????2008年8月來校報到時，李和帕瑞克發現他們都是60位MBA新生的一員。湊巧的是，他們后來還一起參加了一項涉及技術和醫療保健的案例競賽。“我們一起完成了這個案例，結果還行，”帕瑞克回憶說。“當時并沒有真正擦出火花。”但這次競賽期間發生了另一件事：他們遇到了一位名叫佩伊曼?普爾-莫埃齊的同學，他提出了一個大創意。

????“他說，‘嘿，我正在開發一個新玩意，’”帕瑞克說。“‘如果你倆感興趣的話，我想讓你們瞧瞧。’那是第一個學期大約過了一半的時候。”

????他們隨后漫步到他在校外的公寓。在那里，普爾-莫埃齊興沖沖地描述一個被他稱為Magoosh的創意，這個稱謂改編自意指“智者”的波斯語“Magush”。他打算為準備參加GMAT的考生創建一個相互幫助的社區。這個論壇與現有的備考服務網站BeatTheGMAT有些類似，但用戶界面將嵌入一款GMAT備考軟件。就讀哈斯商學院前，普爾-莫埃齊也在德勤公司從事咨詢業務，他此前一直與同樣供職于德勤公司、擁有南加州大學(University of Southern California)計算機科學碩士學位的朋友維克拉姆?謝諾伊共同開發這個項目。

????“這是一個依靠人力驅動、同時與一個論壇相結合的混合型備考服務網站，”帕瑞克說。“在那間公寓聆聽這項創業計劃時，漢蘇顯得非常興奮。他向來都對教育事業充滿熱情，還曾擔任過一家非營利性教育機構的董事。他知道自己想成為一位企業家。他是帶著一個愿景和目標來商學院求學的。而我主要是對技術感興趣。”

????隨后幾個月，他們一起投身于這個項目。2008年12月，他們推出了一個簡陋的網站，還購買了谷歌關鍵字廣告(Google AdWords)，以方便更多人找到這項服務。雖然第一個迭代模型并未產生影響，但他們也沒有放棄。李和帕瑞克決定放棄暑期的實習機會。“對于漢蘇來說，放棄實習機會是一件想都不用想的事情，”帕瑞克回憶說。“而我至少還在德勤公司擁有一份安穩的工作。最糟糕的事情莫過于我們不再繼續開發Magoosh項目。對于我來說，獲得這種令人驚嘆的創業經歷固然不錯，但我隨時可以重返德勤公司。”

????早期迭代模型的失敗促使他們苦苦思索。“2009年1月至5月，我們發現這種基于用戶的備考方式其實并不奏效，我們隨即開始研究出現這種狀況的原因，”帕瑞克說。“調查了許多最近幾年參加過GMAT考試的同學之后，我們終于意識到，人們真正需要的是一群深諳這項考試的專家，他們需要這些權威人士來幫他們答疑解惑。”

????他們創造了產品的實體模型，把它制作成PowerPoint格式，隨后邀請一些同學像登陸一家網站一樣來點擊這些幻燈片。“獲得了一些反饋意見后，”帕瑞克說。“我們移動了對話框，并更改語言，讓他們再次點擊。我們不斷重復這個過程，直至大家說，‘這種方式講得通。我愿意注冊。’也就是在那時，我們決定建立一個網站。”他們與溫哥華一位GMAT考試導師簽約，由他為這家新生的網站提供教學視頻。

????就這樣，在暑期的幾個月中，他們全身心地建造這款新產品。謝諾伊返回印度后也沒有停止開發工作。李與選擇去謀智網絡公司(Mozilla)實習的普爾-莫埃齊一起在伯克利拱形街租了一個辦公場所，那里迅速成為Magoosh公司的首個總部。他們每天都躲在地下室或后院全神貫注地搭建產品，而大衛?查倫教授此前一個學期講授的《創業教程》(Workshop for Startups)也給予了他們莫大的幫助。

????李和帕瑞克開始碰撞出火花。“漢蘇和我真的很合拍，很容易溝通。我們建立了密切的聯系，”帕瑞克說。“漢蘇和我真正特別的地方在于，我們都為Magoosh傾注了全部心血。”

