Who to Ask for a Letter of Recommendation as a Business Owner

If you’re a business owner or entrepreneur, and thinking about applying for an MBA, you already know that strong letter of recommendation (LORs) are a key part of the application process. But here’s the tricky part: unlike professionals working in traditional organizations, who usually ask their managers or bosses, entrepreneurs often don’t have a clear “boss” to turn to for an LOR? So, who is that someone who truly understands your work, and can give a confident third-party validation of your leadership, vision and impact? In this blog, we’ll guide you through the best options for recommenders, what makes a strong letter, and how you can make the right choices based on your unique journey.

When You Don’t Have a Boss: The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma

You have built a business from scratch, led teams, managed clients, and most probably even weathered a few storms along the way. But now, someone else needs to tell that story for you. The right recommender should not only understand your journey, but also be able to speak with authority about your growth, decision-making, people-skills, and impact that you’ve made on your organization & on the people who work for you.

Choosing the right recommender is also not just about choosing someone familiar; you need someone whose voice carries weight, someone the admissions committee will trust to give an honest, informed and objective assessment of your strengths. So, let’s explore who all you can consider for your letter of recommendation as a business owner, and how you can choose your recommenders wisely, based on your working relationship.

Who Makes a Good Recommender

Although you may not have a direct supervisor, you will definitely have many people in your professional circle who have seen you in action; they can speak meaningfully about your strengths. In the points below, let’s see who all those people can be.

1. Business Partners

   If you have a co-founder or partner who works (or has worked) closely with you, they would most likely have had a front-row view of your leadership, decision-making, and impact; this makes them a strong recommender. This is especially true if you’ve built the business together from the ground up, and worked together over a meaningful period of time.

   You may share similar responsibilities, in which case your partner can credibly speak about how you lead, what unique value you bring to the organization and its people, how you make decisions under pressure, and how you navigate challenges. Alternatively, the two of you may handle different aspects of the business. For example, you might lead operations while your partner focuses on the product or fundraising. They would still have observed how you manage teams or scale execution, and so their insights into your leadership and problem-solving will be valuable.

   Ultimately, what university admissions committees are looking for is whether the recommender can provide specific, insightful & credible examples of your work and impact.

2. Clients or Vendors

   If you were a solo founder (without a co-founder/partner), you may have worked closely with a client or vendor over a substantial period, especially those who you were associated with on high-stakes or repeat projects. Such people could also be excellent recommenders and you can surely ask for a letter of recommendation as a business owner.

   For instance, let’s say you’ve been delivering digital marketing services to a large client over the past two years. You would have had regular calls to handle plan campaigns (strategy calls), handled shifting deadlines, responded quickly to unexpected issues (like a last-minute campaign change), and provided creative solutions tailored to their needs. Maybe there was a time when a campaign underperformed or a deadline was nearly missed by your team, and you quickly adapted, adjusted the strategy, or put in extra hours to fix the issue. That client would have seen how you handle pressure and solve problems on the fly. That client would be more than happy to vouch for how dependable, proactive and client-focused you are.

   Another example could be that of a vendor like a software development firm that built your website, helped create your app, or supported your backend systems. Over time, you may have worked with them closely to explain your needs, review their work, and give feedback on what needed improvement. If a technical bug caused delays affecting progress, and you stepped in to coordinate across teams & find a workaround, that’s the kind of problem-solving the vendor would remember.

   With this vendor, you may also have discussed budgets & timelines with them. As your business grew, you may have renewed project agreements with them. If you handled all these interactions with clarity, transparency, timely payments, and mutual respect, the vendor would have witnessed your unambiguous communication skills, consistency and ethical business practices.

   In both cases, the person you choose should have had regular and meaningful interaction with you, not just someone you have worked with sporadically or barely communicated with. And ideally, they should be articulate enough to confidently write about your contributions, professionalism and integrity.

3. Senior Team Members

   If you’ve built a team and have senior colleagues, such as technology Head, Operations Head, team leads or long-time managers, they too can be strong recommenders. These individuals have seen your decision-making style, your strategy-building skills, approach to building & motivating teams, and how you lead during both growth and crisis. For instance, if you’re the Founder/CEO, your Head of Operations has likely seen how you manage high-pressure situations, resolve conflicts, and keep the broader vision in mind while taking the company through key transitions. Their perspective can be particularly useful when it comes to commenting on how you have evolved as a leader.

   Just make sure that the person you choose as your recommender is senior enough to offer a balanced view of your leadership. Avoid selecting someone too junior or too personally close (like a friend or a family member), as their endorsement may lack the objectivity that admissions committees expect.

