Being an entrant to the MIT 50k competition, I was invited to the semi-final awards last night. Unfortunately, our team didn’t make it to the semi-final. Perhaps, in hindsight it isn't difficult to understand why our team didn’t win. As you can see, the more technical the idea, the more the judges (or venture capitalists) want to see a proof-of-concept of the idea. A proof-of-concept has to be defensible and most of offer competitive advantage. In other words there better be a patent or a patent-pending associated with the idea. We have a great idea but it was a little premature to ask for funding to start making products when we don’t even have any solid evidence if the idea even works. The purpose of the 50k competition is to build a company to sell products not asking for research grant.

In hindsight it is always easy to reflect on our failure. Nevertheless, I have learned so much from the experience. More than that, it is a calling for me. The 50k competition has uncovered the entrepreneurial spirit within me to get involved in building a successful enterprise. The keynote speaker for the 50k event last night, Rizwan Virk, expressed my thoughts most eloquently. Rizwan is a successful entrepreneur who had start 3 different companies to date and written a book on entrepreneurship. While most books on entrepreneurship focus on the mechanics, his book titled Zen Entrepreneurship look at entrepreneurship from a spiritual perspective. Rizwan provided insights how entrepreneurship is like embarking on a Hero's journey, in which the hero (which is you) grows to become more matured person at the end of the journey. The example that he used to illustrate his point was Frodo in the Lord of the Ring. Overall, his speech last night can be summarized in the following:

Why is entrepreneurship like the Hero's journey?

• You can win a lot of treasure.
• You will be up against impossible odds.
• To be successful, you will have to recruit allies. For you Lord of Rings fans, this means that you should go look for your Strider and Gollum.
• You never know what is going to happen next.
• You'll end up a different person than when you started.

There's a happy ending to my 50k endeavors after all as I was invited to join another semi-finalist team yesterday. I went for our first team meeting today. Like my PDD team, this new 50k team made up of a diverse group of highly talented and motivated individuals. I am really excited to embark on this new journey of entrepreneurial learning experience. Wish us luck.

3/11/2005 11:43:24 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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Entrepreneurship

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