Business School
Silicon Valley Trip - Day 2
The second day of the San Francisco trip began with a sort of déjà-vu: Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) Ventures invited us back for a meeting with associate Joshua Raffaelli to get a different perspective on the firm’s operations. After arriving at Menlo Park a half-hour early, we took a detour back to The Sundeck for a cup of coffee before starting our day. Sitting in The Sundeck dining room with a 270°-view of the surrounding mountains I thought, “This would be a pretty nice way to start every morning.”
After breakfast, we returned to the Millenium Falcon Conference Room at DFJ to meet with Joshua. He was kind enough to bring us some swag (DFJ pens, notebooks, hats and bags) while he talked about the day-to-day deal-making and due diligence processes of the firm. The day before we had met with the Don Wood, a Managing Partner at DFJ, who focused more on DFJ investing strategy including its global network of affiliates.
Our next stop was at Garage Tech Ventures—home of startup-guru Guy Kawasaki—in the heart of Palo Alto. Here we piled into a small conference where a picture hung of the eponymous garage (located just a few blocks away from the Garage Tech Office) where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard got their start. Managing Director, Bill Reichert, discussed the firm’s history: how it began as an accelerator and became one of the most important Silicon Valley early stage VC firms of the past decade.
After lunch at Il Fornaio, the group made its way to the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field. Incidentally, the research center (which is a retired Navy base) is adjacent to the Googleplex property in Mountain View. Here we met with Tim Collins, CEO of KleenSpeed: a resident research company at the center which is developing electric racecar technology. After touring the KleenSpeed facility we met with Lisa Lockyer and several of her colleagues at the NASA Technology Partnerships Office.
Finally, we made our way back to the place where our two-days-in-Silicon-Valley started: the law offices of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR) for an attorney panel. Professor Oglevee, an organizer of the trip, had suggested that we use this opportunity to do a venture capital “term-sheet” workshop. A term-sheet is the non-binding document signed by an entrepreneur and venture capital firm when entering an investment deal. Daphne, Alison and Phuong (the attorneys on the panel) gave us each three different term sheet templates and we discussed the differences between them and what to look for when signing one. As it turns out, the keys are: READ YOUR TERM SHEET and ASK QUESTIONS.
After the panel we had one last chance to thank Jim Terranova, Fisher alumnus and Director of WS investments at WSGR, for organizing the trip and supporting the next generation of buckeye entrepreneurs. Thanks again Jim!
Reposted from Fisher Grad Life blog and Fisher Entrepreneurship Association blog.
See more pictures at flickr.
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Silicon Valley Trip - Day 1
I’ve spent the past 24 hours in San Francisco and Silicon Valley on an educational trip with the Fisher Entrepreneurship Association visiting venture capitalists. The trip was hosted by Jim Terranova who runs WS Investments, the VC arm of the Silicon Valley law firm WSGR.
Yesterday’s itinerary included
- Breakfast with Jim and Mario Rosati (the “R” in WSGR)
- Don Wood, Managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) Ventures
- Lunch at the Sundeck
- Sven Strohband, at Mohr Davidow Ventures
- Several Representatives of The Sand Hill Angels
We’ve got another packed day today, with events including a visit to NASA’s Technology Partnerships Office at the Ames Research Center.
Pictures coming soon…
Reposted from Fisher Grad Life blog.
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Internal Case Competition
This weekend, Fisher hosted its annual first-year internal case competition. A case competition is essentially a mini-consulting project. An actual business situation, as summarized and published by prominent business school publications (e.g. The Harvard Business Review), is presented to a group of students who have a relatively short amount of time to analyze the case, synthesize a recommendation and present and defend it to a panel of judges (representing executives of the company from the case).
Many case competitions are held as intercollegiate competitions (e.g., the Big 10 Case Competitions) or are sponsored by outside interests and organizations (e.g., the Proctor & Gamble Case Competition and The National Black MBA Association's Case Competition). However, Fisher is relatively unique in that it holds its own internal case competition for MBA’s only. By holding our own competition, we can cost effectively (without travel costs and registration fees) allow everyone that wants to to participate. Additionally, our internal case competition is used as a sort of audition for the aforementioned intercollegiate competitions.
The case revolved around Microsoft’s place in the internet search industry (from the perspective of September 2008). We were fortunate that this was a company, industry and product that we were relatively familiar with. We were given the case on Friday morning at 8:00 AM and were required to submit a finished PowerPoint deck by 8:00 AM on Saturday. The first teams began their presentations at 8:45.
