Plans for tomorrow: meeting angels

There is a kind of an institute in Stuttgart aimed towards start-up companies which has a series of interesting events for those who want to learn a bit more about the venture capital industry in Germany.

I am going tomorrow to the following event, if everything works out:

bwcon: Business Roundtable „Was macht ein Business Angel? – Unterstützungsansätze für Technologieunternehmen am Beispiel der FUZZY! Informatik AG“

I have this week free, as I am not taking the EC Law course at Mannheim Business School and the activity tomorrow is part of my job search. I hope to learn some and meet interesting professionals, let's see how it goes. But all this has costs:

• I will not be able to attend to the company presentation of Deutsche Börse AG at MBS and
• I will invest almost €100,00 in the event, which, at the moment, is a considerable sum for a student with a bank loan like me

But it should be worth it. No pain, no gain.

Over-commitment and decision making in the Venture Capital industry

I have been busy this week with the most thorough assignment I have worked on during the MBA for the "Problem Solving and Consulting" course I took last two blocks, using the "Problem Based Learning" methodology.

Based on the suggestively titled paper by Staw and Ross, "Knowing when to pull the plug", I developed the mnemonic model below, dubbing it the 6-finger-hand action plan. Sometimes it is necessary to introduce a bit o fun in academia.


The paper is coming along nicely, and I really enjoyed researching for it, as it was certainly aligned with my own private research for my professional development and career plans. I had the chance to interview 3 senior executives in the Canadian Venture Capital industry and a leading professor in the field of new ventures, Dr. Elspeth Murray. I will most probably put some of my findings here in the blog later on but, at the moment, I have to go back to writing, as the clock is ticking quicker and quicker.

Full ratchet and the snow outside

This was my day today. Working on Venture Capital term sheets for hours in my cubicle in our team room. At least I am enjoying. Can't really explain why, but it is a fact.
But now I am getting unproductive. I might go to that Irish music session later on.

And this was how my day started, Kingston with quite some snow. Pretty, huh? Let's see if I will still find snow great after 2 months.