Wandering

Lesson of the day: you have to wander in the forest (or in downtown San Francisco) sometimes.

After yesterday's busy schedule, today began with a meeting and ended with some fun exploring time. We walked to Hummer Winblad Venture Partners where we met with Anne Winblad and another associate. Anne was the venture capitalist who invested in our professor's old company, NetPerceptions.

The meeting was enlightening as we got a different perspective of entreprenuership: the investor's view. Hummer Winblad listens to about 120 product pitches a month while sponsoring a small fraction of them. The stories of success and failure led to the discussion that the companies who were the most successful spent the first few years wandering with no direction or market for their business or product. It is in these times that you find out if the company has the stamina and passion to succeed. I learned that it is okay to not be entirely certain about the future, as long as I stick to what I believe in, it will all work itself out, whether it be good or bad.

Hearing all of the stories about companies that Hummer Winblad has funded made me realize how many start-up companies are actually out there. Hummer Winblad only funds software companies, let alone the tons of other companies interested in other genres of business. The company that interested me the most was Ace Metrix. It is a company whose product has the ability to assist advertisers by telling them which commercials are good and which would not be successful for a certain market. (If this works, companies could save a ton of money on advertising and we wouldn't have to sit through the bad commercials...either way, an intriguing product.)

So with thoughts of wandering through the forest and creating a product that would benefit and interest many, we headed off to lunch on Pier 39. After my stomach was full of crepes, we began wandering our way to the Exploratorium. We wandered for about an hour before coming up to it. Now an hour seems like a long time; however, it was filled with so many things to see (million dollar houses and the bay) and conversations with the group (business, soccer, and the definition of frolicking) that time flew.

I thought the journey was fun, but let me tell you the destination, the Exploratorium, was even better.

To give a brief description of our adventure at the Exploratorium: here we were 9 college students and a college professor fighting with 7 year olds over who was next on the bubble machine. (We definitely were the better bubble makers). It was a nice break from business meetings to get to run around and be a kid in a candy store again. There were so many things to do so I will only list my favorites: the gigantic bubbles, the basketball game that messed with your shot (after wearing these glasses your shot went to the left), the mind games (a drinking fountain that looks like you are drinking out of a toliet, trying to keep a poker face, and the spike in heightened emotions by answering questions), and the photograph where it takes a picture of your shadow on the wall.

After being kicked out of the Exploratorium at closing time, we wandered around outside looking at the architecture and taking pictures. After a while, we were hungry and instead of wandering around walking, we ventured onto the bus and managed to find our way back to the hotel without having to walk up any hills. So the conclusion I came to was that wandering is good for you. It gives you time to get to know yourself and who you are with (for me it was Brad, Megan, Brian, Kiflu, Aaron, Drew, Jacob, Jeni, and Adam (Pyz). The journey is the fun part; however, it always feels good to get to where you are going and start the next adventure that is waiting for you.