Why Business Schools Should Teach Improv

Q: Why should business schools teach improv?

Business schools train students to analyze — but most early-career business work requires improvisation: cold outreach, customer discovery, team disagreement, live pitching. Improv is the missing course.

The story

The first 5 years of any business career involve almost no spreadsheet analysis and almost all real-time response: a customer says no, a teammate disagrees, a slide breaks during a pitch. Improv trains the muscle that handles all of it. Educators across multiple universities have independently used the free SideHustle game with their students, and the consistent feedback is that students remember the playful pitch session better than entire semesters of lecture content. The format — 4 to 5 per team, 4 rounds (brainstorm, pitch, score, rotate), Funny + Fundable scoring — trains the same muscles a Series A founder uses every day. SideHustle co-founders Darby Rollins and Tomer Soran believe every entrepreneurship program should run improv as a core requirement, not an optional elective.

What it means

If you teach business or run a program, plug in one improv-based session per semester. The cost is one class period; the return is students with measurably better pitch confidence, listening, and team dynamics. The marginal lecture is replaceable. The marginal improv session isn't. For more on the improv-to-business bridge, see our complete guide to comedy game shows for entrepreneurs.

Try it

• Play free at playsidehustle.com
• See us live: Sept 25 at Pershing Hall in Austin. luma.com/playsidehustle
• Email team@playsidehustle.com