Evening MBA Students Participate in VC Bootcamp

I had the privilege of participating in the MBA Venture Capital Bootcamp alongside talented MBA candidates from top schools in the region. The Venture Capital Bootcamp is a full throttle experience into the complicated and niche world of entrepreneurship, angel investments and early and late-stage venture capital investing. The program was well organized and the first evening comprised of an introduction to a real case proposal, a networking session, and a Q&A panel featuring speakers from the D.C. venture capitalist and entrepreneur community. The next day was an intensive array dynamic industry veterans who lead workshops and sessions surrounding strategy, valuation and industry insight to prepare for the case study competition the next day. On competition day, teams gathered early to brainstorm best approaches to appeal to the case study entrepreneur as a venture capital investor. Teams consisted of a great mix MBA students with finance, consulting, legal and healthcare backgrounds, which was helpful in delegating responsibilities for the pitch rounds. The term sheet presentation simulation was arduous and compelled teams to know the repercussions of a deal fallout through multiple stages. It was incredibly challenging to manage kickbacks from the entrepreneurs and calculate how changes to proposed terms affected the deal on the spot, but that exercise gave a real snapshot into how savvy VCs, angels and entrepreneurs must be to protect their interests.

I had been itching to participate for the past 3 years it was offered to Pamplin students and would recommend any student who is remotely interested to take advantage of this opportunity. The exposure to the VC world and some of its most prominent industry leaders, like John May and Tim Myers, is invaluable to students looking to work at a start-up, go into private equity, emerging markets or angel investing. Pamplin students looking for real-world application of their finance, entrepreneurial leadership and business analytics studies should not hesitate to be a part of this experience.  I hope to utilize the skills learned in this bootcamp to relate to my interests in music industry investments, create valuation metrics and smart assessments of the publishing market based on comparable ventures, mergers and acquisitions.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend and to represent Virginia Tech at the 2020 Venture Capital Bootcamp this year. This Bootcamp was a three-day immersion course on all of the aspects of venture capital funding. It brought together students from UVA, Notre Dame, Georgetown, UPenn, NYU, and Virginia Tech. Over the course of the three days we heard lectures from a variety of industry professionals; current venture capitalists, entrepreneurs who had gone through the funding process successfully, lawyers who helped break down funding contracts, and many others. The Bootcamp was geared towards making connections across fellow MBA students as well as with these professionals. At the end of the last day we had a team role play where our team was a venture capitalist firm making a funding bid to a local entrepreneur.

As someone who has worked at a start-up company for over six years, and who also is looking to one day start her own company, the Bootcamp was a truly amazing experience. I learned so many new ideas, approaches, and resources to funding that I never knew before. I made a lot of new connections with people I can reach out to with ideas or for guidance. I am grateful to the Evening MBA Program for sponsoring me to attend and I will use my experience to continue to grow in my education and in my career.