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The Entrepreneur
"I was known as the entrepreneur at Haverford," recalls David Morrison '90, founder and president of TWENTYSOMETHING Inc., a marketing research and consulting firm based in Radnor, PA, which specializes in the young-adult market. "Among a school filled with people who were going to go to medical school or into teaching or something like that, I was the guy destined for the business world." It is unlikely that those future doctors of the class of 1990 were operating on their fellow classmates. Morrison's reputation, on the other hand, stemmed less from his aspirations than from the fact that most of his fellow students were already his customers.
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Strapped for cash midway through his sophomore year, Morrison struck upon the idea of selling roses for Valentine's Day. He began taking orders around the Haverford and Bryn Mawr campuses, pre-selling the roses to avoid any downside risk. Some 3500 flowers later, Little People Enterprises was born. Morrison chose the rather humble-sounding name in part to deflect potential criticism from the for-profit venture; he also avoided competing directly with the fundraising efforts of on-campus organizations. "Students tended to look down on entrepreneurial ventures," he explains. "If you're selling a t-shirt, it had better be for a cause, not your own personal gain."
Despite the company's diminutive moniker, much bigger ventures lay in store for Morrison and his roommates/partners Mike Barnes '90 and Josh Kirschner '91. The trio moved into the consumer electronics market, cobbling together a homemade catalog filled with stereos, VCRs, radar detectors, and microwaves. With no overhead, inventory or expenses, the company was able to offer prices significantly lower than traditional retailers; they quickly expanded their operation to 13 East Coast schools, and grossed $40,000 in the first two weeks of Morrison's junior year. "I loved the thrill of coming up with ideas and executing them and learning by the seat of my pants," he remembers.
Morrison's early retail ventures relied on what he calls "guerrilla market research"-- basically conversations with his friends to confirm his entrepreneurial hunches. Twentysomething Inc., on the other hand, was founded upon his ability to conduct highly skilled and professional research among his fellow Generation-Xers. The company got its start in 1991 when the Wharton school hired him to conduct several focus groups-- a technique Morrison learned on his own-- among its MBA students. Several projects with Wharton followed, but Morrison's big break came when Apple Computer decided to launch, for the first time, an ad campaign targeted at high-school and college kids. "I sent a letter to John Scully, the chairman of Apple, and got a call three weeks later," Morrison recounts. "They needed someone young but also skilled in focus group moderation." Morrison spent the next several weeks in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago interviewing kids and working with Apple's advertising agency, BBDO, to craft an appropriate campaign-- a process which culminated in four commercials on MTV.
Since that time, TWENTYSOMETHING has worked with over 30 Fortune 500 companies, including AT&T, Coca-Cola, General Motors, and Time Warner. In addition to MTV, the company's work routinely shows up in the pages of Rolling Stone, Vibe and other GenX publications, as well as in the form of new products. Morrison, who runs the company with his wife Nina Sullivan (BMC '93 ) and a cadre of electronically-linked college students on campuses around the country, has become a recognized expert in the field of young-adult marketing. Somehow, he has also found time to complete a year and a half of the M.B.A. program at Wharton, which he will finish in May. "When you think you know everything," he says of his decision to attend Wharton, "you've suddenly stopped learning; there's an immense world of business out there I want to learn more about."
From his earliest ventures on, the key to Morrison's success has been his ability to grasp the culture and lifestyle of his marketplace and discern the fundamental beliefs and concerns driving their behaviors. In the case of the electronics catalog, for example, he recognized that students would be willing to purchase in an unconventional manner (including ads taped inside bathroom stalls) as long as they received conventional product guarantees. "Being a sociology major," he explains, "allowed me to understand the dynamics of human interaction, so I could understand what was taking place on the surface level as well as deeper down." Morrison also credits the more general nature of his liberal arts training for his continued success and ability to adapt in the competitive world of business. "Haverford taught me how to articulate, to express myself and my thoughts, and to think strategically," he claims. "In today's world, especially the business world, you're often forced to defend yourself and your thinking."
On the other hand, Morrison admits that his sociology major didn't exactly prepare him for the rigorous quantitative aspects of the Wharton M.B.A. program. Liberal arts graduates, he observes, are at somewhat of a "disadvantage out of the gate" relative to students who spent their undergraduate years studying accounting or linear programming. The good news, however, is that they end up surpassing those students once they get the basics under their belts: "they catch up over time just because they are so damn bright and resilient" says Morrison. "Their diversified background in terms of classes," he adds, allows them to "absorb new concepts a lot more quickly." Besides, Morrison notes, liberal arts grads are a lot more fun. "If you want to talk to a business major about politics or something outside the very narrow realm of business," he laughs, "they're at a loss for words."