My first experience with a case competition was a bit unusual. Due to illness and other unforeseen circumstances our four-person team was reduced to only two. Despite our best efforts to manage our time, sleep was definitely sacrificed in order to put forth the best product possible. We did not win, however our efforts were rewarded with a “Best Q&A” award.
I want to thank my teammate, Angela, here for convincing me to compete despite our disadvantage and pushing to put together the best solution possible.
Reposted from Fisher Grad Life Blog.
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Fisher Corporate Mentorship Program
This week marked the kickoff of the 2010 Fisher Corporate Mentorship Program. The program, organized by the Leadership and Professional Development office, goes to great lengths to match over a hundred fist-year MBA with professional mentors working in fields that the students are interested in. Like all mentorship programs, the participants (both mentor and mentee) get out of this experience as much as they put in. The program lasts ten months (through October 2010) and as a guideline it is recommended that both parties set aside time to meet every month.
My mentor is David Brownstein a partner in UVG Ltd (a Columbus venture consulting firm), involved with the Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization (TEC) Institute and veteran of the Fisher Corporate Mentorship program. I got the chance to briefly meet him at the reception hosted at the Blackwell this week. I’m looking forward to building a relationship with him and learning more about his professional experiences over the coming year.
Reposted from Fisher Grad Life Blog.
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IF Workshop with Liz Saunders
Innovation Fisher, the brand-new Innovation-oriented student organization, kicked off this quarter with its first ever workshop this past Monday. The workshop is part of a series hosted by MakeTools.com founder Liz Saunders focusing on getting consumers to express their unmet needs.
Although, we did not have time to sufficiently prep and debrief, the IF students were given the opportunity to work through an exercise describing The Past, Present and Future of Business.
Working in groups of 3 or 4, we very quickly sifted through a collection of stimuli—images, title cut-outs from magazines, and stickers—to create a collage describing what we felt The Past, Present and Future of Business looks like. Towards the end of the session we came back together as an entire group and explained our collages to Liz and the other groups.
During future sessions, we will discuss how to interpret the collages and creation process to get at our unmet needs.
This workshop and others planned for this quarter are part of the Innovation Fisher Certification program. For more pictures check out the IF flickr stream.
Reposted from Fisher Grad Life Blog.
(Pictures by Dave Shaw and Amar Zumkhawala)
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BUS M&L 855 Innovation Practice
After a long blogging hiatus: Welcome to Winter Quarter! It’s a new decade and a new class schedule—this time with electives. The first quarter was entirely “core” classes (predetermined foundational courses set for the entire MBA program). This time around I was able to choose two courses outside of the required core courses.
As part of the Global Innovation and Entrepreneurial Leadership Program this summer, I took a week long “certificate-course” in innovation from Michael Bills. The course focused on consumer centric innovation practices. I enjoyed the course so much I decided to come back for the full course—BUS M&L 855 Innovation Practice—this winter. According to the syllabus
The purpose of this course is to provide students with the opportunity to develop skills, and understanding of, the theory and application of innovation processes and a framework for its commercial application across various types and formats of businesses.
Bills has built a very popular courses since coming to Fisher a year ago. In fact, the interest has spilled over into a student organization—Innovation Fisher—which is planning an innovation summit—called What IF—this spring. This past Friday, I visited the Ohio Health Center for Medical Education & Innovation as the first Innovation Fisher site visit.
In addition to Innovation Practice, I’m also taking BUS MHR 825 Entrepreneurship & Business Plan Development—but that’s a story for another post.
Reposted from Fisher Grad Life Blog.
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Finals Week and Winter Break
Finally wrapping up my first quarter at Fisher (or at least the first one I spent entirely in Columbus). This week is finals week. However, the way things worked out, last week ended up being much more stressful than this. I had three presentations last week (Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday), as well as a group paper due Wednesday and an individual final paper due Saturday at midnight. (Kudos to one especially dauntless MBA [you know who you are] for starting at 10:30 Saturday morning!)
Compared to that this week was easy—just exams. No class, no team meetings, no assignments—just exams. At this point, I have two exams down (Econ and Stats) with only one (Accounting) standing between me and winter break.
Looking forward to break, I’ll be:
- Going to the Blue Jackets / Panthers Game on Wednesday night
- Working on an executive summary for the Fisher Business Plan Competition
- Reading The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life in preparation for the February trip to Omaha to hear him speak
- Xmas Shopping (haven’t started!)
Others have much more glamorous plans (e.g. tanning in Florida, skiing in Vail), but I’m just looking forward to relaxing and spending some time at home—and maybe I’ll catch a movie or two.
Reposted from Fisher Grad Life Blog.
