Showing posts with label mbaapp.matriculation. Show all posts

I'm running out of time. On Sunday I fly out from London to Evanston. The to-do list has shrunk - partly as a result of pruning out some of the more ambitious items (e.g. learning speed reading and touch typing), but I've managed to get quite a bit done, though there are still a few things left to do.

The most tiresome to-do item has been the prepartory online courses that Kellogg was "pleased" to provide incoming students with. It was tiresome because they required quite a bit of time, and I'm sure a good chunk of the material is already covered in the GMAT and CFA Level 1 (both of which I've had some exposure to). Nevertheless, I appreciated the effort that was put into making the course material applicable for real business situations. Scenarios ranged from a startup's accounting practises to Pepsi's pricing strategies. I think I could really get into some of these courses when they kick off properly in the Fall. However, if a paradoy of those courses is what you're looking for, this video is it.

Among other things, the apartment and living situation is sorted out, and my money is the US - in time for the first tuition (and health care) bill to arrive: over £17,000 for the first quarter - getting that was like getting a punch in the face. I'm also mostly packed up: extraordinarily, it seems that I may just be able to fit my who life into two suitcases, a carry-on and laptop bag... I wouldn't have thought it, but it seems possible.

So what's left on my to-do list? I need to revisit my LinkedIn page and CV. The latter of these has to be put into "Kellogg format", which seems to be just Kellogg's way of standardizing CVs into a standard format for easy perusing by employers. Beyond that, the most important things are those related to my entreprenurial ambitions. I've got a rough prototype. I will soon need to start putting together a list of target companies to approach to see if they'll be first customers. This will be a learning experience in itself. Finally, I also want to make some subtle changes to this blog.

The mania continues. Will it ever stop?

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In the few weeks that I've been interning at a London based venture capital firm, already one thing is clear: a venture capitalist needs to be a jack of all trades, i.e. competent in many skills. Further, to be a really good VC - it is necessary to be master of a lot of these skills. Whereas a career in consulting might be a full time mostly soft-skills based career, or career in banking might be a full-time mostly quantitative-skills based career, a career in venture capital is a mixture of many things.

To illustrate, here are a few of the skills called upon:

• People management: For each portfolio company that a venture capitalist manages, there is a relationship with the entreprenuers of the company that needs to be nurtured and tended to. The entreprenuers might want to build the best product in the world, whereas the venture capitalist will want to just generate 5x returns of his/her investment within 3 years. These expectations need to be managed and a relationship of trust built so that everyone is pulling in the same direction. If things don't work out, the VC will need to be prepared to change the CEO and/or other members of the management team.
• Business acumen: A VC's main management control of a company is via their seat on the company board. To this meeting will be escalated any issues the company might be having. The age old classic with internet startups is the problem of monetization, but it could be issues related to market traction or even the startup's team composition. The VC will need to be quickly add value to these discussions based on the shallow knowledge he/she has of the company and industry.
• Quantitative: Some of the deal terms that are discussed in the process of funding a startup can get very complicated. In fact, some people say these complications have only become possible as Excel, over the last 20 years or so, has become capable of modelling them. To illustrate, there may be several investors investing in a company. One investor may have liquidation preference. This means that in a future sale, that investor can specify to have returned a multiple of the shares of other shareholders. This multiple can be dependent on the sale value, e.g. "2x shares if sale value is $50M+, 1.5x if $75M+ and 1x if $100M". In addition to this, the investor can also stipulate anti-dilution, which means that if the future value of the company is lower than when investment was made, that investor gets their returns at said multiple while all other shareholders are squeezed. This is all for just one round of funding. Over several rounds, with several more variations of stipulations added by several different VCs, it quickly becomes possible for the model to run wild.
  
• Networking, Sales and Negotiation: Building a reputation in the industry and "attracting deal flow" is a virtuous circle. For the industry that a VC is investing in, the VC will need to build contacts - with the big conglemerates as well as budding entrepreneurs. The conglemerates may become future customers of a portfolio company. The entrepreneur could be a future star the VC they'll want to invest in later. The VC will also need to build relationships with Limited Partners ("LPs"): insurance firms, pension funds and others providing the funding for a VC's investments. The sales element of all this comes in when convincing an LP to provide funding or a startup to take your investment. An attractive startup may get the attention of several VCs, in which case it becomes important to negotiate well and project a strong impression in the competitive process between VCs. At other times, it will be necessary for a VC to bring in another VC to spread the risk and the investment. It's a murky soft skills world.
  
• Entrepreneurial Skills: There are not many people within any VC firm, and little or no direction is provided. It will be down to the VC to "make things happen": bring in investment, attract deals and manage companies. In much the same way that entreprenuers do, to make all this happen, a VC will need to attract and gain access to resources that are beyond their immediate control. They might do this through networking, running mini programs with incubators or other means. The VC will have to take the initiative; it is pretty much like running a little firm - except done in a partnership.
  
• And there is more... VCs need to quantify the value of companies not listed on any stock markets, which is a skill in itself, and conduct due-diligence on companies targeted for investment. VCs need to keep abreast of deals that are being made in the market and new technical developments of major companies. They also need to have strategic foresight to guide their thinking of the types of firms they think will be successful.

It is difficult to break into venture capital, because a VC has to be a jack-of-all-trades. There is also no one single profile of a typical VC. This is because a VC will have to be a master of many of these trades; the variation is likely due to what they've mastered.

