First Presentations

As I discussed back in the first week of our trip (here and here), groups of one or two of our Smith team have been partnered with an equivalent number of MBA students from the Technion. Together, our combined teams have been assigned technology patents - for which we are creating commercialization strategies. Last Thursday, June 3, we made our first presentations in class at the Technion. Our first presentation was focused on five potential applications of the technology, evaluating possible customers, suggesting hypothetical value propositions, market sizes, technological issues, and building revenue models. Our analysis was meant to establish a baseline for our project going forward.

"Me - surrounded by Asher and the VCs"
Picture by Stephen Kushner

Our presentations were conducted in front of a panel of Israeli and American venture capitalists. The Israeli culture (and the VC culture also for that matter) that we'd been told so much about, but hadn't quite experienced was in full effect. Time and time again during the night, each of us was put us on the spot, our analysis and assumptions totally dissected. We hardly had time to explain our next point before we were barraged with another set of questions. Everyone was definitely feeling the pressure!

"Don, looking pleased after presenting about his UAV tech"
Picture by Stephen Kushner

Despite the tough treatment, the presentations overall were still really well received. One VC, who had judged the same class the previous year said that the presentations were significantly improved. One or two of our Israeli classmates shouted out that this was because of "the Americans", which was a nice compliment.  At 10pm, after the last team had finally finished presenting, we were all pretty wound up by the experience. That being said, everyone seemed to agree that it was one of the best experiences we've had so far in Israel.