20061211-1216

Home, sweet home.

One week almost passed. I had some nice family food while not really too much sleep… What a surprise. I had got up once at 4:30am to catch the greyhound bus to Ottawa for my wife’s F-2 visa interview. I had got up again at 7am to have the skype meeting with folks in China. I also had one skype phone call from 12am to almost 4am with JG in Thailand then got up at 9am. Enough sleep like a pig? Far from it…

Montreal to me is the same but to my wife I know it’s much different. I really felt envy her French now. She can speak quite some sentence as well as reading newspapers. She is going to be a local Quebec resident while I am still a foreigner. I definitely should learn another language as well. Germany? Very possible since I can have Marin’s help at anytime while Spanish could be another good choice too since it’s so widely used in both South America and North America now. But the pronunciation of r will kill me…

There isn’t much news happened this week. Like a week for me to catch up various things I had missed or failed to do in last two BCAP weeks so next week will be a very productive week.

Some hints:

Business 2.0 Magazine is really a great magazine to read. www.business2.com. It’s part of CNNMoney network.

Businessweek is great too.

I should continue my habit to read in the Library one hour everyday, to catch up all the newest stuff. It should cover books reading as well.

The other hour should be spent on techcrunch and venturebeat everyday too.

Then swimming twice a week in the weekend? Jogging every the other day?

20061204-1210

Finally, I am sitting at my lovely home in Montreal. Now I am using my wife’s lovely Dell laptop to write my first weekly blog in Montreal, to wrap up the last week of my semester in 2006.

It’s a BCAP week. It’s the final academic presentation week for our BCAP project. It’s academic because our BCAP team needs to present in front of a faculty panel consists of professors from our MOD II. We had DA professor Terry Reilly, MEIA professor Kevin Jones, Law professor Petty and FIBD professor Soydel. We are really lucky to have Terry. His DA class is always wonderful because he has such a good comedy talent to add various hilarious comments to the class. The presentation went well as well as the Q&A session after the presentation. All of our seven team members answered various questions and the professors are quite satisfied. I am quite confident we may get an EPS for this BCAP project.

I guess we are one of the few BCAP teams that don’t have a female member. And we are also one of the few BCAP teams that have seven team members. That’s a lot. Fortunately, all of my team members appreciate straightforward and open conversation. There is neither dirty political fight nor personal attack at all even at a few fierce arguing moments. I love my team. We are also quite relaxing during the BCAP time. Considering quite some team almost met everyday for three to four hours, we are really like in vacation. But when the time comes, we just work around the clock. I love this way of working. It’s much more efficient when you in a tight schedule. This reminds me the TechMark time in the orientation week.

After the final BCAP presentation, I met my team members in another team’s BCAP room and I had three cup of Russian Vodka. That’s a lot! Fortunately, I had some baked fish fillet in my woodland hill apartment before returning to the Olin hall with GZJ. Otherwise, I may be hammered already. The lovely BK and ML are struggling at the edge of getting drunk. That’s really funny. Later I went to a nearby bar at Newton with JD and ML to see what other classmates were doing. Man, I really don’t like the bar, a noisy place with poor but expensive food. Is it the only choice for relaxing for American? Poor dudes…

I hate BCAP too. First I am in the IT industry while I’d much prefer any non-IT industry to learn something new. Second it greatly damaged the R project. BCAP drained people’s energy and enthusiasm. When you returned to home, you just don’t want to do jack. That’s bad. Even worse than the normal school days. R almost stalled for two weeks. The Chinese team could still work on the R&D side but the US team was much under performed. I foresee the winter break going to be a busy month for R.

Finally here is the good part. I had talked and met two partners of local VC firms. The talk was very informative and helpful. It’s great to learn others perspective about who I am, how valuable I could be and what I could bring to the table. It made me more sober about myself. Thank you, Mr. Steinberg. Your words I’d learned from the Babson Innovation Forum, “courage never hurts”, gave me a lot confidence and brought me so many unbelievable results. I am still kind debating about a career in VC or continuing doing start-up things since I always have ideas to do. Even VC partners gave me different advices. Some prefer the first while the others prefer the latter. Well, I will continue focus on entrepreneur track for now. Focus…

What I had learned the most from this first semester?

1. The important of a purpose and the execution. I had benefited so much from this one.

2. Networking skills. Now I think I almost learned the most suitable networking skill for myself. I have my own need and my own style. I am glad to find my way rather than following others’.

3. Confidence. Yes I am in the States now. So what? My own style fits here so well.

Thank you, Babson. This second half of 2006 is such a wonderful period for me.

Books for Entrepreneurs

Here is the URL of the original post at businessweek about books for entrepreneurs...
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/dec2006/sb20061205_376107.htm?link_position=link1

"Why Should White Guys Have All of the Fun?" - Blair Walker and Reginald Lewis, (John Wiley & Sons, 1995)
"The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship" - William Bygrave and Andrew Zacharakis (John Wiley & Sons, 2004)
Herman Melville's Moby Dick.
Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder (Vintage Books, 1998),
Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott (The Berkeley Publishing Group, 2002)
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan (Crown Business, 2002)


Though many doubt entreppreneur could be taught, certainly some reading would be helpful for entrepreneur-wannabes. Beside those books, the best place to start reading maybe those blogs posted by venture capitalist or entpreneurs such as:

From the Eyes of an Enterpreneur
&
http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/

第一学期总结

学期结束，几点个人经验希望帮助大家下学期生活更加愉快

1。有个明确的目标。 明确的目标以后可以随时改变，但是它可以让你在有新目标之前的时间效率更高，譬如是看DVD还是给自己的目标工作，譬如研究开公司的问题。一个后果是你会放弃很多个人娱乐，但是是在心甘情愿的情况下放弃

2。利用2年时间开个公司。其实真正关键的不是一定要开个公司。而是利用开公司的过程更加深入的利用babson的各种资源，课堂/教授/校友，还有周围的一切。这样会让你更主动，而不是天天被Mod Map签着鼻子走。因为打算开公司所接触到的资源绝对和因为找工作所接触到的资源绝对不是一个层次的。原因如下：


虽然说找工作要和CCD打交道，但是周围是由无穷多的资源可以用的，只要你主动发掘。CCD或许可以给你找到工作，但是绝不会帮你找到好工作。大家都知道的，都用得资源，一定价值不大。大的你能享受的也很少可能。你自己发掘的，自然独特。。

