1/27/12
Perseverance: A picture is worth a thousand words
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11:16 AM
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1/25/12
define.babson.edu
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1/7/12
One day (or a short refection on kindness)
"all my life I've been waiting for
I've been praying for
for the people to say
that we don't wanna fight no more
they'll be no more wars
and our children will play"
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11:40 AM
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1/1/12
First set of lessons from the first quarter of the Babson MB
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Oriana Torres
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3:38 PM
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11/12/11
"Pitching" as KEY entrepreneurial skill
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10/14/11
BABSON MBA Alumni Entrepreneurs: "The things the way they are"
- "We have grown our venture through validation"
- "Convertible debt"
- "The 'stupidity' of what was offered at that time is what motivated our launch this product"
- "He is the one that manages the finances, I take care of product development ... I'm not a finance guy"
- "Nobody was willing to give us money ... we were 'unproven' Entrepreneurs"
- "I have been a struggling entrepreneur since 2007 ...the struggle for us has been raising money" (Note: he has raised 4.5 million USD already)
- "Professional investors are the nicest people you can even think of! The VCs are the first people to tell us: "you are not quite where you think you are ... they help us understand why we are a 2 Mio instead of a 6 Mio company, as entrepreneurs at times we have a lot of misunderstandings of the industry we are at"
- "Boston is known for being a tough climate for a first time entrepreneur"
- "We really liked the fact that they recognized the own limitations and hired a CEO and other smart people that had a lot of expertise" (said by the Venture Capital)
- "We are not afraid to invest in first time Entrepreneurs, but we understand that they are companies that will need a lot of attention"(said by the Venture Capital)
- "For initial friends and family founding, YOU DO NOT APPROACH your poor family members!"
- "It's the most 'expensive' money I have got, those investors were the ones that kept me awake at night"
- "Forget the grandchildren .. how is the business?" (that's how the conversations with your father start after they invest in you!)
- "Treat them carefully, as if they were institutional investors"
- "Their exit strategy was important, but they were more proud of seeing our product in the TIME magazine ... they were really investing in us"
- "About 4 times a day!"
- "I have a friend that calls me once in a while and what he always asks me is 'Are you still having fun?' And as long as I say yes, that's what matters. We do not feel pity. Those moments of success bring you to the next one ... and your need for success becomes larger ... those moments help you through the dark times ... it is like a roller coaster ... as your company grows, your highs get 'higher' and your lows get 'lower'"
- "When your employees start getting married and having kids, and you realize how many kids the company is feeding ... that makes you go on"
- We were in our BCAP (BCAP is an experiential learning program at BABSON) room and sketched the first idea of our product ... the sketch was awful, it was clear that we needed real design talent.We decided to find a design school that WOULD HELP us. We just called the design schools and asked to speak with the deans ... nobody paid attention. But I got attention of ONE school, I do not know what happened that day, but the dean gave us an appointment. What called her attention was the STORY we could build around working together: we will have a design school and business school creating a company! They liked having a designers understanding how to bring a product to the market. 6 months, 30 students, a professors, and us ... it was a very interesting product development process ... and the result was a 100 USD play table. After that process we had almost 30 designers that were familiar with us and we leveraged on that network.
- Recruiting software engineers was very difficult, what would drive them to do something WITH YOU, with a START UP? Are you able to give them the experience they are looking for? It was a sales process, it is about selling a person that at times is smarter than you, that has maybe at the time more opportunities that the one you can give that he/she, the idea that he/she should work with you.
- "There are too many things that we would have done different. But this is part of the learning curve, you will never have all the answers, what matters is your ability to react and that is what brings you to success"
- "If you are not making mistakes, you must be doing something wrong"
Disclaimer: The past highlights do not necessarily reflect my personal opinions or the ones of BABSON. It is just a blog post to share an interesting class activity.
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8/31/11
I am a TECHMARK survivor
Ps. BTW, we did not win, but we were so close that I am just so proud of our team!
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8/28/11
First two weeks of the BABSON MBA in quotes
I am just H A P P Y - I can't wait for the show to go on. You know this good old feeling of knowing you took the right decision.
The following is a compilation of the quotes that have called the most my attention during the past two weeks - in no particular order - ... at this point I am so full of feelings, thoughts, emotions, that if I write the conventional way, I will end up sharing a minute of each class and writing a 50-pages blog post (and well, I am doing my best to write "american style", short and to the point)!