4. Investors or Mentors

   You may have an investor, start-up advisor or an informal mentor, who’s been closely involved in your entrepreneurial journey. Such people can also become strong recommenders, especially if they’ve seen your growth over time, and played a role in shaping your thinking or business direction.

   For example, if you’ve worked with an angel investor, they would have stayed engaged with you during periodic strategy reviews/discussions. They can speak about your leadership, decision-making, and ability to handle challenges. Or you may have been part of a local incubator, where you were probably paired with a mentor (an experienced entrepreneur). That person would have reviewed your business idea, guided you through business planning or helped you navigate setbacks. They would also be well-positioned to write about your strengths.

   Alternatively, you could have built a strong relationship with another senior entrepreneur or advisor on a personal/informal level. That kind of mentor can also be a powerful recommender, as long as they know your work well and can offer specific examples of your growth, convincing the Adcom that you are MBA-ready.

   In some cases, your start-up may also have a board member (even if it’s a small Board of Directors). They may have worked with you at a leadership level – attending key meetings, helping you think through business realignments/shifts, or advised you with respect to funding or expansion plans. They would have seen you operate at a strategic level, and can comment on your long-term vision and execution skills.

   Just make sure the person has been meaningfully involved in your journey, and can speak about your business skills as well as personal qualities. One more small tip for you is to preferably choose someone (if possible) who has seen you in multiple capacities, such as someone who has seen you in a strategy role as well as an execution role, or someone who has seen you during calm as well as during times of crisis. This gives the LOR more depth and credibility.

Guiding Your Recommender: What the Letter Should Emphasize

While many of the qualities like leadership, resilience and impact, which should find a place in an

LOR have been discussed in earlier sections of this blog, it’s worth revisiting them briefly here so as to understand how an effective LOR should shape up.

Although your recommender will be someone senior, like a co-founder, investor or maybe a Board member (as discussed above), they may or may not have written LORs for the purpose of MBA admissions. Hence, it would be good to give them some guidance on what matters most in an MBA application. Although your recommender already knows your story, providing a brief reminder of specific situations where you demonstrated key qualities valued by admissions committees can help them write a letter that is supportive, strategic and focused. So, you can encourage your recommender to highlight things like: –

1. Every entrepreneur faces setbacks, and daily challenges. How do you handle difficult situations, navigate uncertainly, take calculated risks and, most importantly, bounce back?

2. Do they see you as someone who can influence and lead others with clarity and purpose?

3. They can talk about tangible outcomes you’ve driven, such as those in terms of growth, results or innovation & improvements

4. Whether you’re working with clients, employees, or external stakeholders, how do you build trust, motivate people, and communicate your ideas?

5. They can also talk about your personal values such as resilience, humility, integrity, sense of ownership (spirit of responsibility), people skills, and the ability to think ahead.

It will be great if they could mention a specific story that brings these traits to life. Giving such a story convinces the reader that the recommender truly knows and believes in you. Hence, encourage your recommender to focus on stories, not just adjectives. So, instead of simply saying something like, “ABC is very reliable and hardworking”, it would be better to say, “During a critical client project that went off-track midway, ABC stepped in personally, reassessed the team’s approach, and turned things around within 10 days, earning the client’s trust back in the process”.

How to Approach Potential Recommenders

Asking for an LOR is just a matter of clear communication and a little planning. To keep it simple and straightforward, the best way is to ask in person or over a quick audio/video call. Give them the context (i.e. explain to them why you need the LOR), and tell them that you value their opinion & support.

But if asking in person like this is not convenient (for you or for them), a thoughtfully written Email works perfectly too.

Irrespective of how you approach them, first ask them if they are willing you write that LOR for you. If they agree, let them know the key qualities or stories you’d like them to highlight so they can focus their letter accordingly. For this, you can also offering a brief “cheat sheet” with your achievements and examples, which will help them write a strong, detailed letter without too much effort. Secondly, be respectful and give them adequate time, say around 6-8 weeks before the deadline. And if the deadline is coming up and you haven’t heard back, a polite reminder is always fine.

If you’re gearing up for your MBA journey, start thinking now about who can best tell your story. Reach out early, and build those connections. Hopefully, if you follow the above steps, and approach potential recommenders thoughtfully, you’ll be able to get LORs that strengthen your application. A great by-product would be that you land up deepening valuable professional relationships. The right recommender can be a powerful advocate for your next big chapter. All the best!