20070306-0312

It's a late blog but hey, I am in the final exam week for MOD III. Can't you believe it, it's over, the first half of 2007 is almost over while I am thinking about the to do list we had prepared for R last year...

I have a lot to write and here is a list of those topics:

My VCIC experience
My techtalk gathering
My undertanding of the shift of world
My digital living standard

and this will be my VCIC experience that started almost one month ago when J took the initiative to organize a team and M invited me to particiate. I was somehow reluctant as being busy with other things. I just wanted to have the least things I have to deal with. The less the better because anything will consume way more time than you originally think. That's why I hate small things like creditcard payment etc... Anyway, I tried to quite this VCIC team in the very beginning but after I learned that I can not quit otherwise the rest of the team, Maan, Marin, Max and Jin, will not qualify for the internal competition. So I wrote following email:


Team,

My tight schedule did make me considering quit this VCIC in the beginning. But since I will stay, let's try our best to win it!

.....

More info of VCIC, Venture Capital Investment Competition can be found at www.vcic.unc.edu. UNC really created lots of competition in MBA area. Is UNC one of the oldest bschool?

I am happy I did stay with the team and worked together to win the internal competition at Babson. I have to admit it's a good feeling being the finalist even though I am not a fan of any award. A brief about what we had in the internal competition at babson:

Friday 5pm, received 3 real business plan.
by 12pm, selected the one we will invest and prepared the question for due deligence on Saturday

Saturday, 8am, entrepreneur pitch then followed by due diligence with each team (totally 6 teams including us, Snowbasin ventures)
12am, finish term sheet preparation and presentation
1pm team start presentation.

Things are always the same for the regiional competition at NYC from Mar 8th to Mar 11th. We are competing with the 7 of top 10 bschool in US. We got 4 business plan. We had 20 judges, mostly associates from VC firms with office in NYC. It's a real practice. We had chosen the start-up developing digital media authoring software and thought it has a big expansion potential. However, we are the only team chosen this team. Most others choose either the www.collectorsquest.com or Zeroin Media.

What I had learned?
1. Explanation of termsheet used most frequently by VCs
The most useful blog from VCs I had read is from Feld
http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2005/08/term_sheet_seri.html
who is the managing director of Mobius Venture Capitalbased in Boulder, Colorado

2. Rational about venture selection
Teams, business model, opportunity etc...why VC will inveset $ in this venture rather than that? Why we had seen so many start-ups with ideas we thought no-sense at all but won millions of $ investment? It's an execellent chance for entrepreneurs to review their business model. Not purely for the sake of VC $ but a more objective analysis from another side of the start-up value chain.

3. valuation
Ok, if decided to seek VC investment, the omst important would be valuation. How much d o you think your venture worht today? What you can do to increase the value, immediatley, in short-term and in the long run?

4. Hard working, hard working and hard working.
Hardworkign it self may not bring you the success but without hard working, your chance is trivial.