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I seem to be surrounded by to-do lists. Everywhere where I look, there is another list of things that I need to do. I fly out to Evanston on the 16th August, i.e. exactly a month today. I still have a lot to do. The to-do lists remind me of this constantly.

Kellogg's to do list. Kellogg provides a nice list of things to check off. It sits on the welcome site for admitted students. It's very useful. My only fustration with it has been that you can only cross off some things later, because who-ever it is that organises those things has not released the necessary information yet to complete them. Initially we had to wait for the online courses. More recently, it has been the applications to waive courses. However, things have changed recenty: now pretty much everything is available for completing. Now the problem is finding the time to do all that I have left.

My personal to-do list. This to-do list includes things such as cancelling my phone contract and buying suitcases. I also need to figure out which items I'm going to pack for Evanston, which items I'm going to chuck away and which I'll leave with my parents. I also want to get back in touch with a number of people I've not seen in a while, before I leave the UK. It's been 8 years since I've seen some people from my undergrad; better to get in touch now, rather than after 10 years (post-MBA) or later, I reckon.

Am I getting the most I can out of my venture capital internship? I've not started on this to-do list, but I'm keen to get as much out of my internship as possible. I've learned a few things about how companies are selected and gained a great view of the politics of deal making, but there is still plenty more I could get out of this experience. Perhaps meeting potential future partners and investors?

Starting the business. The items on this to-do list include: Building the prototype, finishing the business plan and finding contacts in Evanston to help with sales and building the product. Soon to be added will be that I also need to start thinking about potential target customers and funding sources. If I am going to fund working on the startup over the 2010 internship period, all of this will be important.

Emails to reply to. There are a whole stack of people that I've been in touch with one and off. It plays on my mind that I still need to reply to some of them. The problem with replying immediately is that it encourages them to reply immediatly, meaning I have to take more time to write another email sooner rather than later. Delaying replies to save time is an awkward and embarassing time management strategy... but it kind of works.

Things to do once there. Unpacking, setting up the apartment, setting up bank accounts, utilities etc and even buying a bathrobe are all on this list. I keep thinking that there must be a lot that I've not thought about, because this list is not particularly long. Perhaps this is because I've bought all of the furniture off a leaving international student? Or perhaps I've not quite immersed myself in the reality yet.

There's a lot to be done before school starts. I better get back to getting on with it.

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To gain some exposure to assessing start-ups from an investment perspective, I sourced an internship at a venture capital firm. I was inspired by readers' comments to my plans for the summer, and Orlando's own pre-MBA internship hunt. Based on my experience, here are my tips.

• Put together a list of VC firms in the geographical area you are targetting. I got this list together mainly through looking at the nominees at European entrepreneurial investment awards, workshops and sites such as Crunchbase or a directory.
• Determine the specific areas where you can contribute something, based on your background and expertise. Is it digital media? Life sciences? Clean tech?
• Look at the websites of the VC firms you are targetting. You will need to filter out some of the companies to find those with a fit for your background. Look at the portfolio companies and the backgrounds of the partners.
• Know something about venture capital. Read the gossip on TechCrunch, the news on VentureWire or WSJ, the thoughts of actual VCs and learn about how vc works.
• Network with people. I initially tried to do this through entreprenuerial events, but I did not meet many VCs there. I did meet other kinds of people: lawyers, brokers for VC, recruitment specialists for VCs. I found some people accidentally, e.g. someone who worked at portfolio companies through a public speaking club I frequent etc. They all had interesting advice and continue to help shape my CV.
• Contact the venture capital firms on your target list. More specifically, do some research on the people on the VC team. Try and show how you can add value; this will likely be in deal sourcing / screening. Step two of this article might shed some light on some dynamics. I contacted the partners directly and attempted to follow up by phone.
• If the partner is interested, they will respond to your email or delegate to an associate. A phone call or meeting might follow. If the partner does not respond to your email, it is unlikely you will be able to get through to any partners of the firm by phone. I was able to get through to secretaries and PAs, who were usually aware of what is going on and can often speak for them or at least advise how things work at the firm.
• Be persistant, keep following up with anyone that shows interest and stay determined.

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Friday was my last day of work. Well... sort of. It's my last day of work in my current job. On Thursday, I start an internship at a venture capital firm. It's going to be a busy summer leading to Kellogg.

I feel like I've been counting down to these final days leading to Kellogg since I was admitted to Kellogg in December. Over the past few months, I slowly told people at work about my plans to leave. The reactions were mixed. I came up with a standard set of canned responses to common comments and questions. Here are some of them:

• What do you want to go back to school for? It's true. You got to admire Rodney for sitting in that same job for the last 20 years, waiting for his pension.
• So you've got a big change ahead of you? You mean American girls who dig British accents?
• Kellogg? Why does that sound familiar? Because they make cornflakes?
• What is the course content? 35% women. Average age: around 27.
• HR: Do you think you'll come back here after you've finished? Yes, yes... please just give me a "career break".
• Everyone else: Do you think you'll come back here after you've finished? Err...
• Have you sorted out a place to live yet? Yup. I'm living with Snap, Crackle and Pop.

And so with questions such as these answered, my last 2.5 years with my current employer have come to a close. I feel a set of weights lifting off my shoulders. At the same time, I now feel another set of weights coming to rest these same shoulders.

