By: Will Dominguez, MBA 2027
I was already building. I just didn’t call it a startup.
At Michigan Ross, many of us choose between established pipelines like consulting, banking, and corporate leadership or the less common path of building a startup. For many, startups represent risk. For me, they felt familiar.
That realization caught me off guard. Coming from a Special Operations medical background, I expected building a company to feel entirely new. Instead, it felt like returning to a way of operating I already knew, defined by ambiguity, ownership, and the absence of a clear playbook.
Ross students tend to move between two operating environments. One is structured: roles are defined, success is measured against established metrics, and the work is largely about executing within existing systems. This is the world of large organizations, traditional MBA career paths, and conventional military units. The other is adaptive: intent matters more than instruction, information is incomplete, and you are responsible for figuring out the path yourself. These are not just different career paths. They are different ways of thinking.
Before Ross, I served in a medical advisory role supporting U.S. efforts abroad. My role extended beyond clinical responsibilities. I built training programs and helped develop medical capacity in coordination with different partner organizations. The commander’s intent was clear. How we achieved it was not.
We had the latitude to plan at the operational level, align stakeholders across organizations, and execute at the tactical level. There was no step-by-step guidance, no complete information, and no guarantee that initial plans would hold. We weren’t following a playbook. We were building one.
Looking back, that experience resembled early-stage venture building more than I realized at the time. There were disparate sources of demand, no product, and no certainty the problem was worth solving. The conditions felt familiar: act on the best available information, commit, and adapt when new data arrives. The domain was different. The muscle memory was the same.
When I began working on my venture through the Zell Lurie Institute, I expected the ambiguity to feel unfamiliar. It didn’t. I didn’t have the full picture. Progress meant aligning stakeholders with different incentives. Decisions had to be made with incomplete information. The path forward emerged through iteration rather than instruction. It didn’t feel chaotic. It felt like a system where the rules just hadn’t been written yet.
The ZLI didn’t hand me a concrete roadmap, nobody could. ZLI gave me reps. Through mentorship, pitch competitions, customer discovery, and product iteration, I kept returning to the same questions: Is the problem real? Do I understand the customer? Can I execute? I was familiarly learning a new domain.
At top MBA programs, the narrative is that startups are risky and traditional paths are stable. If you’re used to defined roles and established systems, startups will feel uncomfortable. But if you’re used to operating without a playbook, they can feel like home.
I remember the moment when this all clicked for me.
I was out with a peer and admitted something I hadn’t said out loud: “What if I’m not that guy?” He told me someone with a better pedigree would be a better fit and that he’d be curious to see someone from another top program execute the same idea more effectively. I’m grateful for that moment. It reminded me that the only conviction that matters is your own.
In MBA environments, it’s easy to confuse borrowed belief with traction. You start to think something is viable because the right people nod, or doubt it because they don’t. But in medicine, in tactics, and in startups, the only feedback that matters comes from reality: the patient, the opponent, the market. No brand, pedigree, or consensus will save you. Just your understanding of the problem and your ability to execute, learn, adapt and persevere.
I didn’t choose startups because they were exciting or unconventional. I chose them because they matched an environment I already understood. The difference now is that I’m not executing someone else’s intent. I’m responsible for defining it.
There are no guarantees, only purpose, judgment, and the willingness to keep going.