We Control Our Own Destiny!

For those of you looking for a cheesy motivational post about how MBA students can find the self-confidence to achieve despite a tanking economy and faltering job market, look elsewhere.

This post is about something far more important:  college football.

Miami beat Virginia Tech tonight, which gives Virginia Tech 3 ACC losses…which puts the Tar Heels in control of our own (football) destiny!  If we win our next 3 games – at Maryland, NC State, at Duke – then we’ll play for the ACC Championship in Tampa Bay later this year.

Why does this matter?  2 reasons:

We’re good again! Ten years ago, the Heels were emerging as a national power…and then our coach left for Texas.  The subsequent years were pretty painful, especially for a lifelong Carolina boy such as myself.  Considering the depth of our futility – two years ago we won 3 games and lost 9 – it boggles my mind how quickly we’ve become relevant again.  This year we have a chance to win 10 games and lose only 2.  Amazing.

Tailgating! A strong KFBS contingency has tailgated for every home game – even when we had to start at 9AM to gear up for a noon kick-off.  I suspect many of us will make the trip for any postseason games, should the Heels have the good fortune of playing beyond the regular season.

Fingers crossed…

Eric

Back In The Saddle

I just threw away my first year of business school – literally.

After dropping by the MBA Helpdesk to have someone remind me of my locker combination, I recycled a 2 ft tall stack of papers, quizzes, exams, and such from last year that I inexplicably had kept in my locker.  Some of the highlights:

- A Macroeconomics paper covering the Chilean economy entitled “The Red Hot Chile Paper”.
- A surprising number of decent Mod I Accounting grades.
- A not-so-good grade for my Private Equity final project from Mod IV.  (I blame my sub-par performance on the nice weather.)
- An unopened 2 liter of Sprite from a basketball club lunch meeting.
- An armful of locker spam – magazines, “vote for me” garbage, golf lesson solicitations, etc.

I’m excited about the clean locker and the clean start to my 2nd year of business school.  It will be a sad day when I’m emptying my locker 9 months from now…

Eric

Lunch at Sid’s

From the day I met him, my friend Sid has constantly reminded me that he is the best Indian chef in Chapel Hill. For every event we’ve attended together that has served Indian food, we’ve had the following exchange:

Me – (Stuffing my face) “Holy crap. This is the best (insert Indian dish) I’ve ever had.”

Sid – (Tastes calmly, pauses, deadpans) “Mine is better.”

After a few missed invitations over the past months due to busy schedules, my wife Kelly and I finally made it over to his apartment for lunch this weekend…

…and quickly found his boasting to be quite warranted. He and his roommate Sen prepared a gut-busting spread of traditional Indian foods – rice, tandoori chicken, coconut curry prawns, naan, raita, etc. As per usual, I ate more than I should, but happily enjoyed every minute of it.

After lunch, Sid and Sen explained to the group the finer points of cricket and its role in Indian culture. I’ve played baseball my whole life, so I suggested that I might be pretty good at cricket. Sid laughed, mumbled something about a “toe crusher”, and invited me to play in a couple weeks with the KFBS International Business Association.

I’ll let you know how it goes…

Eric

Big Weekend at Kenan-Flagler

Posted by Eric.

Its a good weekend to be an MBA student in Chapel Hill.

First of all – it is 76 degrees, the sky is perfectly blue, and the air smells like Spring.

SVCIC is happening right now. (I’m writing this during my downtime while volunteering.) SVCIC is the sustainability-focused spin-off of VCIC – the incredibly popular venture capital investment competition that began at Kenan-Flagler 10 years ago. There are teams from 8 leading business schools (including Kenan-Flagler) and an interesting mix of entrepreneurs and sustainability-focused VCs in town for the competition.

Right after SVCIC, I’m going to Asia Night – a food and culture festival put on by my classmates from India, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, and Korea. Though my friend Deepak has promised to show off his smokin’ hot Bhangra dancing skillz, I think I’m most excited about stuffing myself with tandoori chicken and kimchi.

The MBA Gala – the crown jewel of the Kenan-Flagler social calendar – goes down tomorrow night. Liquid Pleasure – a legendary Chapel Hill party band – is playing the party at Spice Street – a local swanky restaurant – and the MBA Student Association has rented buses to get us to the party and then to Franklin Street for the after-party. My wife Kelly and I are looking forward to some dancing and late night revelry.

Last but not least, the Heels beat Wazzou last night to land a spot in the Elite 8 in the NCAA basketball tournament. W00t! We play Louisville tomorrow night for a chance to play in our 17th Final Four in school history. (I’ll watch the game over Kelly’s shoulder while we’re dancing…) If the Heels play like they’ve played in the last 3 games, then I REALLY like our chances…

I don’t foresee a lot of work getting done over the next couple days.

VCIC Victory

Posted by Eric.

UNC Kenan-Flagler won the Southeast Region of the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) this weekend at UVA’s Darden School of Business. Our win puts us in the international finals April 17-19 on our home turf at UNC Kenan-Flagler.

I’ve done several case competitions and VCIC has been my favorite by far, both because the event is so intensely realistic and because I love my team:

Charlie – former consultant, jack-of-all-trades.
Kate – life sciences expert, same last name as Uncle Jesse from Full House.
Jason – medical device guy, pitch artist, cellist.
John – raised VC as an entrepreneur, way smarter than the rest of us.
Me – tech wienie, trying not to mess it all up.

We get along really well and work well together under pressure. A couple of the judges actually commented on our strong team rapport during the post-game reception.

(Speaking of judges. One told us that our final presentation was fantastic, while another told us that the presentation almost lost the game for us. Gotta love VCs…)

The competition makes for a pretty intense couple days. The teams get 3 (real) business plans from start-ups seeking funding and have a day or so to begin due diligence. On the big day, the entrepreneurs show up on campus to pitch their business plan. Following the pitch, the teams get a 12 minute “interview” session with the entrepreneurs to ask questions about the business plan, mitigate uncertainty, and show off for the judges.

After the Q/A, we sequestered ourselves in our workroom and argued way too long about which deal to fund. (Teams have a fictitious VC fund and are required to invest in one company.) Once we made an investment decision, we had about 2 hours to put together a deal term sheet and a presentation for the judges – all of whom are VCs, attorneys, or VC-backed entrepreneurs.

Charlie and Jason gave a presentation that would have made Tim Flood proud – no peaks, no verbal clutter, commandingly still, etc. – and we all managed to tap dance around a few difficult questions from the judges. 20 or so minutes later, we were holding a big check:

(Imagine a picture of smiling people holding a big check.)

I’m looking forward to the finals in April. Hopefully our good luck continues…

Eric