Goodbye San Diego, hello San Francisco

Today was my drive from San Diego to San Francisco. After Ginger said goodbye to her new friends, we took off. I got up later than planned and made several stops along the way, so I didn't have time to drive up the coast...so I had to settle for I-5. However, I did get the chance to stop by my old park:

Laundr-o-mutt

Elise, SoCo (Soe-Koe), Ginger and I went to the dog beach today. Ginger stayed close to our side then ran around near SoCo...he kept her safe. I watched her VERY closely as I didn't want her getting near other big dogs, but SoCo and her did well.

I held Ginger a few times so SoCo could play in the water then after an hour we left. Note: I looked for men for Elise but didn't see any...one was cute at first until we noticed he was on the phone almost the entire time we were at the beach.

Anyway, afterwards SoCo was a mess, so we decided to try a do-it-yourself laund-o-mutt (neither of us had gone to one before). The owner was a little...rough around the edges, but we decided to go for it, anyway. SoCo was nervous and Ginger got mad at me, but overall we had fun. Ginger only cost $8 and the shop's owner took pity on her by asking his groomer to blowdry her (I had NO idea how).

We grabbed a quick bite to eat at this really good, HEALTHY (something most Boston restaurants don't understand) Mexican restaurant near the house. Elise then took off to go to a local skateboard park (she's a kick ass skater girl) and I took a nap...something I haven't done for about a year. Ginger welcomed the nap since she's been soooo busy during the trip!

L.A. and San Diego

I drove to Elise's last night after visiting 14 stores in the Los Angeles area. We sat up talking for a bit, then I went to bed.

Today I submitted my goals sheet to EIT, and sent a first draft financial projection to my mentors. But the fun part of my day was visiting 10 stores with Elise. It is SO much better to do research with someone. A partner seriously makes life more interesting when you're taking pictures like this:

Meet My Dad

So I visited 5 stores today, drove along many roads that I used to ride (motorcycle or bicycle), and eventually found my way to see Dad. He's moving out of his place today and heading up to Washington. Yesterday they released their last Boeing 717 which marked the end of his program, so now he's moving up to Seattle for another Boeing project.

Because he moved out of his place, we're staying at a hotel (hence the odd door and picture in the background of this pic...tee hee hee)

Meet Ginger

Ginger is my travel buddy for the trip.
Meet the 3.5 pound Teacup Poodle. Woof.

Meet My Mom

I flew to Charlotte today to see Mom and pickup her dog, Ginger, for my west coast trip.

We went to two stores (I don't want to say what my biz idea is yet, but it's retail-based so the purpose of this trip is to visit several stores) and she showed me all the recent changes in the area.

We finished the evening by heading to Capital Grille, directly across from my old condo. A guy proposed to his girlfriend, but otherwise everything was just like the old days.

Entrepreneurship Intensity Track (EIT)

About 20 of us made it into EIT. It was a long, hard process and I thought I was going to die, but I (luckily) made it through.

First round was submitting the business idea which had no limit to the number of pages (mine was about 25 including exhibits and such), and a 30-minute interview with two professors. They were relentless and left everyone feeling like they weren't going to make it to next round.

Second round was where we presented rocket pitches (3 PowerPoint slides in 3 minutes) to a room full of angel investors / potential mentors. I was nervouse as heck going in, but it felt great in the end! The audience laughed at the right spots and were amazed by the statistics. In the end I wound up with two mentors.

I met both mentors today who are great. One is a serial entrepreneur and has 30 years experience in the retail industry. The other runs a strategic consulting firm and has raised $billions in equity for previous firms and filed the IPO on one. Both women are there to challenge me and I believe my business will be better for it.

Today was a more detailed introduction of the biz which followed with lot of brainstorming. The result is 3 aggressive summer goals and week-by-week schedule of my summer. Basically, my summer is full.

So what is EIT? EIT is designed for people with a business idea that they want to implement now. The year-long course is structured to help you start your business the day after you graduate. Everything in the class isn't so much academic-based as it is real-life. In other words, everything we do in and around class is related to our actual business idea. There is only 1 actual EIT course, which is twice a week and every other entrepreneurial class offered by Babson is open to the entire student body. However, I think we'll learn a lot in this 1 class and we could potentially experience something that few have the opportunity to enjoy.

We've come a long way

School was...short...or long.

We just had Weekend@Babson, a sort of introduction to Babson for prospective students. It made me think back to my W@B...Wow, I can't believe it's been a year already. We're halfway done.

