally from Davie, Florida. He graduated from Brown University with an honors degree in English and Economics in 2019. Prior to HBS, Jake worked in corporate development, strategic finance, and retail strategy and operations at Gopuff, a rapid convenience app, in Miami, and for Barclays in New York City. He is an avid banjo and guitar player and misses the Florida sun dearly.