Day 98: The Bootcamp

If you had sold your Entrepreneurship Bootcamp ticket this past week to someone else, you really missed out on an amazing experience.

Despite the fears that many of us had coming into the camp that we would be exhausted and overwhelmed by all the activity over the weekend, I think most of us felt that it was a really good experience and a reminder that there's actually quite a lot you can achieve in 48 hours if you're forced to be structured and really push yourself. Don't get me wrong, I'm completely exhausted mentally after the camp but do feel that it was completely worth it (even if that means I have a mad scramble to try to finish one of my assignments tomorrow morning)

It's kinda funny how we all hopped on the bus on Friday evening to go somewhere just about 10-15 mins away. SGP isn't THAT big so we were kinda in "the neighbourhood" at Rider's Lodge. Decent place but nothing to write home about (especially for the price that we paid). I'm not sure where they went last year but apparently it was much nicer. We were greeted by some pretty unimpressive sandwiches as our welcome "dinner" (shocking given food mad SGP!) so some of us did what budding entrepreneurs do in a situation like that... we went to order pizza. ;) Thankfully there was an Italian restaurant just next door.*phew* Our trainer, Paul, was awfully nice and offered to pay for the pizzas since the food provided just didn't quite cut it.

Since the pizzas would take a while, we decided to kick off the sessions and first up was idea generation. Now I know many people say that they don't have an good ideas for a business but trust me on this. We ALL do. You only need to look at your own life and figure out where there is some "pain", some "need" that isn't satisfied and I'm sure you can think of a business around that. I was genuinely impressed by the ideas that were being generated around the room. People took turns to stand up and give a 1 minute pitch on an idea that they have (you didn't have to). Without giving these ideas away, they ranged from all sorts areas like education, social media, real estate, testing, fashion, technology, sailing, environment etc. The sheer range of ideas was really impressive. After that we were given the task to go form groups of between 2-4 centered around any of the ideas presented (or not!). It was a good chance to really suss out various ideas and see if you could form a team that you thought you could work with. Thankfully this process didn't take too long and we all managed to get some rest that night. (The pizzas were ginormous but really good!)

On Saturday, we pretty much spent the whole day fleshing out these ideas by really clearly defining what it is we were trying to do and how we would actually go about it. The one thing I've learnt is that ideas are cheap, it's the definition, execution and the team that really add the value. It's not that easy to really define what it is you want to do. I was particularly tickled by the following cartoon:

So funny yet so true...

The sessions came at us thick and fast and after a while we could tell that people were struggling to keep up with the sheer amount of information and tasks being thrown our way. Paul kept pushing us forward and made sure we stuck to our schedule. Thankfully, the food also began to improve! (apparently because someone at school had some strong words for the catering department at the Lodge). By the end of the day, people were looking exhausted because we had all been really applying ourselves to our ideas.

By Sunday, less than 48 hours after we started the Bootcamp, we were ready for our 2 minute pitches in front of real investors. How's that for an intense weekend! I think everyone did an amazing job considering how little time we really had. There were a total of 3 rounds with the 10 teams being whittled down to 4 (semi-final) and then finally to 2 (final). Congratulations to Clare and Raaj for winning the Bootcamp with their real estate idea! In true Bootcamp fashion, the prize was... a boot! (I kid you not). The 2 finalists were also invited to pitch their ideas to REAL investors on Wednesday at the Global Enterpreneurship Forum held on campus. How cool is that?

Overall, it was a great experience and I'm really glad that I took the time to go for it. I know that most of my fellow participants would agree with me. Who knows? Maybe the Bootcamp tickets for this coming week will end up selling at a premium after our advertising in school next week? ;)

Day 96: Fragile Fridays and Das Boot!

Lots of people looking quite fragile this morning after the Africa Week party last night. ;)

That's what you get when you manage to negotiate free-flow at a bar. I think the professors sorta know that morning classes the day after usually are going to be pretty poorly attended. You can pretty much predict this in advance as most National Week parties here are on Thursday night in SGP as compared to Friday in FBL. I'm guessing it's different because it's a lot more costly to book a large venue on a Friday night here in SGP and also because sometimes a quarter of the class is in (insert name of tropical island resort here) on Fridays. There is a reason why we're nicknamed "Club Med". Don't get me wrong though, people here are still amazingly motivated and driven, they just want to squeeze more out of life. ;)

As some of us are going to FBL next period, we had a themed Friday today where those who are staying in SGP wear white while those leaving wear blue/black. It was a nice way to clear it up the mystery once and for all. Looks like most of us are still going to be here, which makes me wonder how many people are coming over from FBL? I expect that the SGP campus is going to be pretty much at bursting point next period.

Off to the Entrepreneurship Boot Camp this weekend. Promises to be another hectic weekend with workshop after workshop. Probably not the best time to have the Boot Camp towards the end of a period when people are feeling quite tired and stretched but sometimes you have to take what you can get.

Who knows, maybe the next big INSEAD alumni started business will come out of this weekend. One thing's for sure, we're definitely in a really good place to try to start businesses (BBC Article)

Come to think of it, who are the famous INSEAD entrepreneurs of the past? Know of any others besides this list?

Day 94: What do you mean it's December already???

These past few months have really flown by since we started school at the end of August. If anything, most people I've spoken to feel like this period has only gotten "faster" as the weeks go by. Scary to think that we'll be taking exams again in little over 2 weeks. I certainly don't feel really prepared for it yet. Despite it being some pretty hectic times, I'm glad we still know how to take a break from time to time to do something fun. Thanks to the Africa Week organisers, we had some West African drummers on campus to give some of us a chance to try it out!

Maybe this should be an elective for P3?

CV's are due today for the CV book at midnight and I'm pretty sure that the INSEAD Career Services computer server is completely overloaded at the moment. Never ever underestimate the power of last minute panic to motivate people to get things done (even if it is the last minute). The CV book compiles all the CV's of each class so that prospective employers and students get a feel of the kind of people that come to INSEAD. Apparently a few people actually get contacted by companies who find them from the CV book but I am pretty sure it is a very small number. I do think it's a valuable exercise to "force" us to get our CV's in shape before recruitment really gets underway for our promotion. Although, how do you stand out in a book with 500 CV's?

I guess one way would be to take a really funny picture (perhaps have dreadlocks or a huge afro?) or change your surname legally to "Aaaa" or "Zzzz" so you'd be at the start /end of the book!