VCIC and a fork lift through the wall

Luckily these two events are unrelated.

The VCIC has been a great experience. It is a venture capitalist competition, with real life business plans from Cranfield alumni. We heard from a venture capitalist yesterday and the entrepreneur’s give us their pitches tomorrow. We then have ten minutes to speak to them as a learning team before we have to choose one to present a term sheet too.

This blog comes as the clock edges towards midnight. I’ve been reliving my economist days this evening to build projections of future earnings for each company and try and get an idea of their value. So some words are a welcome counter balance to all the numbers spinning around on a spreadsheet.

The entrepreneurs are all extremely bullish about their future finances (despite claiming they are all very conservative estimates) but they are bold ideas. It is an interesting exercise and I will definitely look at any future business plans I create with different eyes after this exercise. As an eternal optimist I think I’ll need some pessimistic partners to keep my projections in line or I too will be forecasting 100’s of percent revenue growth per year.

Last week we recovered from a frantic few days in which our marketing projects, economics WAC and a business competition submission all fell due within a few days of each other.

Fortunately we survived and got down to London to present our submission at some very plush offices in Mayfair. Unfortunately LBS took home the trophy but we were deemed the most creative team and were treated to a night out at Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant before being taken to private nightclubs where huge bottles of champagne materialized from out of nowhere to refill any empty glasses, a great experience. I did enjoy the next morning, having  waded through the rushing sea of suits swirling around Audi’s and Merc’s and arriving by Camden lock, to some chilled out buskers and freshly made food.
I met a lot of interesting people that night though, consultants and students. We have lined up a football match against the ATK team as well as a proposed tournament with Oxford and Cambridge business schools. I will have to work hard at inspiring people for some frost lined training sessions.

We have also been gearing up for the Regatta in July. If anyone is interested please email me at dan.george@cranfield.ac.uk. Its sure to be a fantastic few days, as I told the MSC’s, it’s just like yacht week, but an older and much more interesting crowd, wearing more clothes, and not in Croatia, it’s in a much better place, the British seaside.

And the latest story on campus, two nights ago someone grabbed the Natwest ATM (near the social) with a forklift, whacked it on the back of a ute (pick up to the English) and took off, The term hole in the wall has a whole new spin. So far no-one has been arrested apart from a drunk driver who happened to be behind the wheel on campus its only the second time I’ve ever seen police venture out this far.

I’m going to get back to writing term sheets and all the joys of ratchets, warranties and preferred shares.

From the precipice of England’s coldest winter since 1947

Dan