Ivey Competition, London ON
Ivey Business Plan Competition is one of the most well-run competition we attended. There were great competing teams, good mentor and review sessions, and judges with great depth of experience. We met a MBET alumni here who was a judge for our session. Unfortunately, we did not win an award. However, the learning experience is priceless!
Lessons Learned
- Business plan pitches are the acid tests of how well you understand your product / service; communicate it efficiently
- Create a compelling “dead lobster”: get audience’s attention early and build a business case
- Build a believable market: focus down to a addressable / manageable market segment and ask for enough money to address it
VON.x Conference, San Jose
Soon after CBET Competition, we took our first trip to VON.x Conference in San Jose. Being the tech capital of the world, there were many to see and many people to meet. After picking up our car from the airport, our crazy week began on March 15:
March 15 – San Francisco
After working on the plane for 5 straight hours, we finally arrived one of the most poorly designed airport we have seen. Picking up the car took about 2 hours. Traffic took another 1 hour. However, it was all worth it when we enjoyed the sourdough clam chowder from Fisherman’s Wharf. Little did we know that we would end up spending the next 10 hours working on a new version of SparkMedia business plan, prompting us to miss a Flickr party as well as any San Francisco night life…
March 16 – San Jose
After a night of working, we head towards San Jose. Before reaching there, we stopped by Stanford University, where one of Tim’s friends gave us a grand tour of the university. I’ve visited the university many times before, but this is the first time where we get to live and breathe the life of a student at Stanford.
Soon after, we arrived San Jose Crowne Plaza, just steps away from the VON.x conference. About 10 minutes after unloading our luggage, we were yet again working on the business plan…
March 17 ~ 19 – VON.x
How good was VON.x? Let’s just say that we had to calculate our schedules down to the minutes in order to be at all the seminars that we wanted to be. We also had a chance to visit Apple Campus, and surely, we almost crashed our car into that driven by none other but Steve Wozniak. Nice looking car there Woz!!
It was an awesome trip, with a lot of valuable contacts made with some of the key players in the industry. Go SparkMedia!
SparkMedia Around the World
After a long month, the SparkMedia team is finally back in Waterloo. It’s time to update my little website!
Every year, a MBET student must complete a practicum project. This year, my practicum project is SparkMedia, a telecommunications company that aims to deliver cable television wirelessly. After months of hard work, my team was fortunate enough to be a part of a few business plan competitions. The next few postings consist of my “lessons learned” from each of these competitions, along with some pictures from these competitions.
As we draw closer to the end of the practicum project, the journey has been incredible. For the next few final months of MBET, it is time to reflect on some things and maybe start another venture. We will see in a few months!