另外一个开公司的好处如下。假定你是一个教授，只有30分钟的时间见一个学生。李四或者张三。李四的目的是开一个公司，或许失败或许上市（切记：每个公司都有上市的可能，而且只有公司能上市）；张三的目标是咨询找工作的建议。你会见谁？为什么？90%是李四，因为你想认识未来下一个google的创始人，而不是google的一个产品经理。教授这个例子可以推而广之。。。


3。美国人最看重的是过程。所以才会发明各种的ISO9000,CMM5，等等认证体系。如果你完全遵循一个过程，结果不好。美国人不会认为是你的错，而是说过程需要改善。重视过程才会确保成功的可重复性。这个适用于任何方面。学习亦然。教授最重视的你是否会用教授的framework等去思考，而不是你的记过是否正确。多少不同的教授重复过说，只要你把过程写出来，就会给你分数？
其次，中国的哲学思想是先宏观。从大到小。在babson同样适用。每门课一定要明白为什么上这门课。是否大家还记得babson是如何安排1年级的4个模块的？mod 1: idea generation；mod 2: market analysis & opportunity evaluation; mod 3: launching a start-up and mod 4: growing。这个就是过程。怎么学最好？就是从mod 1开始就打算做个公司，即使完全是为了上课的考虑。譬如mod 1结束，你确定了一个开公司的想法：在babson开个小零售店。mod 2就是帮你分析可行性的过程。CSCA是竞争策略，如何和附近的star market/shaw's和wholefood竞争？如何和市里面的88超市竞争？Moda是市场，如何确定目标人群？如何定价？MEIA是给你一个数学工具来量化的分析各个结论的好坏。定价的方案是否和附近人群的收入水平合理挂钩？elasticity? 你是否涨价，如果star market涨价，cross elasticity? 如果你有一个真实的机会来应用这些课程/framework，课堂很容易，考试也不难。


4。英语。提高听力的最好方式就是听。提高说的最好方式就是说。我们现在就是美国的小学生英语水平，没有捷径。当然，听要主动的听，即使听起来一知半解。被动的听，英语只是背景噪音。说话有口音没有任何问题。重要的是你说话的内容和质量，而不是你的发音。如果你的咨询方案能帮一个客户升100万美元，你再有口音也无妨。所以一起讨论问题的时候，主动地听，你大脑才会被调动起来去进行英文听力识别。这才是锻炼。当然，如果你找一个老美一起创业，英语提高最快，对不对。


5。拿掉心中的假设。每个人的心中都有或多或少的假设。一定要尽量的拿掉，尤其在学校这种周围风险极低的地方。譬如，我假设日本人不喜欢中国人，虽然我从来没有和日本人交往过。或者美国的牛排一定比中国的好吃，虽然我从来没吃过。每个人告诉你一个建议的时候，当然是出于善意的。但是接受这个建议的同时，别忘了他/她一定是他自己的假设的。所以要主动的接受，而不是全盘的被动的接受。你想进金融行业，你的mentor是搞房地产的，你有抵触情绪？这是因为你的假设是房地产行业和金融关系不大。而且一定是一个门外汉才有的假设。美国房地产和金融行业之间的关系之大比小于高科技行业和金融行业的联系。放下假设，才有收获的可能


我的这一个学期收获很大，还顺便拿了个圣诞礼物。CSCA/MPS, MODA/MEIA/ESC。希望大家下学期生活愉快。

个人建议，仅供参考。

20061113-1118

Indeed a busy week, but with a happy ending. We finally finished the joint final exam of MODA and MEIA. MODA stands for Marketing Opportunity and Demand Analysis. MEIA stands for Marketing Environment and Industrial Analysis. The final exam is much easier than I expected and I even think of having an EPS rather than originally dreamed MPS. (For folks wondering EPS/MPS, Babson MBA is using an alternate grading way: we using ESC/Excellence, EPS/Exceed Professional Service, MPS/Meet Professional Service, MP…) Even though I had not spent much time on the classes and assignments, I know the subjects very well and the result of exam will prove so. First of all, you must understand the whole picture. Why doesn’t name MEIA as Managerial Economics since the recommended textbook is called “Managerial Economics”? Why doesn’t call MODA as simply Marketing? If you understand that the principle of MOD II is opportunity evaluation, another important phase for launching a start-up, you will see the rational. More importantly, the professors are focused on teaching us a systematic way to not only make a decision but also make a better decision. MODA is to help us identify and evaluate any potential business opportunity while MEIA provides us quantitative tools, economics, to assess those opportunities. Every chapter of those classes, from 5Cs and 4P of MODA to marginal cost and price elasticity, is simply fulfilling the objectives of MOD II. I find out many classmates easily falls into the details without understanding the whole picture. Looking at everything from a strategic and higher position will benefit everyone a lot.

The preparation of exam took a lot of time of R team inevitably. It even made me a bit anxious. I believe we are in the right track and direction. Even though it makes me feel better when met others who are still idea discussion stage, I know I am running against time and against the other smart guys somewhere in Silicon Valley, NY or Cambridge. I am also running against the class, the assignments and the exam. I am also even running against myself. I realized already that it’s so easy to give up your so called hobbies. I have not read anything about soccer since last Sept after I flied from Beijing to Toronto. The answer is simply time. I believe the whole start-up experience maybe something similar to the effect of coffin addiction. You just want to do it and want to get it done as quick and good as possible. If you realized you are working on something may leave a mark in history, not to mention the positive return in terms of money and other things, you will believe being entrepreneur is one of the coolest career in the world.

Finally we got our formal advisor board established, though I need to give John a call tomorrow evening to convince him. To me, the first “NO” from others is always a clear wake-up call to let you to be better prepare to convince that person next time. Steve, John and Sam would be a very strong board. I am also thinking of forming another advisor board that contains only other MBA classmates, about five students, at least 2 female students. I have a rough candidate pool based on my own experience and recommendation from Marin and Andreas. This could be done after the DA and MCF joined exam next Tuesday.