But then I start to think about everything we've done. Hours staring at BCAP documents, classes like SCS/TOM, multi-day individual and group exams, Team Process Day, interviewing for anything and everything, too many lunches at Pandini's, SpUNO breaks, late nights in Olin Hall, etc.

I can't believe how far we've come from day 1 (1st pic) to today (2nd pic).

This summer

With classes, exams and BCAP out of the way, I can now focus on summer plans:

Entrepreneurship Intensity Track (EIT) - Monday is our kickoff where we'll get to meet our mentors. Stay tuned for more details

Westcoast travel - I'm visiting stores this summer for my EIT business idea to get best practice ideas. Schedule is as follows
May 23rd - Charlotte to see Mom
May 24th - Los Angeles for 2 days and visit Dad
May 26th - San Diego for 2 days
May 29th - San Francisco for 2 days and visit my brother, Steve, and his family
June 2nd - Seattle for 4 days where Brian will visit for the weekend
June 6th - Charlotte again
June 8th - Boston for new clothes
June 9th - Houston to meet up with Brian and visit a couple friends

South Africa is my focus June 12th through July 15th. I'll be teaching at a university in the middle of wine country about 20 miles from Cape Town. Should be an amazing experience.

July 15th - Back to Boston

July 16th-August - Eastcoast travel (exact locations TBD)

Happy summer!

BCAP is done!

We drove about 5 hours each way (it was longer due to traffic on the way up and pit stops on the way back) in a van to the client site, gave the presentation and they were blown away. A teammate, Doug, summed it up best when he wrote an email to our writing and speech consultants, so I'll just copy and paste his email (see below).

As for the drive back, it was basically a drink fest. We stopped at a bar in NH and had a few drinks (with our advisor) then got a 6-pack at the next pit stop (gas station) where we chugged them as fast as we could (note: Doug was kind enough to be our designated driver so there was no drinking and driving). We then stopped at a state liquor store and got vodka and scotch then went to Salo's where we celebrated until almost 3am.

Our professor gave us an EXC; the highest grade you can get. Woohoo!

And now for Doug's email:

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Subject: Thank you

Dear Phil and Kerry;

I wanted to take a moment to share with you both our success in presenting to the Gravis team in Burlington, VT. The Gravis team of executives were blown away. Tom, a Babson MBA alum, was speechless at the end. He said we exceeded any expectations that he had and if you could have seen the looks during the presentation, it was priceless. Our ideas were so well received that they were actually hitting each other and pointing to slides on the handouts during the presentation saying, "We can use that right now and it would be cheap to ship!" Tom first wanted to stop us 2 minutes in to call more of the team down and then was wondering if we would present again. Fortunately, Elise will be there this summer for an internship and can fill this role.

A large part of our success as a group was your respective roles in helping us to bring a clear message to the client and making certain that that message would be heard. Kerry, if not for your efforts in helping us to clarify and focus our thoughts, we would not have had so much substance to present. Phil, if it were not for your observations and suggestions, we would not have been as polished, professional, and clear. Thank you both from our team!

It has been an incredible journey this year and I know we have all grown as people and as professionals from it, so thank you. I hope you both have a pleasant summer and we will see you in the fall.

Module IV done, 4 more before graduation

I have to admit this mod was a little disappointing. All of the other mods had so much purpose and everything was so well integrated. This last mod 1) felt like an afterthought, and 2) was so anti-climatic.

Macroeconomics scared the crap out of me! I had the hardest time understanding the logic behind everything. In the end, I think I got it and did ok on the exam. This was the only class this year that I truly thought I'd fail. The individual exam was the shortest of the year...only 2 hours long...an very nerve racking. Everyone was so busy typing away that 2 minutes past when the test was due, only 3 people in our class had submitted their test. The moderator finally had to tell everyone to stop typing and just submit it.

The group exam was challenging and lasted about 3 days. We were basically given a company and asked to analyze two countries that they want to expand into. In the end we gave a group presentation and were then asked some very difficult econ questions. It was a bad sign when the prof said, "Well, you guys completely failed that question so let's try another one." Oops!

After a week of exams we switched gears to BCAP to wrap it up. Teams gave final presentations on different days, so Olin Hall (our grad building) slowly became more deserted as 1st-years completed their presentations and became 2nd-years.

Now all that's left is tons of drinking every night and prepping for summer!

1st Real Bike Ride

Brian and I had our first real bike ride today. We've been on a few test rides since he got his new bike, but this was the first time that included both regular roads and more mileage. Both of us really enjoyed spending the time together and exploring...but we couldn't get a pic together.