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. SideHustle has run its 90-minute Labs format one-time at Mars Hill, the University of Oklahoma, Penn State, Xavier, and the University of Wisconsin — and the consistent feedback from professors is that students remember the Labs 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.

Try it

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