Now the most important for R is the alpha version. Even though I have found three ex-colleagues who agreed to work on part-time basis, I feel it’s still risky. So Marin and I agreed to put some personal money together to hire a fulltime developer from oDesk.com. We really look forward to finish the development of alpha version in 2006. That would give us a big leap in 2007. We could immediately start organizing the internal test of alpha version, collecting buyer data, using buyer data to develop seller and finally, contacting potential angel investors. We may even be able to develop the alpha version during this Dec to a stage that Marin and Andreas may offer a quick demo to people in California during their winter trip. I may join them too!

Oh, we had also went to the second workshop for start-ups organized by NECINA. It’s hosted at the Boston office of Brown Rudnick LLC, located in downtown Boston. Much less people than the first workshop hosted in Highland Partners, even though the subject this time is Financing options for start-ups. One senior associate from Highland Partner, one local active angel investor, one VP from Silicon Valley Bank (The same guy I’d met in Cyberposium last week in Harvard) and an entrepreneur who received venture capital investment together formed the panel. The discussion was interesting. It just brought me and Marin a strong feeling to have our alpha version website done as soon as possible.

Time flies. Yes, just three weeks left before the winter break. Just five weeks left before 2007. I am so happy I had this opportunity to launch R with Marin and Andreas. 2007 is going to be another fun year.

20061106-1112

I know I should start writing the weekly journal no later than the weekend. But I failed to do so for the past two weeks. It’s really a pain to recall what had happened but also a good way to review the past as well. Right now I have a could-not-been-better morning: class started at 10am (Yes, we are in the luckiest section!) and there is only one new email this morning (though this makes me feel a little bit disappointed…). Anyway, let’s turn the clock back to Nov 06, 2006.

For R, the most important thing is we have a new member now. His passion about R is the most impressive and I’d like to have him on board. The good thing of a larger team is there are more brains. We had couple of fierce discussions about the business model and the action plan. Our classmates are really helpful. A few discussions with them in woodland hill and Olin hall did give us some fresh ideas. We really should move on to build our student advisor board. Ah, as one suggested, we would better off to have female classmates in the advisor board if we can’t find a female team member.

The 12^th Cyberposium event held in Harvard last Sat is fantastic. We had some great panelist and I’d met a couple of interesting person and built a good relationship with. As I previously mentioned, be proactive. This is a big big factor to differentiate you from others. Besides, this reminds me the words from the keynote that Mr. Tom Steinberg, founder of Staple and partner at Highland Capital, had given in the Babson Forum of Entrepreneurship and Forum,. What he had said? A couple of things. Be brave. Be rule-breaker. Be xxxx. Courage never hurts. I benefited from them a lot. Everyone should ask themselves, do you want to be an audience or you want to be part of the event? I would choose the latter and I’d approached a few other people, MBA students from Ivey that I will meet in Montreal during the winter break, a Bentley MBA who also working for a VC firm, an interesting dude from SVB… Especially with the VC guy, we had talked a lot in the whole morning and I am very happy I’d talked to him first. Yes, there are many people like me who may not want to initialize a talk but would be more than happy to accept an invitation to start a talk.

This whole week had a lot discussion about R. Especially a lot about various different aspects. It’s necessary to bring Andy updated about where R is and this introduction process inevitably led us to review quite a lot of our previous conclusions. This is very similar to the teaching process. The only time you will know whether you really understand a topic is to explain it to someone else and to answer all his or her questions. It’s quite painful to be challenged about the previous conclusions for everyone but it is really helpful to force yourself calm down and review your past decisions. Is it really right? Is it really good?

I kept the swimming in the weekend. It’s really a wonderful feeling to be in the water. Free, comfortable… One research hypothesis said that in part of our history, our ancestor had been forced to live in the environment where they need always standing or swimming in the sea. And this hypothesis believes that’s why our skin is closer to sea animals such as dolphin rather than other ale or monkeys with long and thick hair allover our body.

I decided to place this journal at my personal blog. It’s a big change to publish your personal life on the public domain. Is it good? Does courage never hurt? Let’s see.

20061023-1028

Another busy yet great week this week is. Can’t believe how many things I had done. It reminded me again the great words from Mr. Lu Xun: “Time is like water in the sponge. It’s always there if you squeeze.”

With my mentor’s help, I finally heard from the Babson alumnus who is working for a local VC firm. What I really learned (needs further improvement) is to write email to strangers such as this alumni. The revised email from my mentor made that happen. I’d talked with this alumnus in phone for about 20 minutes and I am quite thrilled. Pro-activeness really makes difference. I am happy I always believe nothing is impossible. While on the other hand, my follow up Thank-you email didn’t get his reply. Maybe…? Anyway, I’d decided to make an appointment with the writing resource center next week (originally schedule this week but…) to learn more about how to write COLD email.

The other big thing is the Rocket Pitch.

I had attended two Rocket Pitch practices before this Friday and the result was very good. My partner and I had learned from the feedback that our initial scope, the one described in the summary I'd sent to you, was too broad and too general. It's hard for the audience to clearly imagine what we are doing. So we significantly refined our biz model with a much smaller scope yet much more clear and clever business model, an online shopping place that organize sellers to provide best offer to meet your need instead of letting you spent hours to search at Amazon or EBAY to get the best deal. We are revising the executive summary now.

The Pitch is a blast. This year totally 108 teams had signed up. Personal skill wise, my public speaking skill was significantly improved. Your 6Ps were proved to be correct again. I also learned how to concisely and clearly pitch my idea in public. So instead of speaking for 3 minutes (the Pitch limits any pitch to 3 minutes with 3 slides) with an unclear impression left to the audience, I finished my pitch in 2 minutes and everyone in the room got my points. However, the only pity is that the organizer put us in a place with lots other traditional business such as dog walking or wasted vegetable oil recycling businesses. So our initial plan to receive enough attention and feedback from various potential investors was not succeed as most of them like VCs were in the other room.

Anyway, overall the preparation and actual pitch significantly improved my confidence and skills in public and I know I will benefit from them in a long run.

I also signed up for the annual Babson Coach program that organizing Babson MBA students and alumni to offer one-on-one coaching for Babson undergraduate. This year is the 10^th year and the first time non-Babson people are allowed to register as a coach. I want to be helpful for undergraduate just like how helpful my mentor did for me. And since I am not a bar person, I also enjoy this kind of light social events. Every group includes 5-6 coaches and 5-6 undergraduates. I had coached an undergraduate, Scott Fletcher, who has strong interest of start-up and is currently working for a start-up, http://www.dormitem.com/, founded by another undergraduate. I am very happy to share my past experience with him.

