I had the opportunity to spend a Saturday at the Spark e-ship conference hosted at HBS on November 15th. The conference was an all day event focused on lectures from leading start up founders, venture capitalists, and workshops focused on innovation exercises. The conference was primarily attended by business school students from HBS and surrounding Boston schools as well as some law school and graduate students. Most attendees were focused on creating their own venture or working for an early stage start up.
The first event I attended was a presentation from successful founders on their start up experience. Speakers gave tips on moving from an idea to a business. Experiences generating early stage revenue, pitching for seed funding and Series A rounds were discussed. The importance of maintaining a positive attitude, not giving up, and surrounding yourself with like minded individuals were emphasized.
The second series I attended was on how to prototype an idea. For this session the presenters discussed the process of prototyping. We were divided into teams of 6 and given materials to use in prototyping a product of our choice. We were given 10 minutes to develop and pro type our idea. Groups then went around the room and presented on their prototype. My team developed a time traveling app that allowed the user to experience time travel as a hologram through an app. This was probably one of the most valuable experiences of the session as it helped me to really understand how to take the idea I have been working on and prototype and create a story board of the application. Working on this skill also gave me some good opening to network with other students who were attending the conference.
The remaining seminars I attended included Selling &Exit strategies which was helpful for me in understanding how to create a product that could have a potential profitable exit strategy. Start ups beyond tech was the last seminar and included an interesting presentation on a combing neurological tests in creating online job candidate profiles. An individual looking to be recruited by top companies would set up a profile online and take these tests that could tell an employer what types of positions you were best suited for. This is not based in IQ but more about what environments and tasks are you best suited for. Companies would purchase memberships to have access to this data and could recruit based on a particular profile. This presentation inspired me to look deeper into incorporating more principals of habit building technologies into the app I am developing.
The last event I attended was volunteering at the New England Venture summit. During my time as a volunteer I was able to watch technology and life science founders pitch their companies to VC companies. I also had the opportunity to listed to VC panel discussions on what they looked for in companies they were investing in. There were also tips how the protocol of being introduced to investors, how much time a typical VC firm is willing to listed to your pitch, and what industries and areas are seeing the biggest investment. I also got some insight into the potential market of creating a sales app for emerging companies to use in preparing their VC pitch.