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Xavier University College Entrepreneurship Conference
Last week I took a day off of classes and headed down to Cincinnati for Ohio’s Only Statewide College Entrepreneurship & Ethics Conference and Competition (I think the name needs to be changed to…something you can remember). The conference was attended by graduate and undergraduate business and entrepreneurship students from several Ohio/Kentucky Colleges including: Ohio State – Fisher COB, Xavier – Williams COB, Bowling Green and Northern Kentucky – Haile COB. There were three components to the conference: a keynote addresses, breakout sessions (which took the form of lectures and/or forums) and a small business simulation.
Here were some of the highlights:
- Computer business simulation that required our team (four other Fisher Students and me) to run a coffee: setting pricing, ordering inventory, advertising, and hiring and firing.
- Breakout session reviewing the concepts behind Kim and Mauborgne’s book Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant.
- Breakout session presented by Dr. Chris Manolis on Entrepreneurial Marketing.
- Breakout session presented by Dr. Ravi Chinta titled Model Business: A Tool for Business Plan Evaluation. Here, he described a 23-dimension rubric he used as a venture capitalist to evaluate a business plans—however it can also be reverse-engineered a give an entrepreneur a few things to think about when writing a business plan.
- Keynote Address by Pete Hensler, President of RC2 a toy and infant/toddler products company that licenses and sells John Deere, Disney, and Tommy the Tank Engine toys. The primary takeaways were to keep a global context (RC2 does much of its manufacturing in China, but has recently turned to the country as a new market for its products) as well as list of ten question that he asks himself everyday to keep him focused. Also, he ended his speech with this video…definitely worth a watch.
Reposted from Fisher Grad Life Blog.
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Cullman Lunch: Cary Jenkins
Cary Jenkins was behind one of the biggest tech exits in recent Columbus history. His company of TopNoggin, the producer of the innovative pension management software platform: Bluefin, was recently acquired by The Hartford Financial Services Group. Cary continues to believe that the IT departments of large companies are not designed to innovate; after TogNoggin he has continued to seek out technology needs with other ventures including Visible Equity and My Financial Guard.
As far as the Cullman lunch series goes, Cary was on the informal end of the spectrum. He spent some time demonstrating the Bluefin product and tried to let our questions lead the discussion.
A few themes that I picked up on:
- “Bullets in your gun” when brining in partners. Cary highlighted two selling points when trying to recruit partners away from lucrative corporate life: fun and a potential lump sum. When our group discussed our reasons for wanting to start a company, we boiled it down to “we just want do something different” and “fun.” Cary also pointed out that most millionaires become millionaires as the result of a lump sum (i.e. it is very hard to become a millionaire through a salary)—and by taking equity you create this potential.
- Be honest with your talents. Some of the first people Cary brought on when he started TopNoggin were a domain expert (an actuary) and a president. While Cary is very talented in crafting and selling a product, he is first to admit that general management is not his forte.
- Flexibility and Adaptability of new ventures: Cary took us through the startup history of TopNoggin and Visible Equity. Both companies began by doing something else and the economic situation (e.g. Housing Market Meltdown, Dot Com Bust) and customer needs led their products in new directions.
Reposted from Fisher Grad Life blog.
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Cullman Lunch: Jason Mlicki
Last week some of my classmates and I had lunch with Jason Mlicki a Fisher College of Business MBA and “Resident Left Brain” at Mlicki, a Columbus branding agency.
His feeling in that service and b2b (business-to-business) branding is still in its infancy. Some of the firms biggest successes have been with business that operate in industries that have not traditionally invested in very much branding. He highlighted some of Mlicki’s experience with engineering and construction firms including R.W. Setterlin. I found particularly interesting Jason’s response when asked him how he sold Mlicki’s services to such firms. By demonstrating “thought leadership” as it applies to business problems he could sell work to firms that operated in industries or were in need of services not represented in Mlicki’s portfolio.
Another of Jason’s central themes was the idea that consumers shop comparatively and buy emotionally. He shared an anecdote of his experience buying a flat screen HDTV a few years back. Before heading to the store, Jason looked a copy of Consumer Reports and circled several products in the sizes and categories which he was looking. The products he circled were almost exclusively Samsung brand televisions. However, he came home from Best Buy with a brand new Sony. Only when Jason found the circled Consumer Reports a few weeks later, did he realize what effect the emotional power of the Sony brand had on his buying decision.
Thanks again to Jason Mlicki for visiting us at Fisher. For more of his thoughts on branding check out his blog.
Reposted from Fisher Grad Life blog.
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