Overall, another very valuable week this week is and I looking forward to meeting my mentor in Nov.

Other things? BCAP (Babson Consulting Alliance Program) finally officially started. I mean, we now had real work needs to be completed. We need to apply what we had learned from various courses in MOD II so far such as CSCA and MODA. It’d be a very valuable process to apply those theoretical frameworks such as Michael Porter’s five forces, the 5Cs of marketing opportunity analysis and others such as S.T.E.P, S.W.O.T and value chain. And it’s also a good opportunity to practice those frameworks. I really enjoyed to immediately apply those framework to my R project in the class though taking the risk to miss something in the class. But I enjoyed the freedom of my mind.

That’s almost everything. Raining outside and tomorrow could have a wonderful sleep.

20061016-1021

Again, time flies. And I know I need to find another starting phase. Next time.

Finally identified the opportunity I want to work on with the help of Marin. Here are his comments "Oh man, I am trying to sell you this ABCD.com idea but you turn it to be a XYZ.com and I eventually bought it!" Yes, I got my idea. I started wondering where to start, which idea to choose since the day one in Babson. Considering my goal to launch a business and at least run through the two year study, I felt lots pressure to get it started. The CMDO MOD1 assignment is a big push. But unfortunately, neither my paper was elected by classmates as top 5 ideas nor did I receive any WOW from peers when I pitched in various vacations. I even attended the BizConnect exhibition which was part of the annual BacktoBabson event to present the idea I described in CMDO paper. The biggest issue I had learned is, I can't describe it clearly and shortly in one minute. I hate that but just couldn't figure out a way to concisely present. I'd tried to pitch to two professors. JB didn't give some constructive feedback but the other showed the same confusion. I didn't give up because of those disappointed pitches yet more or less I'd learned that the CMDO idea may not be the right one. If my description of it simply cannot have others understood it, how can I sell to potential investors or customers?

The idea seeking process became quiet for a short while. I kept almost a daily brain storming or idea discussion with Marin and finally got the inspiration, the sparkle. Sounds like just as every other activities, the more you practice, the better outcome will be. This is another solid example. The good news is next week we will have the annual Rocket Pitch event during which any Babson student or alumnus may present his or her business or business idea to the public. Many angel or VC investors as well as people from other businesses will attend. This is a great opportunity to learn feedbacks. Those will further shape my idea better.

Previous I'd realized that I am not a bar/party person and I must find another way to do social networking. Now I am really enjoying the benefit from my conclusion. By giving constructive and valuable feedback, I am able to gain others' trust. Surprisingly, I have quite a good relationship with couple of Indian students. Four of them are getting along through business ideas discussion and one is in my study group. Great minds think similarly. Or, I will say it's easier to find the chemistry. Soon will be an important event for South Asian communities, especially for Indian. The event is called Diwali and an event will be hosted this Saturday with Indian movie and food. It reminded me the delicious Indian dinner I had with Jing in Montreal this August.

Another significant event happened this week is the meeting with my alumni mentor. Steve is a nice guy and I feel really lucky to have him who has the industrial expertise, entrepreneurial background and just living nearby. If the only thing I would like to change, I will say to keep him in fidelity venture for a longer time. His help is incredible. He not only revised my original email to Babson alumni in VC firms (that got the alumni's feedback and I will schedule a talk next week) but also offers to review my executive summary of Rilik.com. I felt I owe him a lot and I firmly believe by helping others, you are helping yourself really. I am really looking forward to the phone call with Babson alumni next Tuesday afternoon. Maybe I can find an internship in VC firms or an introduction in the future to potential investors. This connection is huge. Thanks, Steve!

Finally, I offered to do the presentation for my study group today. Though still unconsciously trembling, I have to say it's much better than the presentation I did last time in the speech workshop. Hope the upcoming three public presentations, the Rocket Pitch Practice, the Rocket Pitch and the tech briefing speech workshop will further strengthen my presentation skills. I am very confident.

What else? I am really pissed off the service from Bank of America. And I am more surprised to read from WSJ that BoA has a wonderful quarter that significantly closer the gap with Citigroup in terms of market value. I don’t like you, BoA!

20061008-1015

Again, time flies. Last week is a very “relaxing” week since we only have three days for class. Monday is Columbus Day and Friday is the 5^th Babson Forum of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Besides, I also attended two interesting meetings. One is a workshop organized by Highland Capital Partners in Lexington that provided guidance about the importance and how to setup a founding team. The other is the monthly meeting of Boston Harbor Angel group that gave selected start-ups an opportunity to present in front of 30+ angel investors and group discussion about the pros and cons of those investment opportunities.

More and more time spent on evaluating, developing and refining my business ideas. The annual Babson Rocket pitch will be held next Monday as well! I consider launching my next start-up during my two year study at Babson the most important goal. Indeed it’s much easier for me to meet an investor, angel investor or venture capitalist, in US. The opportunity could not be any better. Meanwhile, the pressure is inevitable strong. It’s a feeling of competing with time.

A good lesson learned from the Highland Capital Partner is to do my homework before attending important event. I had the chance to speak with the founder and CTO of a portfolio company but the talk with be much more interesting and meaningful if I can ask some good questions… I learned the lesson and did a though preparation of the Boston Harbor Angel group meeting. Though I didn’t have much opportunity to speak with angels, the homework made me feel more comfortable and confident during the meeting. By doing the homework, I learned a lot about angels who are member of the group, their portfolios and their selection criteria. The most useful parts came from the close discussion among angels. After four selected start-up, one Internet start-up, one laser chip manufacture, one new disease test device manufacture and one new fire alarm system manufacture, finished the 10-minute presentation, angels asked the founders to leave the conference room and started discussing the positive and negative part of each start-up. Even though I’d read many online resources about the questions/criteria investors will consider, it’s totally a different feeling to be in the meeting. That could be a very valuable experience.