????共同的興趣衍生出一份深厚的友誼，甚至達到了相互依賴的程度。“它遠遠超出了商業范疇，”帕瑞克說。“我們花了很多時間一起參加社交活動。我們一起喝酒，一起吃飯。”他們經常去北伯克利一家名叫愷撒的小食吧，李往往會痛飲一杯蘇格蘭威士忌，帕瑞克則喜歡喝帝國黑啤。他們每兩個星期總會在星期四騰出一個夜晚，出去聚一聚。

????When the two reported to campus in August 2008, they found themselves in the same cohort of 60 incoming MBA students. They also ended up working together on a case competition involving technology and healthcare. "We did this case together and it was okay," recalls Parikh. "Nothing really came of it." Except one thing: They met another MBA student, Pejman Pour-Moezzi, who would bring them a big idea.

????"He said, 'Hey, I'm working on something," says Parikh. ""I'd like to show you guys to see if you would be interested.' That was half way through the first semester."

????They strolled over to his apartment off campus and Pour-Moezzi described the idea he called Magoosh, a play on a Persian word "Magush," which refers to a wise person. The concept was to create a community of users who would help each other prepare for the GMAT exam. The forum would be similar to an existing service, BeatTheGMAT, but the interface would embed GMAT prep software. Pour-Moezzi, who had also been a Deloitte consultant before going to Haas, had been working on it with a friend from Deloitte, Vikram Shenoy, who had a master's in computer science from the University of Southern California.

????"It was people-powered test prep, a hybrid of test prep with a forum," says Parikh. "At the apartment, Hansoo was visibly excited about education. He was passionate about it. He was on the board of an education non-profit. He came to school knowing he wanted to be an entrepreneur. He came to business school with a vision and a purpose. For me, I was interested in technology."

????They worked together over the next few months, launching a crude site in December 2008 and buying Google AdWords to help people find it. The first iteration didn't really take, but none of them gave up on it, either. Lee and Parikh decided to relinquish their chance at a summer internship. "For Hansoo, giving up an internship was a no-brainer," remembers Parikh. "For me, I at least had a safety net back at Deloitte. The worst thing that could happen is we don't pursue Magoosh, but I get this amazing experience to work on a company and I could always go back to Deloitte."

????The failure of the product's early iteration got them thinking. "Between January and May of 2009, when we realized that the idea of user-based test prep wasn't really working, we started researching why it wasn't working," says Parikh. "We surveyed a lot of our classmates who had taken the GMAT in the past few years. That's when we realized that what people want are credible experts who know the test. That's where they want to get their explanations."

????They created mockups of the product, put them in PowerPoint, and asked classmates to come and click through them as if the slides were a website. "As we got feedback," says Parikh, "we would move the boxes around and change the language and have them click again. We kept doing this until we got to a point where people said, 'This makes sense. I would sign up for that.' That is when we decided to build it." They contracted with a GMAT tutor in Vancouver to supply instructional videos on their site.

????So during those summer months, they poured themselves into building the new product. Shenoy returned to India to work on it from there. With Pour-Moezzi, who chose to take an internship at Mozilla, Lee rented a place on Arch St. in Berkeley. It quickly became the first official Magoosh headquarters. They worked in the basement or on the back patio every day, engrossed in the build that was informed by a Workshop for Startups taught the previous semester by Professor David Charron.

????Lee and Parikh started to click. "Hansoo and I had a really good rhythm," says Parikh." It was easy to communicate. We developed a close bond. The one thing Hansoo and I had that was truly special was that we were both completely committed to Magoosh."

????Out of that shared interest came a deep and profound friendship, even a dependence. "It was well beyond a business thing," says Parikh. "We spent a lot of time together in social settings. We drank together. We ate together." They would typically saunter over to Cesar, a tapas bar in North Berkeley where Lee would swill scotch and Parikh would down Imperial Stout. They'd block out the date on a calendar every two weeks on Thursday nights.