Last week, I talked about the academic portion of my MBA’s specialisation track, which means that this week, it’s time for me to talk about our track’s learning expedition. The entrepreneurship track was really fortunate to be able to go to San Francisco! We weren’t a full group though – everyone who needed a US visa was unable to get one in time and had to go to Stockholm instead.

Thoughts on the Company Visits

Since this was a learning expedition, the focus of the week was on visiting various startups and learning about their journey. We started our visits with a day that introduced us to the ecosystem of Silicon Valley and what makes it special, and then met three startups. I thought Cinessance, the startup that is making a streaming service for people outside of France who want to watch French movies was very interesting – I wonder what will happen if Netflix starts to make that a focus (though I don’t think they will? I suspect they want more mass appeal so niche sites have an opportunity).

We also had the chance to visit two incubators during the week: Berkeley’s Skydeck and Plug and Play tech centre. Plug and Play is interesting because it’s huge and has offices everywhere, including one in Singapore! So it’s probably not a surprise that I spotted two Singaporeans on my visit there.

The rest of the companies were either startups that had a French founder or a French person working in a high-level position, or were French companies that have branches in the US (like banks, telecom companies, etc). One startup that sticks out to me is Loft Orbital, that wants to do something like infrastructure for space. I have to admit that I don’t fully understand the tech part, but I really like the mission of making satellites accessible for everyone and the founder was very open about the ups and downs of startup life (which I guess is not for me). Another company that I really liked was X, aka Google’s Moonshot factory. It was really interesting to see how they are experimenting and trying to fail ideas as fast as possible so they don’t spend too much time and money on something that won’t work out.

Oh! We also got to meet a Venture Capitalist who talked about what kinds of startups he would invest in. Basically, if you want to take VC money, you need to plan for high growth, so it’s not for everyone.

Touristy Stuff

While the week was mostly filled with visits (we flew off on Friday straight after our last company visit!), we did have one free day on Sunday to explore. It was a really exciting day and one of my friends had his rental bicycle stolen, which was quite the welcome to America.

Someone told me about the Japanese Tea Garden and I found it to be really beautiful! Plus they serve great food there – everyone liked what they ordered and I was happy to have matcha again.

Speaking of food, I also managed to try In-N-Out for the first time! I like the animal part of the animal-style fries, but I don’t know, the fries seemed a bit limp for me? Apparently, it’s because they don’t double fry it. The burger was good and the portion just right for me. The first day we arrived, someone told me to try clam chowder so of course, I found some time during the week to try it – I really like the soup, though I couldn’t finish the bread bowl!

And of course, I managed to visit a tea shop! I heard pretty good things about Red Blossom Tea online and wanted to see what the shop was like, only to end up buying a few tea samples. I’m planning to save them for when I go back to Singapore, because I think hard water (even if it has gone through a filter) is not going to be the best for these teas and since I paid USD$1 for 1g of tea, I’m going to give it the best treatment I can.

So that’s really about it for the last academic month of the program! I’m currently hunkered down in my dorm writing my thesis, which is why I also have the time to blog regularly this week. If you have any questions about my MBA, let me know before the end of June and I’ll be happy to answer/write a post.