Week 5: SF Summer Venture Program
We’re halfway into Summer Venture Program and our teams are collaborating and reaching milestones! In terms of programming, we had a talk from two Babson alums,Ben Narasin, partner @ Canvas Ventures andIan Thiel, Head of Product @ Optimizely, we had another *Hot Seat,* and we volunteered withNFTE(Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship). We were also fortunate to haveMary Gale, faculty director of SVP join us for the week.
One of our speakers,
Ben, gave feedback on the team’s one sentence pitch and discussed the most important quality of an entrepreneur: the lack of ability to lose a.k.a. tenacity. Ben ended his presentation by saying venture is not for everyone:“Venture is to fund phenomenal companies that are killingit”.
We then learned about “Sales Hacking” tactics fromIan. He recommended several books for everyone to read including “The Flinch” by Julien Smith and discussed common mistakes that newbies make in the sales hustle such as speaking their language and not the client’s.
After, we brainstormed a new company name forJonathan Kong‘s business (DayPop), a platform that recommends events tailored to the individual’s needs and interests. Some of the more memorable suggestions were “Much ado” and “Flock.”
Our next *Hot Seat* was withAshwin Mysore(Brown Bag), who is creating a mobile app that makes it easy for people within a company to have lunch together. Coordinating is made quick and simple.
Later, we had an opportunity to volunteer withNFTE(Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship), a non-profit organization that brings entrepreneurial training to high school students, especially those from low-income communities. Our SVP teams provided coaching and assisted with their business plan for their final competition.
Lastly,Maryprovided open office hours, led a pitch workshop, and talked about the timeline leading up to showcase. It was so awesome to have Mary in San Francisco, and also celebrate her birthday
Special shout out toSebastian Gomez, SVP ’14 and co-founder of Cafe X (a robotic cafe that serves premium local coffee within seconds) andBenji Cohen, SF Ugrad ’15 and co-founder of Space Jam Data (a real estate data analytics company): thanks for stopping by our campus and speaking to our entrepreneurs!
Stay tuned for more updates!Save-the-date:SF Summer Venture Showcase-Thur. August 4th