Quarter 11 - Week 2

The hustle and bustle begins, half of the courses started this week (courtesy of the mixxup from last week) and the halls are bustling again. Starting at the bookshop where the long queue snakes from outside the door, to the Amrith Kalash cafeteria where you spend half the lunch break waiting in line to buy a token, and the other half wolfing down the meal with the case study for the afternoon's session.

New Enterprise Financing
This week has us discussing funding sources and the differences between VCs and PE guys. Apparently HNI individuals/trusts play around with a specific class of assets called alternate assets. This is approximately 5-6% of their capital, and goes towards VCs and PEs, real estate, oil, arts etc. Depending on the size of the VC fund, it wields a certain amount of power in the new venture arena. We even spend a little while discussing basic differences between the types of firm ownership, how partners are compensated, and how returns, once harvested from a venture, are not reinvested back in... that's the name of the game. The prof takes us through the stages of new enterprise funding and talks of the gates between them, and how certain problems with the venture partners should be unearthed far earlier in the process than much later.

The second session has us discussing more about what makes new ventures tick, and about why some ventures tend to come together, mainly due to aspects like capitalizing on knowledge intensity... or for something far easier to understand, like having a global footprint. We had a case for the day, not so much a case, more a reading that talks of how myopia can affect the ecosystem/field. Apparently, individuals tend to think from their perspective while investing in new ventures, without realizing what can happen at a large scale when everyone invests. By themselves, it appears to be a really good decision, but when you look at it from a larger perspective, you tend to realize that there's too much money in the game, for a value that doesn't measure up. And it was not only the individual's fault... collective thought was just missing. Or so I think the funda was. The example was the hard disk storage domain back in the mid-80s.

Reinvention through Entrepreneurial and Intrapreneurial Learning (REIL)
The prof starts off with an abstract talk. Speaks of how this course is something we should be aware of. He wants us to uncover a deeper meaning for ourselves, by paying more attention to what we want... to what we believe in... and to have some sort of direction. He opens up a little about himself, about his journey and then speaks of how we seem to be missing ownership. This lack of ownership is what tends to crush innovation, and he's hoping that by the end of this course, we'll walk out knowing what we want to do, and what we're willing to take ownership of.

We spend a little time discussing the characteristics of entrepreneurs in the second session, and the different aspects that make a workplace entrepreneurial. It's interesting that we are now drawing block diagrams with words we learnt in school. Stuff like passion, competence, trust, support, discipline... these are lofty goals that we're primed for in school. But something goes wrong, and we get to hear all this again when we come to do an MBA. Anyway, we move on to discuss the difference in the outlook of an entity as it transforms from a startup to an organization, and about how people tend to choose between two roles in their lives - One as an administrator, and the other as an entrepreneur. It's quite interesting to see the different outlooks of both these types of people, and as to how willing to stay low down in a hierarchy need not mean that you should be willing to remain at the level of an administrator. The prof only says one thing, even if you're a clerk by the time you retire, maintain that spirit of entrepreneurship and know that your choice is conscious. I know it sounds a little abstract, but I think his basic funda is that irrespective of our station in life, there's no reason to hand over the reins to any other individual. Be your own master, he says.

2 weeks down, eight weeks to go.