Week 1: Summer Venture Program 2018
Scavenger hunt around the city
With the sun shining bright on this lovely Boston morning, fifteen teams entered Workbar ready and eager to begin Babson’s 2018 Summer Venture Program.
The day started with a brief welcome from David Chang, the program’s director, and a quick orientation lead by Julianne, our Workbar host for the summer. After touring the space and getting acclimated to their home for the next couple of months, the participants were broken up into teams of 4 to 5 to take on the city of Boston for a scavenger hunt. The perfect weather made for an amazing time for people to bond and explore. Teams visited Babson businesses like The Chicken and Rice Guys, discovered co-working spaces, and even went to locations like the Federal Reserve Bank, District Hall, and Pierce Atwood LLC (a sponsor of our program). This activity was one of the highlights of the week, and ended in cocktail styled dinner at Les Zygomates.
David Chang and Jake Maude MBA’19 at Les Zygomates
Day two was just as busy down in the Workbar space. David lead a talk about the Boston Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (blog coming soon!) and the startups each gave a Rocket Pitch on their businesses. The following day, we met up at Pierce Atwood for a lean canvas workshop in which fifteen industry experts throughout Boston met up to advise and network with the startups. Our teams gained invaluable insights and left feeling motivated to take on the rest of the summer.
The first week of the SVP ended in our infamous “Hot Seat” activity. You know when you give a presentation in a class and the teachers asks for peer feedback and everyone seems to think you gave an A+ presentation? Hot seat tries to counteract that. Each team pitches their business and the other participants of the program give constructive feedback to improve the presentation. During Hot Seat we like to focus on what needs to be fixed, and helping our businesses do just that. April Chen ’19, from the company Gentle, was our first hot seat participant. In the rebuild session, Jess Lynch (WishRoute), Ralph Haddad (TastePal), Sali Bangoura (Nanny A La Carte), and Emily Cronin (Frostbite Face-Off), all gave April suggestions as to how to improve the hook and flow of her pitch. Following the rebuild, April re-pitched her business and got some more constructive feedback.
Lean Canvas Workshop at Pierce Atwood
The week was filled with laughter, collaboration, and growth. This group of SVP participants is truly inspiring, so be sure to stick around to check out what they are up to this summer.
Save the date for the Summer Venture Showcase: Thursday July 26. Follow all SVP happenings on Twitter and Instagram with #babsonsvp!