The Babson Forum of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, FEI, is valuable as well. As a small college, the overall organization is not that great as more powerful institutes such as MIT (I assume as I’d never been the forum organized by MIT). But Babson did invite quite some interesting people such as partners from Highland Capital Partner, Battery Ventures and General Catalyst Partners, CEO of Digg.com and FOX interactive media group. Overall, I realized location advantage is really important. Most of the interesting people attended are either Babson alumni or living nearby. BTW, I found that in the Money-Tree Venture Capital Activity survey conducted by PWC, there are at least 15 Venture Capital firms nearby or around Wellesley Hills where Babson is located. And 20 or more angel investors are nearby as well. What I’d learned most from the event is the keynotes from the founder of Staple.com, who currently is a partner at Highland Capital Partners, Tom Stemberg:

1. Always be optimistic

2. Breaking the rules

3. Solving real problems

Is there anything else? Yes, I found out that among all classes in MOD 2, the toughest one is Data analysis. While, not really. Data Analysis has great sense to interpret large volume of data from a business perspective. How to make sales forecast? How to make certain business decision based on given data? It’s no doubt tough but if you understand the value behind it, you will have interest to master it. It’s really a willingness issue. I experienced this deeply. When you are open, it’s so easy to learn new things quickly since you don’t have any intention to block new things flow into your mind. MEIA is not that tough as long as I understand the economic value behind the mathematical formulas. In terms of that, MEIA is very similar to DA. But I suddenly realized that the CSCA and MODA, the two courses that originally I think not that challenging became really challenging. For example, with a given case materials, CSCA has very tough questions to require me to conduct systematic analysis such as what’s the competitive advantage of Maytag? Where it is in 1985? I have to use a framework to do the analysis otherwise I can not find out the key areas to focus. It’s the same for MODA since we need to adopt framework to analyze marketing strategy and practice as well. Marketing covers much broader area than I originally thought. It’s more than just promotion or advertising. It almost covers from customer survey, product development to pricing strategy and distribution. The 5P of marketing, product, price, promotion, placement and XXX, broadens my eyes. I need to take some time to better understand those things. The challenge is I’d never systematically learned those frameworks and it’s a challenge to your existing assumptions and perception. Luckily, I do not need to spend much on course such as FIBD. Even though I had no accounting or finance background, I found out it is relatively easy to gasp the concept of accounting and finance and use what I’d learned to solve given assignments.

Oh, one thing should I mention is my result of MOD 1 test. Babson adopted a different score system. Instead of giving traditional 1.0-4.0 GPA, Babson uses terms such as MP, MPS, EPS and ESC to describe your ability of meeting professional expectation. Generally, MP is about 2.3 and MPS is about 3.0. I got MPS in my joint exam of Law and FIBD and CMDO assignment as well. I am still waiting for the result of the LDO paper from JB. I just missed one point to jump from MPS to EPS which is about 3.5 but I am happy enough. Babson faculty prefers us not to focus on pure academic result and I completely agree.

And my fellowship professors still have not decided the research project yet. It’s good since I don’t really have additional 10-hour per week on that in MOD 2 but it’s bad since I definitely need to spend time during winter break to catch up. The Blank center is really a place with lots unknown (for me) wonderful people and I need time to dig it.

Last thing, I am quite satisfied with my social network strategy now. Partly I should thank EK who said “Bar doesn’t mean the only place for social networking. Playing soccer as I did is also.” Now my purpose for any social event is to have a meaningful discussion with two people at least. So there is no pressure to collect 20+ business cards. I find out this is very useful for me in recent social events!

Again, time flies. Last week is a very “relaxing” week since we only have three days for class. Monday is Columbus Day and Friday is the 5^th Babson Forum of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Besides, I also attended two interesting meetings. One is a workshop organized by Highland Capital Partners in Lexington that provided guidance about the importance and how to setup a founding team. The other is the monthly meeting of Boston Harbor Angel group that gave selected start-ups an opportunity to present in front of 30+ angel investors and group discussion about the pros and cons of those investment opportunities.

More and more time spent on evaluating, developing and refining my business ideas. The annual Babson Rocket pitch will be held next Monday as well! I consider launching my next start-up during my two year study at Babson the most important goal. Indeed it’s much easier for me to meet an investor, angel investor or venture capitalist, in US. The opportunity could not be any better. Meanwhile, the pressure is inevitable strong. It’s a feeling of competing with time.

A good lesson learned from the Highland Capital Partner is to do my homework before attending important event. I had the chance to speak with the founder and CTO of a portfolio company but the talk with be much more interesting and meaningful if I can ask some good questions… I learned the lesson and did a though preparation of the Boston Harbor Angel group meeting. Though I didn’t have much opportunity to speak with angels, the homework made me feel more comfortable and confident during the meeting. By doing the homework, I learned a lot about angels who are member of the group, their portfolios and their selection criteria. The most useful parts came from the close discussion among angels. After four selected start-up, one Internet start-up, one laser chip manufacture, one new disease test device manufacture and one new fire alarm system manufacture, finished the 10-minute presentation, angels asked the founders to leave the conference room and started discussing the positive and negative part of each start-up. Even though I’d read many online resources about the questions/criteria investors will consider, it’s totally a different feeling to be in the meeting. That could be a very valuable experience.

The Babson Forum of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, FEI, is valuable as well. As a small college, the overall organization is not that great as more powerful institutes such as MIT (I assume as I’d never been the forum organized by MIT). But Babson did invite quite some interesting people such as partners from Highland Capital Partner, Battery Ventures and General Catalyst Partners, CEO of Digg.com and FOX interactive media group. Overall, I realized location advantage is really important. Most of the interesting people attended are either Babson alumni or living nearby. BTW, I found that in the Money-Tree Venture Capital Activity survey conducted by PWC, there are at least 15 Venture Capital firms nearby or around Wellesley Hills where Babson is located. And 20 or more angel investors are nearby as well. What I’d learned most from the event is the keynotes from the founder of Staple.com, who currently is a partner at Highland Capital Partners, Tom Stemberg:

1. Always be optimistic

2. Breaking the rules

3. Solving real problems

Is there anything else? Yes, I found out that among all classes in MOD 2, the toughest one is Data analysis. While, not really. Data Analysis has great sense to interpret large volume of data from a business perspective. How to make sales forecast? How to make certain business decision based on given data? It’s no doubt tough but if you understand the value behind it, you will have interest to master it. It’s really a willingness issue. I experienced this deeply. When you are open, it’s so easy to learn new things quickly since you don’t have any intention to block new things flow into your mind. MEIA is not that tough as long as I understand the economic value behind the mathematical formulas. In terms of that, MEIA is very similar to DA. But I suddenly realized that the CSCA and MODA, the two courses that originally I think not that challenging became really challenging. For example, with a given case materials, CSCA has very tough questions to require me to conduct systematic analysis such as what’s the competitive advantage of Maytag? Where it is in 1985? I have to use a framework to do the analysis otherwise I can not find out the key areas to focus. It’s the same for MODA since we need to adopt framework to analyze marketing strategy and practice as well. Marketing covers much broader area than I originally thought. It’s more than just promotion or advertising. It almost covers from customer survey, product development to pricing strategy and distribution. The 5P of marketing, product, price, promotion, placement and XXX, broadens my eyes. I need to take some time to better understand those things. The challenge is I’d never systematically learned those frameworks and it’s a challenge to your existing assumptions and perception. Luckily, I do not need to spend much on course such as FIBD. Even though I had no accounting or finance background, I found out it is relatively easy to gasp the concept of accounting and finance and use what I’d learned to solve given assignments.

Oh, one thing should I mention is my result of MOD 1 test. Babson adopted a different score system. Instead of giving traditional 1.0-4.0 GPA, Babson uses terms such as MP, MPS, EPS and ESC to describe your ability of meeting professional expectation. Generally, MP is about 2.3 and MPS is about 3.0. I got MPS in my joint exam of Law and FIBD and CMDO assignment as well. I am still waiting for the result of the LDO paper from JB. I just missed one point to jump from MPS to EPS which is about 3.5 but I am happy enough. Babson faculty prefers us not to focus on pure academic result and I completely agree.

And my fellowship professors still have not decided the research project yet. It’s good since I don’t really have additional 10-hour per week on that in MOD 2 but it’s bad since I definitely need to spend time during winter break to catch up. The Blank center is really a place with lots unknown (for me) wonderful people and I need time to dig it.

Last thing, I am quite satisfied with my social network strategy now. Partly I should thank EK who said “Bar doesn’t mean the only place for social networking. Playing soccer as I did is also.” Now my purpose for any social event is to have a meaningful discussion with two people at least. So there is no pressure to collect 20+ business cards. I find out this is very useful for me in recent social events!

20060918-0924

Sept 23,2006 Saturday.

I just finished the 3rd week of Mod 1. It's a big week since we'd finished our first formal examination, includes LAW and FIBD only. (FIBD=Financial Impact of Biz Decision, nice name, eh?) I did pretty good and quite confident will get a good score. I am happy that I understand those accounting basics very well, that saves me since the FIBD questions are bit tricky. Prof. Turner didn't give us an income statement that we used to have along with balance sheet to build the cash flow statement. Instead, he gave us a cash flow statement built with direct method and there is NO income statement. That really killed a lot of classmates since you must know how to calculate net income based on given dividend and retained earning information. Time was bit rush when I finished typing answers for all law questions. I really open to all classes since every class is designed for entrepreneurship. I know everything I'd learned will help my start-up effort. Many studends have a pre-perception like "oh, I don’t like finance" or "ouch, law must be bore". That's very negative since it will create more or less resistance.

I also start taking more proactive approach to leverage resources around the campus. I had talked with Prof. Mandel, associate dean of undergraduate, who hosted the session to discuss new cases that Supreme Court may hear this fall when reopen. I am trying to understand those fundamental impacts the legal system had over US today. For example, as Prof. Mandel said, if he is meeting a female student, he'd better keep the office door open so as to avoid any potential problem about sex harassment. He said my interest covers a very broad area and he tried to give a more general idea about how law changed US society such as the way people interact with each other and so on. Finally he'd given me couple DVDs that some Supreme Court justice held discussion with general public about the legal system. I'd also booked three appointments with different professors in communication, LDO (yep, leadership in dynamic organization) and CMDO (creativity management in dynamic organization, yep, Blank center guys) next week. I finally realized it will serve my best interest if I can launch my start-up during school year. After all, if it failed before the whole MBA program, I just need to look for a job as other classmates do. Nothing I will loose. As always, the time in school is the best time for you to try things out. NO worry about apartment rental. No worry about tons of bills to pay. NO worry about job. So I want to launch a bunch of website, includes two dating (or let's say, people meets people) website, one family tree social networking website in China (sorry, really a copycat of two other US website, amiglia.com and family 2.0. I hate that) and the most important, my "turn negative into positive" website. By hosting that website at the same time, I can leverage the fixed cost such as hosting/server and do some cross-promotion. Sort of like what I want to achieve with ND biz. A company called New Factory Partners (need to verify) is also working on a similar module. They started like 10 website so far and sold few to other ventures already. Let's do it.

I enjoyed being helpful too. I'd sent JB, the LDO professor, an email that suggested him to try cold call a bit so more students will speak in the class. That not only will give me a chance to hear more new idea/comments but also enrich their class experience, plus strengthen confidence and speaking skills. JB gave me a warm reply did a very approach to do that. In the next class, he was intended to look for students who raised their hand for the 1st time and slowly everyone realized his intention. Thus many students raised their hand for the 1st time in class. At the end of the class, JB said this is one of his best class discussions. I am proud of it. Also when I'd learned a Japanese student in my section and also living in campus that he average only slept 4 hours this week to read case, I was very surprised. That will ruin the next whole day! When he told me his English reading is very slow and he felt necessary to read all assigned materials before class, I offered to brief him any case materials in the evening we need to read before class but he can't finish. That will give me a good opportunity to strengthen my English speaking too and to testify my ability to abstract the case.

Another thing I'd suddenly realized this week is that, I hate Japanese government not really because Japan did invade China before but the fact it tried so hard to deny or to polish that ugly history. How can you deny something actually happened? I think that's why I have no bad feeling towards average Japanese at all. Anyone who wants to deny the fact won't win my trust and respect. And I believe that is a key reason why Germany so quickly won forgiveness from other countries they'd invaded during WWII. Pity Japanese government doesn't realize that tile now.

It's getting bit harder to keep writing the diary at Babson. I'd decided to at least keep writing weekly journal now. Then will try to write journal during the week if time has. It's really a good thing to do. It's a data so the more data you have, the more powerful it is. Can't imagine how I feel when I read about 100+ journals I'd written during Babson time in the future. Must be very cool!