In the middle of next week I start a pre-MBA internship with a venture capital firm. It took significant effort to source the internship, but I'm hoping it will be worth it. The experience may give me some insight into how these folks evaluate and work with companies similar to the one I want to start. Beyond the internship, I also have a hell of a lot of pre-MBA prep still to do: the online courses, the 360 assessment, sorting out medicals etc etc. Here comes the summer...

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Uncertainty creates huge amounts of work. All parties involved spend time and energy to gain mutual trust and clarity. Yet it can be allusive, because none of the parties involved want to end up with a bad deal. I have found this particularly true for me in my accommodation hunt

I was not lucky in the McManus (Kellogg halls of residence) lottery. In fact, I don't know anyone who has been lucky. So consequently, I've spent some time weighing up options - trying to reach certainty in what I wanted to do. What's most important to me? Proximity to campus? Proximity to the bars? Amenities, such as an onsite gym? Style of apartment? Whether I'd share with a another person? In the end I've probably ended up with what could be considered the safest possible option: an apartment in Park Evanston - the block with the second highest concentration of Kellogg students. Can so many Kellogg students be wrong? Surely I can trust the heard? To keep costs down, I'm sharing a 2 bed 2 bath with a fellow Brit. Again, sharing with a Brit will reduce some of the cultural shock and increase my certainty as to what the other guy will be like.

With the stress and time of finding an apartment has eased, the uncertainty now is whether we can get the lease sorted out smoothly. As we're not in the country, there are questions as to whether legally we need a Notary Public. They are a rare breed in the UK and cost a fortune, whereas in the US I understand (from Wikipedia) that it is as easy to become a Notary Public as applying for a library card. When I get to the States, I might apply. If we can get the apartment management to just trust us that we're not going to disappear off the face of the Earth, then the time and effort of this process will squish to nothing. Hopefully we'll get there soon.

In the meanwhile, I'm buying a whole stack off furniture off an international student who is graduating from Kellogg and heading back home. I just could not bare the thought of trying to set up an apartment piece by piece. Trips to and fro from Ikea over the week before school starts might be a fine Kellogg tradition, but not one I'm keen to partake in. The uncertainty I have with the furniture I've bought is around figuring out how to get all the furniture to the new apartment. Perhaps I can just put it into storage until I get there? Will it survive in one piece? Can I trust these shipping people when they say they'll take good care of it?

Despite all this, there is one thing I can say with certainty - I got my first choice KWEST trip. I can't reveal much more than that, as a tradition of these trips is The Big Reveal - that the participants don't reveal personal details about themselves until the end of the trip. However, it is interesting that there is already a rumor floating around. Allegedly one of the participants in one of the South American trips worked in the "adult entertainment" industry, if you know what I mean. Is it true? Would Kellogg admit such a student? Why would such a student need an MBA? Oh, the uncertainty!

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"You don't need that - why do you need that for? You don't have rubella, mumps or measles", began my doctor. I could feel the weight of an already burdensome MBA matriculation process getting heavier. I need to submit my immunization records to Northwestern's medical center by the end of June. My medical practice does not have my vaccinations records for these early immunizations from my youth. Why? Because while all the other kids in the UK *were* getting their vaccinations as kids, I was in Sri Lanka. I'm not even sure I've had these vaccinations. My doctor was shaking his head - he did not think that the Northwestern medical center needed these records. I insisted otherwise; why else would they ask for them?

"Do you have lots of cash to burn?", continued my doctor, "because we can get lab reports done to check if you're immune to them, but it'll be expensive - very expensive". I wondered whether I had suddenly become some kind of science experiment for my doctor and his nurse. They had already spoken with great curiosity about the tuberculosis QuantiFERON test that Northwestern's medical center has required that I take. My doctor and nurse had never administered it before. To me, it seemed just like any other blood test - stick a needle in my arm and suck some blood out. To them it was out of the ordinary - tiny samples in three test tubes that needed to be shaken about a lot.

Wearing a slight grin, the doctor must have sensed what I was thinking. Maybe they had seen the I'm not a science experiment look before? "Instead of doing lab tests, maybe we'll just give you the MMR vaccination; it won't do you any harm and we can probably give it to you for free". At last, the weight seemed to lift. Could it be true? Would I finally be able to tick these medical immunizations off my matriculation to-do list? I could see a slight glimpse at the end of the tunnel. "Hold on", I said as I flicked through details on Northwestern's medical form, "the MMR test requires two injections at least 28 days apart - which will be after the end of June deadline for these forms". Blank stares followed.

After waving his head for a little while, my doctor gave a heavy sigh, shrugged and walked off - leaving me with the nurse. Come Monday, I'll be calling up Northwestern's medical center to ask for their permission to prolong this agony further. Oh, what joy.

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Kellogg has been keeping me more than a little bit busy over the last week or so. Almost quite suddenly, I've had a flood of correspondence from the school and a lot more to think about. What follows is a run down of this ...

Pre-Enrollment Courses. Kellogg not only has pre-term, but even has online courses for you to do before you get to even the pre-term. I had mixed feelings about this, but when they said that the courses has been designed by Kellogg faculty, I perked up a little bit. If Kellogg faculty were involved, it might well be a little bit interesting. Nevertheless, I don't think I'll be able to look at these until July - after I've finished work. Life it a little too busy at the moment.

