Spearheading this project has been quite a journey, both as an aspiring entrepreneur and a project manager. Let me tell you more about this exciting project, the things we’ve done, how we got here and where we’re going.

The Journey of Entrepreneurship

A trip to Silicon Valley has a certain “coolness factor” of course, but the main reason for going is to learn first-hand about entrepreneurship and the tech industry. Silicon Valley is the place to be when it comes to entrepreneurship and the tech industry. This is where the interaction between capital and ideas is still the most intensive in the world.

This will be a learning experience… During the trip we will meet  startup founders, larger companies, incubators and investors. From them we will learn about– getting funded, developing products, do’s and dont’s, how to scale, how to find your team and how to do business overseas. Additionally, from investors we will learn — how they view business ideas, how they would like to be involved, how they treat entrepreneurs, what they look to for in founders and founding teams. We will get exposure on what it’s like to work in the Valley. The goal of this trip is for all of us to move forward on our journey to becoming entrepreneurs!

The journey of project management

I started this project alone but soon discovered how vast the scope was. I knew I needed help and sought-out people to help me organize. An announcement through the entrepreneurs club resulted the formation of our highly-committed main organizing committee. The project resulted in a complex web of contacts with people in the valley which needed to be organized. Every week we have been meeting for 1 hour. We go through our different work streams and organize the next weeks work load. This turned out to be a perfect rhythm as many things are happening each week. Coordinating a team has been immensely rewarding and getting to know each teammate has been a pleasure. The trip would not have been possible without the amazing team, so a big thanks goes out to: Arpit, Cortney, David and Stephen. We have all devoted a lot of time and energy to this project and it is very satisfying to see what it is becoming.

Currently, more than 15 companies have agreed so see us and we are in talks with many more. I am very thankful for all the companies and individuals that are giving us their valuable time. We have been targeting startups, companies with entrepreneurial / tech roots, or an amazing story to tell. Also, we’ve been trying to find stories on both sides of the investment table. Our list includes some pretty impressive names and many people ask me how we got them. I will devote a different blog post on this but basically we got them all through networking. Speaking of which, this trip is also a great opportunity to expand any MBA student’s network for future opportunities. An additional benefit is that companies will also meet IESE students first hand and learn more about the students and school.

Besides the companies, we have setup other parts of the trip to ease the admin and operations side of things. First, we have a very attractive travel package, having negotiated a great discount which includes flight, hotel and local transportation. Second, we’ve launched a website (www.iesemeetsthevalley.com) which has proven to be an effective communication tool for both companies and students.  Third, we’ve setup all the administrative processes to allow students to easily sign up and pay for the trip.

From this experience, I’ve learned so much and have found myself moving forward on my journey of becoming an entrepreneur, a better project manager and a better net-worker.

Thanks to Candice and Graham in helping me write this post. You are both great teachers for a non-native speaker when it comes to writing!

After 4 months

When I write this I have gone through the first 4 months of the MBA program. It is intense, I study until after midnight every day of the week. But I have learned so much. The case study method used at IESE makes me feel like I’ve experienced several years worth of business situations in just 4 months. On top of that I’ve been meeting amazing people every single day. I came to the program with expectations, but after 4 months they have already been exceeded.

An MBA for an aspiring entrepreneur?

I decided to do an MBA while having the desire to start my own business. Some may say that this is contradictory. However after 4 months I can say that the contrary can also be true. The things I am learning will help my future business and prevent me from making many mistakes. But, the amazing people that I have the privilege of meeting will help even more!

Time will tell…

The IESE MBA lasts 18months, something I chose on purpose.  The first year focuses on building a foundation for general management. Currently I am concentrating on laying this foundation. However the second year students can choose from many courses and I plan to specialize in entrepreneurship. During this second year I will also work on my own business, validating the model and finding investors. Time will tell in which way the IESE MBA will help me. To the amazing life of an entrepreneur, or to a amazing next step in my career. One thing I am sure of after 4 months: The experience will help me in whichever path I choose pursue!

During my first day at work (I spoke no French), I had my first meeting with my new boss. During this meeting she started talking to her boss across the hall (in French) and after a while they started to seriously yell at each other. Comments were flying across the hallway in what seemed an increasingly heated discussion.

Now where I’m from people don’t generally yell at each other in professional situations. The Dutch I know are generally laid back and calm. They can be direct and angry, but in a professional setting, they rarely shout. When someone yells it signals impotence and lack of character on their part. It signals that they are not in control. In the Netherlands (as far as I know) yelling by a boss only occurs in the event of crucial failures. That is why I thought my boss in Paris was getting fired.

The French however are much more outspoken in their discussions. Perhaps I would even describe them as more passionate than the Dutch I know. In France whenever people raised their voice at me I felt somewhat disrespected and in the beginning even intimidated. However being a guest in this culture, the yelling lost it’s effect on me.

I learned that in an intercultural setting, things aren’t always what they seem. It also showed me that the Dutch way isn’t necessarily the right way. After 3 years in the French context I might even have taken on some of this behavior myself.

But don’t worry, if I ever yell at you, you won’t get fired.

Ça….?

