Final note

It was almost a year ago I finished BBW class at IE. The results were so disappointing to me, that I couldn´t write a finial note to a class.

Well, it was inspiring, first of all. The idea anyone can browse all the ideas that come around and understand if you can monetize somehow some of them. Then you need to choose and develop idea. And finaly the financials and business plan comes.

And it was a good lesson about my personality. I understood all the steps you need to make a good presentation, but did nothing to make it. Well, after the class presentation (which was a bit better than awful - I was nervous and nobody seemed to be interested just because nobody cared) I push my best effort to make a good ppt - and succeeded. And than later my advertising movie was rather successful.

Another good lesson was about people habits. It turned to be more successful strategy just to negotiate with other people to co-invest - I invest into a person's business and he/she invests in mine. When the whole world decides to cheat, it is a bad idea to be honest. Moreover, it was a bad idea to invest into businesses just because I know guys developing them and they are good guys. Well, I didn't invest just because guys are good and appeared to be nr. 3 in effective VC's list (I invested in good businesses - most people did the same).

And one more thing. To push your idea to people you need to combine your passion and hard work. Only one thing doesn't work. Passion without solid base with figures is nothing, figures without passion are boring. That's why you need a team - one can be good in numerical work, the other - at inspirational.

And I come back to this blog from time to time. To get inspiration. Or to remind myself that I could do this. And I can. And I'm about to do. I will/

the race is over

I've got the grade and disappointed. Well, I did ok with investing, but not with my project. It is obviousely failed. The takeaway nr 1 is that if you know how good is your project, it is still necessary to persuade people to invest.

To finish the blog, I promised to tell my investment strategy, I will tell this during next week.

Now I just want to share one amazing thing. About trusting other people's words. Varsavsky made all investment rounds result available. It was amazing - I was talking to several people and they told me they invested into my project and that appeared to be a total lie.

Good news about people's habits, right?

Last class BBW

Last class started with gifts to everyone - Martin Varsavsky gave us Foneras, since we heard about this product and idea throughout the whole course. That was smart - guess, which wifi router I will use when come back to my father's appatment?

Ok, it's time to post some notes (those are not direct quotations since sometime I simplify notes).
* If you're always successful, you start beleive in every shit you produce. Moreover, people around you start to believe in the shit you produce. Critical evaluation becomes weaker.
* I was shocked when I told a successful entrepreneur that I amazed by his way of behavior and he answered that his children hate him. Are you sure you want to copy this?
* Google earnings are 5 times less than Microsoft's, but marcap of Google is 2/3 of one MS has. Market surely appreciates Google more than MS and beleives that Google will overcome MS.
* After a failure you may be afraid of starting something new. Martin had a break of couple years after his biggest failure before he shared FON idea at his blog and it was appreciated highly.
* Question to Google owner: What is your limit?
Answer: Electricity.
Btw, computers consume enormous amount of energy. Google consumes the biggest amount of energy in US among corporations. More, than mining companies and aluminium plants.

Well, I will miss this class. It was really insightful.

Advertising

You never know when you can use information obtained. Last wednesday I had two presentations: one for IOP (investment oriented project) commitee (my second entrepreneurial team was qualified for semifinals) and right after that I went to class to present advertising.

And I never expected Martin would ask questions, cause after my last presentation no comments followed. This time he asked me for pricing strategy, was confused with low lewel of charge - 50K EUR per week, but I explained that it was competitive price for russian market, told the situation in St.Petersburg and gave some references.

I'd better mention that by the moment of second presentation I was exhausted and was able to answer only because of clear understanding of the business idea and assumptions I had made before. I beleive this is crucial for every business.

seven businesses you can start tomorrow

Forbes has just published a new article about enterpreneurship - Seven Businesses You Can Start Tomorrow. Related slideshow is really nice.

Very basic, very simple, some of them require minimum start cost, but you can make money. Think different, see opportunities.

advertising (3)

In my mind I have the following points of improvement for advertising:
1. Quality of source, of course.
2. Cut off the episode with bed, add more sailing episodes, shorten the chef episode.
3. Slogan in final episode should appear earlier.
4. Wording.

And when Olaf saw the video, he gave me advise to change the yacht part slogans to "this is my" style. E.g. this is my chef... this is my root... Peer advise rulezzz!

advertising (2)

After 2 days of communications between Sain-Petersburg (Russia) and Madrid (Spain) we finally made good enough video (due to technical problems at my friend's working station we decided to cease following improvements implementations).

Here it is.

advertising (1)

Nevertheless, the chance to be broadcasted at the VC (class) audience had to be taken. But I had no idea, what and for whom to do (the question how was ignored on purpose).

What I decided to do? Right, delegate!

I asked my friend who is in love with classic rock music to find me a soundtrack. And she did! Her first sugesstion of using Rod Stewart's I'm sailing was 100% hit.

When I downloaded some cruise videos... And added one more - music video of Ucrainian singer Tina Karol.

And finally I delegated eedition to my Spb friend who is a designer andknows my tastes.

I will show the result soon.

creative part

According to Martin Varsavski, another part of being entrepreneur is to be creative. That's why we have one more assignment - to make an advertising. That should be a movie of no more than 1 minute, it can be composed from other videos, but specially for the project. I.e. you can't take Nokia advertising and say that it is for Motorolla.

Be creative!

The hardest thing for me was that my business suppose to have no video advertising at all - everything should be based on personal contacts. So, it wasn't clear what to do...

and it turned to be this beauty)

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