Oh, almost forget. I finally got my Dell Axim X51 PDA from eBay bidding! It's actually new. It's awesome, especially when I figured out how to sync directly with Babson's exchange server to load my email, calendar etc without connecting to my laptop. Really great since I may use computer in Olin building or Horn library and create new appointments based on emails. Not to mention the fact I can use Skype to call my wife in Montreal for free! I also got a Skypein number now, so it's almost a mobile phone but I do NOT need to pay around 40 bucks monthly bill to Verizon, Cingular... The only pity came when I realized Babson is NOT really 100% WiFi covered. Well, Boston will launch a city-wide WiFi network that free for public in 2009. Bit too long, eh? Now I really believe in the prophet that telephone service will become free within 10 years because of VOIP and WiFi advancement, at least in North American. WOW.

OK, I will finish the biz executive summary for my big idea now. haha. Forget to mention, had coffee with some classmates today but the Latte really make me feel sleepy?! Now I think I like Indian tea more since it will add sugar and milk to it. how nice it is... And also even though I'd missed the IDEO workshop hosted today, Marin gave me a very good brief about it. Sounds like IDEO’s success are really duplicable. They mainly introduced a creative innovation process and had designed so far 4000+ products for corporate clients. The IDEO guy from their NY office in today's session said based on an industrial report, IDEO is ranked the 16th most innovative company in the world and he commented that all the top 15 companies are IDEO's client. Funny... And I think that's exactly what China needs now. We can beat anyone (almost) in manufacture area but we lack of innovation. So price is the only effective way to differentiate each other. What a bad thing! How about setup a similar business in China? I remembered that in 2005 when I chatted with JYJ couple in a coffee shop near XiangShan, I'd mentioned to build my university, the 1st department I will build is an industry design department so it will quickly provide mostly needed graduate. Now by combining this IDEO idea, it will become a nice way to generate cash and spread branding of my university at the same time.

Here is IDEO's internal working process, as people experienced in today's workshop, as the video we'd seen in the CMDO class and as described by the IDEO guy today:

1. received the requirement, for example, design a new bag.

2. Conduct extensive customer review with specially designed questionnaire, may last 3 or 4 months. This also includes closely watching the way individuals using their bag.

3. Identify all facts had gathered then summarize into function groups.

4. Start discussion by asking question "how might we...". For example, how might we carry our bag freely with either single shoulder or both shoulder or single hand? How might we use bag to carry things without looking for small items inside? etc

5. For each "how might we..." question, start brain storming.

6. Now summarize brain storming ideas then start voting.

7. Start drawing outline of the final products then start voting. Only design received certain votes will be adopted into actual design process. Everyone can vote for any idea only once if they like it.

8. Final prototype stage

9. Customer feedback and refine

10. Done!

7. Start design products include those features.

The Orientation week

The official orientation starts with a much crowded place. It kind of surprised me when I am within 167 students since I am more or less used to be among the 70 students in the pre-MBA session. Immediately when I walked into the Olin hall, the main building for MBA students at Babson, I felt the much more intense atmosphere. I think it's really a culture difference. In Beijing I am facing a much more crowded environment but I do not have that intensive feeling described above. On the contrary, American students seem very used to it. They start talking with each other almost right away. I also tried to talk with nearby American student, greeting each other, asking some basic questions and start a short conversation. But I really felt I am not used to it. Especially when I can't find a topic that both parties are interested in. Those experience, plus those happened in following networking event further helped me to set my goal: try to meet two or three person and start a deeper conversation.


We are divided into three sections with 50-60 students each. I am in the section with Professor JB Kassarjin and many who are not in my section told me they missed him. Some other events also organized to help students in the same section getting to know each other but I think the "ice break" event we'd had in pre-MBA is much more effective than the "Fun Facts" we had, which is give each of us a sheet with a personal fun fact sent by all of us as required. Then we need to find out each fun fact belongs to whom. There are interesting stories but overall I'd rather to have another "ice break" event.

No surprise, Babson gave a lots effort on our future career. CCD, the Center of Career Development, hosted several events include general introduction, AMP program introduction and Executive on Residence. AMP means Alumni Mentor Program so you may figure out what it is all about. Many Babson MBA alumni are willing to give their time to build relationship with current MBA student by a one-on-one way. That's really great to share their experience, knowledge and network, if you can manage it right.

One of the Executive on Residence that gave us a presentation is co-founder of McCormick & Dodge. It's not well known for many but it's the 2nd largest software company when IBM main-frame dominated the computer world. I am very happy about those passion and willingness among those people who don't have any responsibility to give their most valuable asset, time, to us. And I am really looking into the time when I can learn which alumni I will work with.

The biggest part and also the most important part of the orientation week is, the "tech mark". It's a computer simulated game that provides many business data to help team to make decision to win a competition among 5 teams. Each team has 6 or 7 member and each group has 5 teams to compete against each other. Every team needs to do product R&D based on consumers' changing preference, set price, manage inventory and choose best place for factory. Marketing and sales force management is also very important. We are having a very intensive schedule in three days. Each team has to decide own strategy about all above areas within 60 to 90 minutes and submit decision via Internet. Then we will be given a 30-minutes break during which computer program will be executed with data from all teams. Professor Mulligan will hold a short session to give us a brief introduction about the importance of various factors during the decision making process since the team that meets all requirements, profit, inventory rate, debt ratio, ROA and ROE, will win.

After the introduction session, we will return to our own room with computed result of the last period. The sales, profit, marketing share, customers' preference and inventory and so on are quite overwhelming. We don't have a good start but we did a great job to catch up. Unfortunately, we, as also several other teams of other groups, were failed to meet the inventory target. But one of the final 3 winning team had set a new profit record since 2001. That's awesome. It's also a fantastic team working experience. Among the 7 members in my team, Male Mexican, Indian, me as Chinese, American Chinese, male and female white American as well as black American. Initially I thought would be more useful if we organize into different group since so many decision needs to be made and so many data need to take care of but others give it a veto. We actually working on every decision together though people slightly focused on different area. It could be a sign about the democracy tradition in US. We realized how important time management is, how useful Excel is and how nice we felt about each other and the team at last. I think one important factor to determine whether you had a great team is at the end how good you feel about each other and whether you want to team together next time. BTW, tech mark was invented by a Babson professor, Robert Eng. Many of us believed t hat the reason to have Tech Mark during orientation is that Babson want to give us a wake-up call, " do not think you are very good on business!", before the school starts. And many agreed Babson done a good job to make us believe so.