Asking someone how they are doing usually consists of 2 parst: Ça and then some word.

For example: Ça boom?

This is usually used for Children. But sometimes they it is used in a playful way amongst friends.

Below some other ways to ask how someone is doing (and my attempt at translating them):

Ça Gazze? (Does it gass?)

Ça flot? (Does it float?)

Ça mousse?  (Does it mousse?)

Ça fart? (Does it wax?)

Ça grouve (Does it groove?)

The throwing of food

How ever the strangest thing is when they start throwing food at you…

Not literally (luckily) but the conversation could be as follows:

Tu as la peche? (do you have the peach)?

You could answer: Oui, or Oui, la patat! (the potato).

Once someone even answered: La Banane!
Recently, I even found out that “la banane” also means a smile from ear to ear.

So if they ask you if you are having a peach, don’t wonder about whether you look funny or whether you were supposed to bring fruit to the ocasion. Just answer “Yes and the potato as well”.

Disclaimer:
Just remember that anything you say in the French language is highly context sensitive. I found out after using “la banane” with several people that it’s actually better to only use it with friends.

Penetrating your foot

During a lunch recently I was sitting next to a lady. When I moved my chair I almost put the leg of my chair on her foot.  So I apologized and wanted to say sorry for almost piercing her foot. I said: “J’ai presque pénétré ton pied”. This means I almost penetrated your foot. However in French the verb penetrer is only used in a sexual context (there we go again).  I should have used something like “percer ton pied”  or “perforer ton pied”.

Short lick

I wanted to say that someone had a “short fuse” which in Dutch in an expression for saying someone is short tempered. I  said il a un leche court. Which means: “He has a short lick”. This made my colleagues think about all kinds of inappropriate stuff. I should have said Il a un meche tres court. The correct expression is il demare au quart tour. Which means that he already starts (like a car) when you turn the key 25% instead of all the way.

Eating doctors

I wanted to tell someone to take some medicin for something. So I said: “il faut que tu mange des medicins”. This means “You need to eat some doctors”. I should have said “medicaments” instead of medicins.

Whenever you discuss an idea, business model, strategy or any matter whatsoever you need to somehow bring accross the subject to whomever you are it discussing with. When you have to do this with a document, the traditional way to do this is word. You could write a business plan or positioning paper with a lot of text and tables.

However this is actually where PowerPoint actually has a lot of use.

Makes you think about it:

Whenever discussing an idea with someone, it is always good to think about it before you discuss. Creating a PowerPoint presentation of the matter forces you to Think things through before you explain them. Also it forces you to make a good structure and a good story out of whatever subject you are explaining.

Synthesize & Schematize

When you are working with PowerPoint, you can still put as much text on a page as you could with Word or any other text editor. However you are challenged to summarize your content. You are challenged to say more with less. You are also challenged to prioritize content over other content. On top of that PowerPoint gives you the ability to easily integrate schematics and drawings. That will allow you to say even more then words alone.

Finally, PowerPoint makes it much easier to work with a lot of people if you have a good template. You can easily move slides around or insert and replace them. If styles do get mixed up, they are easily adapted to make it look whatever you want it to.  People tend to click through a slideshow quicker then print out a text-heavy document and read it.

The Big mistake

Finally your PowerPoint presentation is done, you are ready for your meeting or speech. Then comes the big mistake: You put it on the screen. Most presentations are made is such a way that they should never be allowed on a screen. They should be used like a word document. Printed, and then used for discussion during a meeting. Or else a phenomenon called “death by PowerPoint” will occur. If you want to make a presentation for a screen create a second version that conforms to the ”presentation zen“ norms. Some examples for how to transform a powerpoint :  Garry Renolds example slides, writer of the book Presentation Zen. Good examples of discussion document powerpoints can be found at the big consultancy firms like: McKinsey, BCG, Bain etc. Examples: BCGs love life

Conclusion:

Use PowerPoint, but choose how you will use it. As a discussion document, to print and to discuss sitting around a table . Or as a slideshow on a screen supporting your speech. Both cases require radically different presentations and perhaps you should create two versions…

So PowerPoint does have a use, in most cases it’s just not the screen .

Don’t forget to check your presentation before using it.

Embedded Excels!

A lot of people have data to represent and do this by copy-pasting an Excel graph into a PowerPoint. Not rarely does this lead to the inclusion of the entire Excel file! This might lead to sending additional / sensitive information and make the PowerPoint very large in terms of size.

Consistency

There is nothing more embarrassing than being in front of someone with a well prepared document and then finding out the figures don’t add up. Therefore it is vital to check the figures. On the slide (left vs right side / graph vs table) but also across slides and even chapters. If the viewers add up figures from different places, should they add up or is there a legit reason for them not to? Besides the consistency in figures there are other consistencies like consequently using  the same name abbreviation across slides / chapters.

Document size

PowerPoint can become very large. Usually this is solvable by compressing the images. However I have seen PowerPoints with several masters included. If you remove them all this might also significantly reduce PowerPoint file size.

Hygiene

One of the most difficult things for me personally to guard is what I call the hygiene of the file. This is not a show-stopper normally however it could be very disturbing. This includes the footnotes, titles, fonts, alignment of items and transparent shapes. If you make shapes transparent, this could lead to a very bad print quality.