Finances. My official loan offer came through from Northwestern. You can not help but stare at the amounts involved and gulp at it. I need to go through it all in detail and do some budgeting for myself for the next two years. I was at my bank this week when one of the "savings specialists" nabbed me to try and convince me to do something "more effective" with my savings. His eyes almost watered when I told him what I'd be spending it on.

Medicals. Some of the items on the to-do list that Kellogg provides makes me groan. This is one of them. I need to fill out a four page form describing my medical history. Worse, I need to get my doctor (GP) to fill in one of the pages. I handed the page into my medical center on Friday. He called on Monday night (after 10pm!) saying he was working late and would get back to me the next day with costs. It's Thursday and I've still not heard back. Going through and trying to find all those immunization records is killing him, I'm sure.

KWEST. Most of the other Kellogg admits that are blogging have made some mention of this already. I've been anticipating this a while. Registration opened at 10am CDT yesterday (20th May), but it took me a whole 11 minutes - it gets me thinking that I might not have been as quick as some others. Oh dear. At least I'm not going for the Mystery Trip. All my selections were pretty much in South America. I don't want to travel too far.

Accommodation. The other admits I've been in touch with are well into their hunt for accommodation. I've not been as quick off the starting block on this one. I'm favoring McManus, the halls of residence, mainly because it reduces complications for furnishing (most apartment rentals are unfurnished?) and tenancy length (I don't have to rent over the summer). I had already got my application in by the due date, 1st May. I hear we'll get results of our applications soon. Fingers crossed.

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At the end of June, I finish work. I will then have about 7-or-so weeks before arriving in Evanston and life at Kellogg kicks off with KWEST, the world wide service trips that Kellogg students embark on before pre-term starts. So I've started thinking about what I might be able to do during those 7-or-so weeks that I have off to recover from working life and prepare for student life.

Between getting my business plan and dummy prototype in order and crawling through the usual migration tasks, everything else seems to fall in the category of improving my skills. I wonder if I'll get round to any of it. Perhaps there are things I can add?

• Learn touch typing, 'cause I type fast like a monkey at the moment. TypingWeb seems like a good (i.e. free) starting point.
• Get into weight training regularly. Been on the to-do list for the last 4 years :-/
• Learn everything there is to know about venture capital (gasp!)
• Improve cooking skills, 'cause calories are a problem in the US
• Learn speed reading, 'cause I'll be doing lots of reading, right? Been on the to-do list for the last 8 years :-/.
• Improve web presence - LinkedIn, About Page on blog etc - sort it all out.
• Learn golf?

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I'm planning to set up a business while I am at business school. Before I applied to business school, my plans for this ambition started as a distant and vague notion. Following admission to Kellogg, they developed into a plan. This post represents my latest thinking on this plan; my latests thinking on how I might go about achieving my ambition.

I'm building a web start up. Why? Because my career has been centered around the web and it is what I know best. The barriers to entry are low - these days just about anyone can build a website. The differentiation comes in the user experience of the website and job that it satisfies. As I previously mentioned, I believe there are big opportunities around content and the Internet - everyone seems to be struggling with a model for making money from content on the Internet.

Fit with B-School. I realized early on that some ideas fit the environment of setting something up while at business school better than others. If the product or service of my business has similarities / links to services provided by clubs or other entities at business school, then I can leverage those entities. If it is a luncheon product, perhaps it could be initially distributed by the shops at the school? If it is a new type of publication, perhaps existing publications at the school can be persuaded to fund a issue? My plan is to create a web based service to entice the community at Kellogg. Who knows if it will succeed, but I'm sure going to give it a shot. If it is successful there, it can be expanded beyond these boundaries.

Recruitment. Rather than pursue the rounds of recuitment that the rest of the student body participates in, I anticipate spending the first year seeking seed funding to build a prototype system over the summer. I am then looking at the second year as time spent seeking venture capital investment to build the business properly.

Sketch of the current plan.

Before Kellogg:

• Complete a business plan for starting and developing the business; develop an elevator pitch.
• Piece together a mock-up dummy system.

First year at Kellogg:

• Test the concept out using whatever low budget / free tools there are (the mock-up system).
• Get fellow students to use the service; get feedback for improvement.
• Find mentors who can help reduce the number of mistakes I make.
• Seek investment to do work over the summer to establish a real service that can work.
• On securing funding, hire a team to work on the business over the summer.

Summer internship

• Build the service as a prototype.
• Seek out potential B2B customers of the service, i.e. companies that may want their own branded version of the site.

Second year at Kellogg:

• Continue marketing the prototype service and building the user base.
• Seek venture capital investment to build the service from prototype to full service on graduation from MBA.

After graduation:

• Build full service. Grow the business.

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The call came in on Saturday morning, waking me up at about 9am. "Can you help on Monday night?", he asked. Within minutes I had been enrolled to help at a public speaking event that one of my MBA application recommenders was organizing. This was the third recommender, requested by some of the schools, for extra curricular activities. Though I could think of better things to do with my time, such as working on my business plan or doing some much needed house-keeping, this guy had taken time out of his days to help me. I should return the favor. So I did. However, this indebtedness pales in comparison to the prospect of a bigger weight of debt: financial debt.

When I enrolled on at Kellogg, I also submitted a financial aid form to the Kellogg finance department with the details of my salary and savings etc. A few weeks ago they provisionally offered me a loan. The formula they used seems to be:

loan = ( estimated cost of living for 2 years - savings ) / 2

You are given a loan for only one year; you apply next year for further funding for the following year. I understand that I'll get full details of the interest rates and terms in May.

