San Francisco Summer Venture Program Takeaways
By Babson San Francisco | August 25, 2016
Now in its eighth year, Summer Venture Program continues to attract Babson’s top entrepreneurs to an intensive and energetic 10 week accelerator. Since 2008, 124 ventures and 176 entrepreneurs have participated in SVP. It is one of the most compelling and competitive programs for startups, demonstrating Babson’s deep commitment to building innovative entrepreneurs through practice and taking action. Here are some testimonials from our first cohort in San Francisco:
“It was critical that I signed up for SVP. We went on a spree to recruit drivers and interviewed dozens. In the end, we finalized 15 women that I’m proud to call ScootyBees drivers. A couple weeks ago we serviced our first paying customer so that’s pretty exciting news for us! Perhaps the most important lesson I learned was to not go through this experience alone, because at the heart of it, Scootybees is about community and I learned that really well during my 10 weeks in SVP.”
“We’ve had some incredible traction in the past 10 weeks- we have 15 people working on Grow full time- it’s not something I can do alone. Everyone is working on the same goal. We have assets under management ($3M) and we have projected revenue of $36 M – we closed our seed funding round of 1.5 million and will be raising a series A in January.”
-Mike DeMaria M’15, Grow
“SVP for me has been worth the price of tuition at Babson College. That is no joke. That is because of the mentors, the staff, and key connections. I came in with an idea, and with the connections that I made in San Francisco, I’m proud to say that we have the key partners in place– the financing partner, the installing partners, and we’ve been able to launch the business.”
–Joe McHugh M’17, Earth Loans
“In SVP, we learned about the experimentation that’s used in apps to learn about customer insights quickly. After experiencing the ecosystem in San Francisco I’ve decided to move here and continue to do business here… the community of entrepreneurs has been amazing- one example is, I got introduced to the person who is an IDEAL mentor for the business!”
–Ashwin Mysore M’14, Brown Bag
“In Babson, nothing is impossible. We came in with a mere idea, but now we have a beta and will be launching our business, all thanks to our advisors and fellow entrepreneurs. Being in Silicon Valley had a great influence on our thinking and on our execution. I personally don’t think it could have happened anywhere else.”
–Sarath Chandran M’17, Dishank Kukreja M’17, Dinesh Rajasekhar M’17, Big Travel
“I had a chance to meet with a dozen founders and subject matter experts who have worked in the event space. I’ve also reevaluated the business model so that come this fall, we’ll be ready to launch our beta with 4 select schools in Boston and start proving the real value of DayPop as a service.”
-Jonathan Kong M’17, DayPop
“We have been able to launch alpha and achieve 190 free users in June. In July, we had 71 paying customers for our beta. Tomorrow morning, we are launching our curriculum to 180+ communities online and are debuting our affiliate program.”
–Gustavo Skoff Diaz ’17, Let’s Go Hustle
“Initially, we had to index every post manually but now it’s all automated. Also, we had the fortunate experience of working with a passionate user base of around 50 automotive enthusiasts to refine the platform and make it robust enough for our launch coming up in a couple weeks.”
–Phil Motto ’18, ModPost
“We set up our suppliers, then we completed federal testing so we can legally sell food for people to consume in Ghana, and we designed the packaging and website. What I’m most proud of is that we were able to strategize cost cutting techniques in the Gari supply chain because we found inefficiencies in the market.”
–Mike Corkrum ’15, Kiwi International
“Through SVP, we were able to refine our business model and received resources both physical and human; the office space with people from different stages of their life and different stages of their business created a great community factor where we can collaborate and hold each other accountable.”
-Brendan Barbato ’17, Shelfie
At Babson, we truly believe in the importance of empowering and supporting our entrepreneurs with the best experiences to help them move forward. Check out a recap of Summer Venture Showcase and let’s share these amazing Babson stories with the world!
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Posted in Babson Entrepreneurs
Tagged Alumni, Babson San Francisco, Babson SVP, babsonsf, Blank Center, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurial Thought and Action, Startups, Student Experience, Summer Venture Program, Undergraduate