- You can scale technology, operations, a business ...but the toughest thing to scale is the human brain. BABSON offers you Intelectual Transformation, personal transformation, professional transformation (Orientation Welcome)
- At Babson you earn your degree the "old fashion way": you have to work hard for it
- This (BABSON) is an MBA for uncertain times (Orientation Welcome)
- How many times in your life will you have so many people to partner with you tu succeed? (Orientation Welcome)
- This is an MBA to understand and manage growth (Orientation Welcome)
- BABSON IS A TUITION DEPENDENT INSTITUTION, everything we do, we do it because you do it with us (Orientation Welcome)
- How many times in your life will you have so many people to partner with you tu succeed? (Orientation Welcome)
- This is an MBA to understand and manage growth (Orientation Welcome)
- BABSON IS A TUITION DEPENDENT INSTITUTION, everything we do, we do it because you do it with us (Orientation Welcome)
- Have I ever thought what my message is “doing” to my reader in terms of our relationship? (Writing class, btw check this hilarious example of terribly bad writing, Exhibit 2!)
- Find a job that you love and you will never work another day in your life (Center for Career Development session)
- At BABSON you become a good learner and a good listener (Business Case Simulation)
- They (professors) will push your thinking to places you never imagined, you will be challenged ... and they challenge you because they know that you can handle it (2nd Year MBA student panel)
- Now I know how to connect education to the real world (2nd Year MBA student panel)
- Ambiguity is your friend (as a manager) – as also complexity and uncertainty (Business Case Simulation)
- There will NEVER be enough information to solve a case (Business Case Simulation)
- XYZ students are competitive, on the other hand, BABSON Students and collaborative! Use this value (Business Case Simulation)
- I used to be an engineer until I got educated (Business Case Simulation)
- There are 3 levels of frustation during a business case discussion. First, when another student just other says what you wanted to say!!! Second, when you say something that was super important to you and the professor does not give a s%#t!!! Third, when the class and discussion goes in a completely other way than the one you developed your case for!!! (Business Case Simulation)
- An MBA is a marathon and the judges are your peers! (Business Case Simulation)
- GPA is b%$#*@^t! (Business Case Simulation)
- It should be called IAD instead of MBA. IAD ... "it all depends" (Business Case Simulation)
- To create something that otherwise would not exist if you had not done it (Business Case Simulation)
- I do not believe in market research (Business Case Simulation)
- How you make critical choices that drive strategic innovation (Business Case Simulation)
- Remember the "Economy of words", go to the point (Business Case Simulation)
- Do not use "empty" words ... "flexible", "innovation", "entrepreneurship" - what does that really mean? (Business Case Simulation)
- Engaging with your class mates during a case is not only about attacking them (Business Case Simulation)
- ENTREPRENEURS ARE LOUSY at managing an ongoing business (Business Case Simulation)
- If the professor does not call you often, tell him!!! (Business Case Simulation)
- Once you have been my student, you have the keys of my office (Prof. JB, Business Case Simulation)
- Learning is the destination, a case is the vehicle (Business Case Simulation)
- Please, no emotions (Business Case Simulation)
Ps. Sharing a quote does not mean endorsement :-)
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7/20/11
In Colombia you do not have to give your 120%? - a propo Independence Day
The Tale of the fisherman and the Tourist: A tourist looks on a most idyllic picture: a fisherman dozing in the sun in his rowing boat that he has pulled out of the waves which come rolling up the sandy beach. The tourist's camera clicks and the fisherman wakes. The tourist asks: “The weather is great and there's plenty of fish, so why are you lying around instead of going out and catching more?”The fisherman replies: “Because I caught enough this morning.” “But just imagine,” the tourist says, “you could go out there three or four times a day and bring home three or four times as much fish! And then you know what could happen?” The fisherman shakes his head. “After a year you could buy yourself a motorboat,” says the tourist. “After two years you could buy a second one, and after three years you could have a cutter or two. And just think! One day you might be able to build a freezing plant or a smoke house. You might eventually even get your own helicopter for tracing shoals of fish and guiding your fleet of cutters, or you could buy your own trucks to ship your fish to the capital, and then . . .” “And then?” asks the fisherman. “And then”, the tourist continues triumphantly, “you'd could spend time sitting at the beachside, dozing in the sun and looking at the beautiful ocean!” The fisherman looks at the tourist: “But that is exactly what I was doing before you came along!” The fisherman replies: “Because I caught enough this morning.” “But just imagine,” the tourist says, “you could go out there three or four times a day and bring home three or four times as much fish! And then you know what could happen?” The fisherman shakes his head. “After a year you could buy yourself a motorboat,” says the tourist. “After two years you could buy a second one, and after three years you could have a cutter or two. And just think! One day you might be able to build a freezing plant or a smoke house. You might eventually even get your own helicopter for tracing shoals of fish and guiding your fleet of cutters, or you could buy your own trucks to ship your fish to the capital, and then . . .” “And then?” asks the fisherman. “And then”, the tourist continues triumphantly, “you'd could spend time sitting at the beachside, dozing in the sun and looking at the beautiful ocean!” The fisherman looks at the tourist: “But that is exactly what I was doing before you came along!”
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