What really gets to me about funding my MBA is the thought that I could surely be doing something more worthwhile with my savings than going bankrupt and then taking on debt. If I put my savings down as a deposit on a mortgage backed property, I could rent the property out and recoup the mortgage payments and then some more. My money would be working for me, as some would say. On my current trajectory, I'll be leaving business school with a negative bank balance over my head and finding myself working for the money to pay off the debt. This thought worries me doubly so because I plan to divert off the beaten path and create a venture. A high salary and bonuses to pay off that debt are not probable.

Yet, what keeps me on this path is the non-financial opportunity. At business school I will actually be in an environment offering above average odds for creating a successful startup, from access to mentors and investors to formal dissection and analysis of businesses and business plans. Even if the start-up adventure fails, the MBA will still leave me in good stead for the rest of my career, giving me a noticeable credential.

Perhaps most importantly for me, I'm not sure when I will have such an opportune moment again to establish a business. Some of my friends liken my plans to a gamble, and a big one after taking account of loss of earnings and the cost of the experience. I'm quite a risk averse person and do not quite see it in the same way. I think there will be all sorts of tacit benefits I do not even comprehend yet. For example, if I were to be in the position of my previously mentioned recommender, in dire need of help on a Saturday morning - I think about who I have built relationships - who might help me in such a situation. I then compare that to the relationships I might have built following the MBA. Based on what I've seen of the class thus far, I think my odds of success will be higher with those MBA folk.

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The redial list on my phone features over 20 random numbers. This is the remanent of what for me turned into a panic-stricken Monday 13th April, a public holiday in the UK. It was on that day that I started looking at the documents necessary for my US visa interview I had the following day. I had been lazy. I had not counted on needing a special 2 inch by 2 inch photo for a US visa application. Nevertheless, after numerous phone calls, I found a photographer who would take my photo on a public holiday - adding £10.99 to my rising bill for the visa application. I spent the remainder of the Monday filling in forms and printing them out.

I arrived at the US embassy on Tuesday at 13:20 - a little while earlier than my 14:00 appointment. When they handed me a numbered ticket, the number of which would be called out for my visa interview, I realized that the appointment time was merely to control traffic flow. The waiting area resembled the departure lounge of an airport - rows of people waiting and looking at screens showing the current ticket numbers being serviced. When my turn came at 15:20, I walked over to one of the cash till style counters. The guy behind it simply took my forms and put it into an envelope. After they took my finger prints, I was told I had to wait another while for my number to be called again. At 16:20 I was finally called to another cash till style counter to have the interview. It lasted mere minutes. The guy interviewing me asked me questions straight off the forms I had filled in:

• where do you work?
• what is your job?
• which universities have you studied at?
• where will you study in the US

I was not sure whether he asked these because he was reading the form for the first time as he talked to me, or to check what I had put down was actually written by me! The only original question he asked was "what are you going to do after the MBA", to which I replied that I may return to my employer in the UK. Following Le Redacteur's previous advice, I figured it best to tell them what they wanted to hear - that I did not plan to stay in the US - than complicate them with everything going through my head. As though I had spoken a magical password, he then said "your visa is approved". I did not even have to show my financial statments / loan offers, showing that I could financially support myself, or evidence of "social and economic ties" to the UK - both required in the official requirements list.

After the interview, there was yet more waiting and queues. There was a queue to pay the £15 to get my visa couriered back to me (yes, further adding to that visa application bill). At 16:40, I finally got out - free of one less headache on the way to matriculation.

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When I enrolled at Kellogg by submitting my deposit, I also submitted my I-20/DS-2019 Request Form to the school to allow me to apply for an F1 student visa. The I-20 finally arrived from Kellogg a week or two ago. On Friday I moved this process on to the next stages, which meant getting myself financially bled three times.

• First, I paid $200 online for SEVIS. I don't know what SEVIS is, other than it is a necessary evil.
• Then, I had to call up the consulate in the UK to book a visa interview. They charged £1.50 (~$2.20) a minute and the call lasted about 10 minutes. For some reason this felt the most painful of the three charges. Maybe this was because I could feel the money slowly and surely drawn out of me, whereas the other transactions were quick.
• Thirdly, the visa interview itself cost $131 dollars.

I've scheduled the visa interview for next week. I'm hoping it is trouble free; the documentation they've sent through lists numerous reasons for abruptly canceling the interview and have me arrange (and pay for) another interview, including arriving at the embassy with a mobile phone.

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I've been spending far too much time flicking through the catalog of KWEST trips. KWEST is the week long world wide service trip that Kellogg students attend before pre-term. The trips for 2009 don't seem to be up on the website yet, but we were given a booklet of the 2009 trips at DAK1.

Many Kellogg students talk about KWEST as though it is a relavatory experience, "you will meet your best friends for life there!"... The only thing that I'm convinced about is that it has to be worth doing, given all the hype. There must be 38 or so different trips, each led by 5 students who by then will be in their second year, with 25 matriculating first years joining them.

