When Yoni Philosophe MS+MBA ’17 took out his phone during an IT course at Bentley, it wasn’t because he was bored. In fact, it was just the opposite. He was texting new ideas to fellow co-founders of DestaPlan travel app.

“I was literally sneaking out my phone in the middle of class and messaging the guys on the fly saying ‘I just learned this and this, here’s what we have to do, let’s act quickly,’ and then putting my phone away,” Philosophe recalls. “And five minutes later there was something else. I directly applied information from nearly every IT class to my line of work with DestaPlan.”

He met one co-founder, Greg Benhaim, in the Bentley MBA program and soon after, met the third co-founder, Ben Futoriansky. Once the travel enthusiasts connected, it wasn’t long before they came up with the idea for a social trip-planner that personalizes the traveling experience for millennials “who like to share.” The goal was to create an online platform to visually organize their itinerary and share it with their network of friends.

“There were so many different platforms like Facebook, TripAdvisor and Google, that people were using to plan trips, research destinations, or share their own experiences” says Philosophe. “But there was nothing that combined the various platform capabilities to integrate everything you need in one centralized location.”

The first version was launched in June 2017 with version two launching the following fall and a version three underway.

A Degree of Confidence

If you asked Philosophe when he was an undergraduate mechanical engineering major whether he would be launching his own app, his answer would have likely been a resounding “No.” In fact, he says that he struggled in a required coding course at the time. When he enrolled in the MBA program and found out he could also pursue a Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT), though, things changed.

“The main reason I wanted to pursue an MBA was because I wasn’t sure how far an engineering degree alone could take me, particularly in regard to leadership,” he says. “When I found out about the MSIT concentration in Bentley’s full-time MBA program, I recognized how I could apply my technical foreground to business and it became much more relevant to me.”

Philosophe specifically wanted an MBA program that was full time and catered to young professionals with limited professional experience. “I didn’t want to be in the classroom with professionals holding twice as much experience, with already-determined career paths; it was difficult for me to fathom being in that kind of setting,” he says. “I liked the fact that the MBA had a strong focus on developing the leadership skills, necessary to act on an idea like DestaPlan.”

Once the program started, Philosophe knew he had made the right decision even though it was “somewhat of a shock.” During his mechanical engineering degree, he studied and worked in a way that was “more so closed off” with very little group or classroom communication. “But at Bentley we were required to actively  participate, to communicate and to present to the class. We were challenged to think on the spot, to speak up and own the room, and to capture the attention of everybody who was listening. I can't emphasize how important it is now as an entrepreneur. That was a big takeaway.”

Philosophe also realized how the diversity of his network of classmates broadened his reach. The social experience of working on teams with people from different backgrounds and cultures helps him today, not only on the job but as a traveler. (He also mentions that his network of Bentley professors were “happy to consult about anything” he asked them about DestaPlan.)

And then, of course, there is the IT skill set that Philosophe developed through the MSIT. He specifically recalls an IT management project where the group was assigned various roles: product owner, scrum master and developers with an issue that was “pretty much impossible to solve in the time-frame given.” The lesson came in learning how to move forward with coding “doomed for failure” and how to communicate using startup-popular channels such Slack, Trello, GitHub, and etc.

“I was literally learning how to communicate with the DestaPlan developers, how to approach them,  the kinds of questions to ask and how to remotely manage the group. And I was using the same communication channels that we were using in class.”

Co-founding and managing DestaPlan has also been an educational endeavor, Philosophe adds — particularly the self-awareness that comes from talking to investors, advisors, and other entrepreneurs. But he has a new attitude thanks to the MBA.

“I used to hate breaking out of my comfort zone and attempting new things because I was afraid of the possibility of rejection and failure, but that all changed at Bentley. I've actually started to enjoy that feeling because stepping out of my comfort zone means I’m gaining the knowledge and experience that is vital in my industry. If you never try, you will never know.”