Bill Aulet

Bill Aulet is the Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship at MIT^[1] and Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management^[2] and MIT Sloan Executive Education.^[3][4] He is also the author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup.^[5]

Aulet (right) with Julie Shah and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Career

Since Aulet became Managing Director in 2009, he has conceived, designed and overseen the implementation of numerous innovative programs, from new courses (Linked Data Ventures,^[6] Entrepreneurial Product Marketing and Development, Energy Ventures,^[7] Applications of Advanced Entrepreneurial Techniques) and student initiatives (MIT Clean Energy Prize,^[8] MIT Entrepreneurship Review^[9]) to accelerators (Global Founders’ Skills Accelerator,^[10] Beehive Cooperative^[11]) and thought leadership initiatives (Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program^[12] or REAP^[12]).^[13] In April 2013, Aulet was awarded the Adolf F. Monosson Prize^[14] for Entrepreneurial Mentoring at MIT.^[15]

Prior to joining MIT, Aulet worked for more than a decade at IBM before launching a series of startups, including 3-D imaging company SensAble Technologies Inc.^[16]

His writings on entrepreneurship have been published by The Wall Street Journal,^[17] TechCrunch^[18] The Boston Globe,^[19] The Huffington Post, Xconomy, the Kauffman Foundation, MIT Sloan Experts,^[20] and the MIT Entrepreneurship Review.^{[21][22][23][24][25]}

Personal life

A former professional basketball player, Aulet lives in Belmont, Massachusetts with his wife; they have four grown sons. One of Aulet's sons is Tom Aulet, founded the company Ergatta, which makes gamified indoor rowers.^[26] Aulet holds a bachelor’s in engineering from Harvard University and an SM from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Educational activities

Bill Aulet teaches the MIT massive open online course (MOOC) on entrepreneurship: "Entrepreneurship 101: Who Is Your Customer?"^[27] and is Instructor at MIT Bootcamps.^[28]

Interview

In a September 2022 interview with the JoongAng Ilbo, Bill Aulet emphasized that successful entrepreneurship is not primarily driven by novel ideas, but by a deep understanding of the market and a customer-centric approach. He argued that companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple did not succeed through groundbreaking innovation, but by optimizing existing technologies to meet market needs. Aulet identified the early definition of target customers and development of solutions based on their actual demands as more effective than product-first approaches. He also stated that economic downturns provide the best conditions for founders to build resilience and long-term capabilities. Teaching that "cash is king," he stressed the importance of positive cash flow and customer-paid revenue as foundations for sustainable startups. According to Aulet, entrepreneurial success involves three key milestones: founding, exit (IPO or acquisition), and reaching cash-flow positivity. He cited climate tech, eldercare health services, and femtech as promising sectors, and defined entrepreneurship as a problem-solving mindset needed across all areas of society—including business, academia, and government. Regarding South Korea, he noted that while individual capabilities are strong, cultural aversion to risk often hinders entrepreneurial growth.^[29]