Every country in North, Central and South America must be represented between the various KWEST trips, along with every Caribbean island. There are also a dozen European destinations and four trips to elsewhere in the world. Each trip has a page in the booklet and you'd be forgiven for thinking that each trip was competing to win the prize for cheesiest advert. The headings include "Eco-Seekas In Costa Ricas", "Scandinavia: Do Blondes Have More Fun?", "No Spain No Gain" and "We don't keep score in Ecuador". They are quickly followed by a few brisk paragraphs of Kellogg's best copywrite, such as:


Descriptions of various activities the group will participate in follows. The activities range from snorkeling to hiking, skiing, "general debauchery" or whatever it is the environment facilitates. To cap off the cheesiness, the trip leaders include photos of themselves in their craziest outfits and give themselves nick names such as, "Freeze Tag" Fry, "McDreamy" and "These hips don't" Lai.

As for which trip I'm going to sign up for, I'm veering towards the central or south Americas. I still have plenty of time to decide on which one specifically...

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Kellogg's admit weekend, DAK, was pretty intense. What struck me most about the event was the scale - for the 250 or so admits at the event, a large workforce of upwards of 200 current students must have been involved to make it all work: career panels, club fairs, KWEST trip fair, "section time" leaders and much, much more.

Some of the highlights for me were as follows...

• I turned up at the Prairie Moon bar on Thursday 5th February for the DAK welcome drinks. With lots of brown wood and dim lighting, it seemed just like the small town bar I imagined it to be. The admits attending DAK were split into six sections of 30 or so people. My section, the Jugheads, were having welcome drinks in this bar. I was assured by one of the other admits, "yeah - the section names we have now are the junior version of the real section names... the equivalent real section name for Jugheads is Bigjugs". Unfortunately, he was wrong - they're called Bucketheads. We had six or seven current first year students acting as section leaders. Confident, talkative and upbeat, I found the section leaders to be really great stewards for that evening and the rest of DAK - a huge contrast to the sometimes nervous looking admits wondering who to talk to.
• Admissions Director, Beth Flye kicked off the Opening Ceremony on Friday. She welcomed the admits. "I don't know what kind of vitamins you're taking", she said, citing the admits' average GMAT of 719, average GPA of 3.6-something and a host of startling admission essay extracts. These extracts included people who had started voluntary organizations, released music records, achieved significant athletic success, hosted weekly cable tv shows and more besides.
• Professor round-table lunches featured members of the faculty talking through what their programs covered. I attended those for Media Management and Entrepreneurship. Michael Smith talked about how the Media Management program sought to answer questions about varying forms of media - professional and user-generated, proprietary distribution and open distribution - and the challenges businesses faced in order to develop business models that generate revenues in the current advertising (and wider economic) downturn. Scott Whitaker surveyed the entrepreneurship offerings available at Kellogg. I was surprised not only by how many admits were interested in entrepreneurship, but how serious they were - asking really deep questions, such as how they could get a head start on doing something entrepreneurial at Kellogg.
• Marketing Mini Class: I found this to be thought provoking and entertaining. The class started with the professor asking "what is marketing?" and taking responses from the audience. He then delved into the importance of customer insight based marketing versus marketing that lacked customer insight. For example, Marmite customers take pride in that some people hate the taste marmite. Consequently, Marmite used this insight to develop the successful "Marmite: you love it or hate it" series of commercials.
• Strategy Mini Class: After we had read a mini-case, the professor asked us to identify why Costco was so successful and how they would fair in the current economic climate. The session was mostly done through eliciting responses from the audience. I had thought the session would go in a particular direction relating to supplier power, but was impressed when it went on a tangent about membership fees that also seemed appropriate.
• Careers Service Overview. The center seeks to train students in the life skill of finding jobs, rather than just providing them with jobs. They have staff that work with you through the entire process of determining what you want to do to mock interviews to celebrating the success of getting offers. A testimonial by a student, where she described her story and the doubts she faced, was particularly effective in describing the process.
• Scavenger Hunt, games and other "section time". These were kooky, just as our sections leaders described them, but they were actually a lot of fun. I thought they helped the admits get to know each other somewhat and lowered inhibitions. Our scavenger hunt included piggy back races and dizzy bat.
• Welcome address by Dean Jain.
• Dean Jain told the story of how he had joined Kellogg. His supervisor had told him that there was no future in math and that he should join the top marketing school, Kellogg. He wondered why the top marketing school would take him, the worst marketing person. Despite this, he had an interview with Kotler and others. He presented some math which perhaps no one on the panel understood. Kotler asked, "this is marketing?"; Dean Jain replied "this is the future of marketing". 
• He described how Kellogg had risen to become a top 5 school:
• Focusing on developing students' collaborative working skills, interviewing all students that apply so as to evaluate their soft skills and focusing the MBA on developing soft skills such as teamwork.
• Through recruiting exemplary faculty in basic disciplines rather than competing for typical business school faculty. This is in turn helped Kellogg produce unique research.
• Through initiatives throughout the 70s and 80s, such as the Executive MBA program, spreading the quality of the program by word of mouth. "For word of mouth marketing to work, there needs to be many mouths".
  
• Dean Jain ended the session by looking to the future, developing the school's brand, global perspective and a number of other things I can't remember right now.
  
• An alumni panel of three Kellogg graduates offered their advice. They all agreed that the Kellogg alum network is close-knit and there is an implicit understanding that Kellogg alumni will help each other when called upon. They urged admits to use the opportunity of business school to develop their networking skills.
  