The school finally started on Aug 28th and I'd made a big decision to write diary for my 1st year, at least. I believe this two-year study will be one of the most important parts of my life and since no one is willing to do a documentary film with me, like the movie "startup.com", I'd better to write down my story myself.

A wonderful joke in Chinese

“本·拉登说：中国是全球唯一绝对不能惹的国家，因为基地组织曾向中国派出五名恐怖分子，试图袭击中国，结果一人炸立交桥，转晕于桥上；一人炸公交车，没 挤上车；一人炸超市，遥控器被盗；一人炸高楼，被保安狂揍：‘叫你讨薪，叫你上访'；最后一人成功炸矿，死伤数百人，但此人潜回基地后，半年都没见新闻报 道，遂被基地组织以撒谎罪处决。”

10 lessons from the founder of Body Shop

English Version
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2c34f0d2-744e-11db-8dd7-0000779e2340.html

Chinese Version
http://www.ftchinese.com/sc/story.jsp?id=001007976&pos=RIGHT_HLB&pa1=1&pa2=2&loc=STORY

This article gives every entrepreneur and entrepreneur-wannabe a very hand-on and practical tutorial. I could not agree more. Below is the abbreviation of the ten lessons she provides. I had added my comments.

Tell stories. The central tool for imagining the world differently and sharing that vision is not accountancy. It has more to do with the ability to tell a story.Telling stories emphasises what makes you and your company different. Business schools emphasise how to make you toe the line.

Yes. The MOST important thing in my mind is that the entrepreneur is able to inspire others' imagination about the entrepreneur's idea. Don't tell them how big the market could be, let the audience to figure out how big it could be by themselves. That's more convincing...

Concentrate on creativity. It is critical for any entrepreneur to maximise creativity and to build an atmosphere that encourages people to have ideas. That means open structures, so that accepted thinking can be challenged.

Be an opportunistic collector. When entrepreneurs walk down the street they have their antennae out, evaluating how what they see can relate back to what they are doing. It might be packaging, a word, a poem or something in a different business.

Measure the company according to fun and creativity. Business schools are obsessive about measurement. The result is vast departments of number-crunchers, but often little progress. What is most important in a company - or anything else - is unquantifiable.

Be different, but look safe. If you are different, you will stand out. But do not take risks with people who can make the difference between success and failure, especially if you are a woman trying to borrow money from the bank - which is how I came to be turned down for my original loan.

Be passionate about ideas. Entrepreneurs want to create a livelihood from an idea that has obsessed them; not necessarily a business, but a livelihood. When accumulating money drives out the ideas and the anger behind them, you are no longer an entrepreneur.

Feed your sense of outrage. Discontentment drives you to want to do something about it. There is no point in finding a new vision if you are not angry enough to want it to happen.

Make the most of the female element. Companies as we know them were created by men for men, often influenced by the military model, on complicated and hierarchical lines and are both dominated by authoritarian principles and resistant to change. By setting up their own businesses, women can challenge these models and will be welcomed by customers for doing so.

Believe in yourself and your intuition. There is a fine line between entrepreneurship and insanity. Crazy people see and feel things that others do not. But you have to believe that everything is possible. If you believe it, those around you will believe it too.

Have self-knowledge. You do not need to know how to do everything, butyou must be honest enough with yourself to know what you cannot provide yourself.

Until they can teach these lessons, business schools will remain the whited sepulchres of the status quo.

The pre-MBA week for internatinal student

As an international student, I actually had two different orientation week at the Olin school of business at Babson College: from 08/14 to 08/18 is the Pre-MBA session specially designed for students who never had studied or worked in US before and from 08/21 to 08/25 is the official orientation week that everyone is required to attend.

Roughly 60 international students of the total 80 had attended the Pre-MBA session. Others and I find out that's very useful since we had a great opportunity to know those 60 students better before there are 167 students in the orientation week. There are 11 Chinese students, 15 Indian students and 8 Mexico students, plus 9 from Japan. So Asian students have a clear majority in the Pre-MBA session and Spanish-speaking student, include students from Mexico, Salvador and Chile. I did start realizing that US is going to be a bilingual country, no matter how strongly the White house or the Capital hill vote for the English country, at least in terms of business environment. After all, businesses just care about how to best woe the consumer to spend their money. Just like almost every thing has both English and French version, it's also easy to find out Spanish version of product description, city map and so on. One of my goals is to join a Spanish class in my 2nd year at Babson when I have more time.

Babson did a good job to help us getting familiar with US culture and society. Some events like "Ice breaker" that all students are organized into different subgroups based on various factors such as who loves travel, who has engineer background and who is from the same country, or speech skill workshop with smaller groups, are very helpful. However, since all the people working in the Office of Program Management are American, they can't complete understand international students' need and thoughts. For example, we find out it's very inconvenient to do shopping without a car but Babson doesn't organized some bus to drive us to shopping malls 20 miles away. Especially for people like me living on campus, facing an almost-empty apartment, I really feel lucky I'd brought basic stuff like toothpaste etc with me. I'd addressed this problem together with other suggestion in an email sent to MBA program director and hope life will be easier for the class of 2009.

My Dell Axim X50 PDA

After knowing Skype has a pocketpc version, I dreamed about carrying a PDA with internal wireless card so that I can have a "mobile" phone without paying monthly fee to Verizon/Cingular/T-Mobile etc.

I had used Palm Pilot and Handspring visor before and both of them never catch my eyeball really.

I spent about $300 on eBay to buy a new Dell X50 from a Korean guy in Chicago. I have to say so far I am very satisfied. Lots of my time had been saved. For example, I check email during every 30-minute class break so I never worry about accumulated email stack in the Inbox.

A few critical tools:
1. PocketPC edition of Skype
2. Free RSS Reader for PocketPC
The best frss http://pda.jasnapaka.com
3. Free Podcast reader for PocketPC
http://www.skookummobile.com/
This one also support RSS but it's feature just sucks: doesn't support copy&paste...