To PDF or not to PDF?

If you can, I would always send a PDF. This prevents a lot of the possible errors I mentioned above. One thing it also prevents is the accidental sending of the slide notes. I would avoid using these altogether, but if you have to and forget to delete them, this can be very awkward.  A PDF solves a lot of these problems.

PowerPoint Check Cheet Sheet

Teddy and Lucky Luke, they come in pairs

The first thing that always happens at a sales pitch of a piece of software is that two people show up. The first is the better dressed of the two, the commercial guy (or lady) in nice suite etc, he is Lucky Luke. The second person is a technical person, the “teddy bear”. I have seen unshaven people wearing “Hard rock cafe” T-shirts to a 100K sales pitch…

Non and sense

This time both were well dressed, as what can be expected of a big software company. However the second thing that always happens at sales pitches is that a lot of non-sence is presented. The first 25% of the slides and thus time is spend on how good the company is and what it is they do besides the software product. THere are normally a number of slides containing endless bullits that are read from the screen (I can read….)  Make an interesting introduction related to our problem

Don’t tell me the car can drive…

All the demos I have been in tell so many obvious things. This time they demonstrated that you can zoom in on a map, that you can have personalized data. That you can calculate routs with stops along the way. This is all stuff that any piece of software can do and actually the basics that get you a spot at the table. When I buy a car I don’t want the sales men to tell me that it can drive…. Show me what your product does better then others.

Solve my problem not something else

None of the sales pitches I have been in so far have addressed the problem I had at the time. This time was no exception. Lucky Luke just started directly with what kind of problems we were bound to have without asking me or the audience about our real problems. This resulted in 1.5 of the 2 hours being lost trying to show us stuff that we don’t need nor seek. When you come in, ask my needs and then focus your pitch on it (if you can).

Some more don’ts,  come without a PowerPoint… If you dare…

Finally there were some other really basic errors. The presentation had useless graphs and schematics. and contained a competitor brand. Their demo was “the old version” and they were talking about “having new features in a few months”. At the end of the pitch “teddy bear” decided to pitch an entirely different product because there was some time left-over that had nothing to do with the audience.

Finally “Lucky Luke” started to discuss pricing with one person in the room where there were many others present as well. Personally this is something I would never do. First of all, convince me before you start talking about price. Second of all if I am not the one paying but someone else is, don’t discuss pricing with me.

Now you know a little bit why I hate big-company presentations. The notes for this post I wrote during the Pitch I described above .

In France you are allowed to drive a 125cc scooter with a car driver’s license. In other countries a vehicle like this is considered to be a motorcycle in other countries. So I decided to buy a Suzuki Burgman 125cc scooter for my commute.

Coming from the Western suburbs it takes me about 1 hour to get to work with public transportation. With the scooter however, it takes me 25-30 minutes top.

The reason for the short time is the position of the scooter on French roads. By law a scooter has to behave like a car. However in practice a totally different scene takes place on the roads around Paris…

Scooters sometimes drive up till twice the maximum speed. On top of this, scooters go in between the regular car lanes and pass by all the cars. In practice this means getting from A to B in Paris on a scooter is probably one of the fastest modes of transportation.

When driving my scooter I sometimes felt like being in the middle of a high speed car chase in an action packed movie, or an episode of 24. This feeling even becomes stronger  when a police car or ambulance would be leading the way, followed by a group of scooters and motor cycles.

Come to think of it, Jack Bauer  never drove a motor cycle, let a lone in Paris traffic. So I must be tougher than Jack Bauer…

Today we are living one year in France. It is one year ago that we packed our stuff and moved to this beautifull country.

The first days after our move were absolutely horrible! Stuff in our house was broken, our furniture was still in storage and we were very tired. However after the first weeks life started to become better and better. We understood more and more where we could find our things, and started to understand a little bit of the French we also started to become more adjusted.

Over the last year I have come to know the French a little bit and these are some things I found:

• The French are not arogant: The French I’ve met aren’t arogant and selfish. Once you start a conversation you discover they are actually very open people interested in others.
• The French do not just work 30 hours a week: The people I’ve met all work very hard and is many cases easily double the 30 hours.
• The French do not strike all the time: Opposite to what we thought I have not experienced a lot of strikes this last year. There were some but none every significant enought to really produce any problem.
• The French do love their food and cuisine.
• The French do have a lot of respect for someone trying to speak their language.
• The French do sometimes have big burocratic processes 
• The French do have a difference understanding of personal space

France is changing

The books I read on France told me that most people sympathize with the people who go on strike. However  I experienced the opposite when talking to people. The most clear signal i got on this subject was the poster I saw at the station after one of the strikes saying: “stop la greve”.
 

I am changing:

I don’t know its because of life or France. But spending a year in a country who’s language I didn’t speak upon arrival has changed me. I am more flexible and care less about details that seem trivial now. A lot of the things I used to do turned out to be culturally determined so some I’ve kept and others I’ve let go. 

You don’t need any specific skills when you move to France just flexibility, France will change the rest of you