• Keynote Speaker: Scott Smith '76, former President of the Chicago Tribune. His main message was that perceiving the situation is often under-rated compared to taking action. The compared this to the current economic situation, where a lot of action had been taking, but has the situation been correctly perceived to choose the right action?
• The Closing Ceremony took place in Chicago itself, with buses carry the admits to the River East Art Center for dinner, followed drinks and partying in Martini Park. By this point, many of us had got to know each other quite well and the evening was an opportunity to develop those friendships further over buffet lunch in the exquisite surroundings of River East, as well as dancing and joviality at Martini Park, which seemed to be full of beautiful people. I thought it was great night of gossip and final ultimatems between admits, "have you decided on Kellogg yet?".
  

There were a number of other activities beyond the above. I won't go into these into detail, though they were useful. These included information sessions and events such as Financial Aid, day-in-the-life diary of a student, a session on academics, "Continental breakfast" of bagels and pastries every morning, a fair for the various KWEST trips at matriculation, a fair showing the different clubs at Kellogg, dinner at a "genuine" Chicago Pizza resturant, career panels where second year students offered advice on pursing particular careers, a night out at the Keg bar - which seemed just like my undergrad binge drinking days and a tour of various accommodation options on Sunday morning. It was a packed schedule.

I met some awesome people over the weekend. I thought I would be able to get along with most of the admits, and really become tight-knit with some of them too. Three of of the Kellogg admits who have been following my blog managed to identify me :-O. It was good meeting to you guys. This article tip is a good one, French girl - thanks.

Updated, 7th Mar '09

• Orlando's photo/videos via his blog

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As I briefly mentioned in my last post, I met my Kellogg interviewer and a few other alumni for drinks. They gave me their top tips.

1. Be prepared for American weirdness. Kellogg students like to sing Bon Jovi's Living On a Prayer. They like to sing it a lot. This is because the chorus "oooh, oh - we're half way there" has particular resonance apparently: half way through the MBA? half way through life? half way through the jug of beer ?... you get the idea.
2. Go on KWEST, the service trip before starting at Kellogg. Some of your very best friends after Kellogg will be people you met on this first trip. Each of the trips attracts a different type of crowd. In fact, on each trip you go on while at Kellogg - you develop a close set of friends (though none as close as those on your KWEST trip). So, also go on the Ski trip. In the past it has been highly subsidized by the banks. A large number of students in the class go. It's a great party.
3. Internship hiring will start quickly. Be prepared for it: CVs, etc. Most people think they have the first term to figure out what they want to do over the summer. They are wrong.
4. Waive as many courses as possible. You want to get on to do the advanced courses, which is where the really interesting stuff is.
5. Network, network, network. There are opportunities to meet a lot of people from a great many companies. Some people start keeping spreadsheets detailing each who they've met, their contact details and some memorable details to remind them of that person.

Another interesting thing that became apparent: most US students go on international KWEST trips, whereas the international students go around the US. Secondly, McManus halls is also mainly international students, wheras US students prefer to get apartments.

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Unlike Soni, I’ve been getting some attention from the Kellogg. I've exchanged a few emails with my designated "buddy", who is a current first year student at Kellogg. He keeps trying to call me at the most awkward times. Strangely enough, he happens to be someone I met a while back. My alumni interviewer has also been in touch. I've now also met all his Kellogg friends in London. I might post about that later this week. I'm surprised by the attention, and also touched. They must think I'm some kind of Rockstar. More fool them.

Kellogg’s admit weekend is called "Day At Kellogg" or simply DAK. It takes place next week. I received their welcome email recently. It starts Thursday 5th Feb evening and ends midday-ish on Sunday. That's my kind of "Day". The agenda is packed quite tightly and includes all kinds of wonderful stuff. Some of the highlights are:

• Welcome addresses
• Mini-classes
• Professor Roundtable Lunches
• Careers Service overview; breakout lunches
• Parties
• Financial information sessions
• Housing tours
• Alumni discussions

Since I am making the trip from the UK, I’ve decided to stick around a little longer in Evanston - up to the Wednesday after. I am hoping to get some pre-MBA prep done that will edge me closer to my post-MBA goals. My tentative plans for the extra days include

• Meeting with some more current students, including hopefully Shahid Hussain.
• Checking out the Technology Innovation Center (Northwestern's Incubator)
  
• Attending the PE/VC conference, all day Wednesday.
• ... and a few more things I still need to get in touch with people to sort out.
  

On Thursday I plan head out to NYC for a long weekend with some friends – a holiday! All in all, it should be a good trip. I'm especially looking forward to meeting my future classmates. I’ve learnt that I’m in the "Jugheads" section at Kellogg. Isn’t that the stereotype for dumb-asses? :-/ I’d rather the section is called "Rockstars". Because, you know, I am one…

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While Sammie and Glammie have been talking fashion, I've been talking to a current Kellogg student about a different kind of essential wear: thermal underwear.With temperatures touching -32 Celsius at times in Evanston, apparently this kit is absolutely necessary. Another friend has warned me: "get ready to adopt a whole new sense of fashion". Yikes!

I don't think I've ever lived or experienced that kind of cold before. The furthest the UK reaches is perhaps -10 Celsius. Chicagoland winters has already scared off one Kellogg admit ;-). I'm imagining my eye-lashes freezing over, becoming brittle and falling off. Oh, what horror awaits. I better order my thermal underwear.

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I've had someone write in and ask a question so important, I just had to share it on this blog:


My view is this:

• Make the option of starting a business so compelling, you'd be a fool to not do it. What would you need to do so that by the time you graduate, the potential for your business, particularly in paying off that loan and then some, is so great - you can not resist doing it? I'm developing a personalized plan for myself to create that compelling option.
  
• Mitigate against failure. Some people will say forget MBA recruitment all together and keep on the startup trek - show your 100% commitment! The project manager instinct in me says this would be daft. You need to mitigate the risk of your venture failing. I plan to intertwine my startup plans with MBA recruitment.

Make it compelling
What will help you get to that dilemma at graduation that makes starting a business irresistible? I believe the key is making life as easy as possible for myself: what forces exist across the MBA, university and my life to date that will help drive my business to be as successful as it can be? I'm not getting hung up an any particular business idea. Instead, I am trying to figure out the business idea that works optimally to the resources that I bring as well as those the MBA will provide. Specifically, I am asking myself questions such as

• What are the resources that I already have access to (e.g. friends, previous employers)?
  
• What resources are there across the university to help me get a product or service built?
• What resources are there through the MBA program to help me obtain customers?
  

I am then using the answers to these to iterate and develop my plan. For example, at Northwestern (where Kellogg is based) there is quite a bit of interest in media, because the Medill school is there. This works quite well with my media technology employment background. Consequently, there are pools of media technology innovation around the university, such as News At Seven and NewsMixer. There are also a bunch of other things, such as Northwestern's dedicated cross-discipline course for commercializing medical innovation and Kellogg's own offerings. Some of these don't quite fit or help me, but some of it does. The real challenge will be winning the support of the holders of these various resources and then weaving together these resources to build my business. If I can do this, then starting a successful business won't be the huge financial risk that people perceive it to be.

Mitigate against failure
Secondly, I plan to use the traditional MBA path of going into Venture Capital as a way of gaining funding for my venture, while still keeping open the possibility of working for a VC firm.

When I was conceiving my career goal, I wanted to make it as realistic as possible. So I plotted out a path that is something like this:

• Spend a year or so leading up to the MBA in a job that has some similarities to Venture Capital.
• Focus the MBA and internship on Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Finance.
• After the MBA, go into Venture Capital: learn about building startups by working with the portfolio companies at the VC firm; build relationships with investors.
• Some years later: start a company, capitalizing on resources and relationships built earlier.

This is pretty much what I wrote in my applications, except for the MIT application - for which I said I would attempt to start a company straight from business school. Over the last few months, my grand plan has become more of a 'Plan B'. This is because I've become much, much more motivated in starting a company.

As a traditional post-MBA career, Venture Capital is itself a very, very difficult field to get into. For every person a VC hires, this is another person the VC will have to split their investment returns with. For them, the question is this: will hiring you mean that they will earn more money than they would otherwise?

Getting funding from a VC firm is a different story: it is just as difficult, but I am positioning myself as someone who could make them more money than they have thus far. In the meanwhile, I will be networking and building relationships with VCs, possibly demonstrating intelligence and flair that they might like to hire if things go pear shaped for my own venture.

So, I plan to use the traditional VC job hunt to pitch my business to them as well as build relationships that may help me get hired if things go wrong. Some of the other MBA career paths may also be conducive to this kind of twinning (though I've not looked into them as much):

• Large consumer goods companies that hire MBAs are potential customers of your venture.
  
• Some consulting firms that hire MBAs may be willing to provide your venture with services and a network of contacts, in return for an equity stake.
• Some companies that hire MBAs may invest in your company if they think your company's goods will increase purchases of their products.
  

Unlike VCs, the recruiters may not necessarily be the same people as those who could help your venture. However, the relationships you develop are still likely to help or earn a good referral.

To sum up, my plan is to make the option of starting a company as compelling as possible, by figuring out the business that will optimally utilize the resources I bring as well as those which the MBA offers. I plan to mitigate against failure by keeping open the option of working at a VC, using this traditional MBA path to pitch for investors. We'll see how I get on... :-)

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With the end of my job in sight and business school beckoning – I fully expected my motivation at work to wane. I expected I would be distracted by the life that lies ahead. I've heard from past MBA applicants that this kind of demotivation is typical at this stage of the process and I expected to be susceptible to it. Yet... none of this expectation has materialized. Instead, I've become more motivated at work.

I put it down to this: I feel like I'm representing Kellogg in everything I do. Everybody now knows I've been admitted and hardly anyone around here goes to business school, let alone a top US business school. I feel motivated to make a really strong impression in the last 6 or 7 months I'm here, just so people will have no doubt: "that Kellogg place really does take on the best". I sometimes think to myself, "how would a world class Kellogg grad do this?"... and as cheesy as it sounds, it does edge me on a little bit further. I'm now working longer hours and more concentrated at work than ever before. It sucks, really - it's distracting me from getting my pre-school prep done, e.g. registering, booking flights/accommodation etc and everything else for DAK.

In the meanwhile, I did get a chance to join the Facebook group for admitted Kellogg students. It seems a little more active than the discussion board on the Kellogg welcome site, though only a little more active. The people on there seem varied and interesting: an Italian, a guy from General Motors, a bunch of Ivy school grads, consultants from every consulting shop, a museum person, at least one person with a kid ... it goes on. There are 46 people on there so far. I wonder if any of them have found their Kellogg super-suit too.

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