Week 12

Day 78: Acting classes

Monday, 9th February 2015 22:25

As part of the whole Techstars experience we get access to acting coaches who are on hand to help the CEO’s give their pitches. I’ve been tagging along to these as the lessons learned will be useful for the various bits of public speaking I do.

Today we did a warm-up session that involved some improv. There were 5 people in the group, with the other 4 being CEO’s. We initially sat in a circle and took it in turns to tell a collaborative story, which each person continuing from the last. The story needed to include a person, object and place.

The story, such that it was, centred around a woman called Willow, who was in a boat on a river in Cochabamba, Bolivia, making notes in her moleskin notebook about the local wildlife [the person, place and object]. Suddenly, the notebook was snatched out of her hands by an alligator and promptly eaten. Kit, who may, or may not have been Willow’s lover, but who certainly had romantic designs on her, then dived into the river, dispatched the alligator and wrestled it onto the boat. However, before they could retrieve the notebook a local drug cartel hove into view. The leader is Willow’s evil stepfather, and he was there to bring her home after she ran away. Before they catch up with Willow’s boat, however, Queen Ophelia and her tribe come to the rescue, dispatching the drug lord, and allowing Willow and Kit and the driver of the boat to escape. On their journey to Queen Ophelia’s village the group are set upon by monkeys, but scare them off with the carcass of the alligator, which they still have. Once they make it to the village they butcher and eat the alligator and retrieve the notebook. In the back of the notebook is a map showing the village they’re in, with the outcome of the tale being they were destined to go there all along.

With our story, such that it was, in hand we then turned it into a 3 minute bit of improv. This was then cut down to a 2 minute piece, a 1 minute piece, and finally a hectic 30 second skit. Each of these iterations was done with no time to converse or agree changes. It was, as you can probably imagine, quite silly. It was also huge fun and helped up realise that you can actually achieve quite a lot when under pressure if you just react rather than agonising over what you’re going to say.

Incidentally, we hold the copyright to the above tale so you’ll need to come and speak to the 5 of us if you want to buy the movie rights from us. I’m sure we can come to some amicable agreement that makes us all very rich.

Day 79: Vertigo

Tuesday, 10th February 2015 23:58

We had a meeting with some of our investors today at the ME London Radio rooftop bar. This exclusive, not to mention expensive bar affords stunning views over London from its vantage point on the 10^th floor. Which is great. Unless you suffer from vertigo.

It’s an interesting balancing act trying to sit as far away from the wall as possible, whilst trying not to look anti-social - something that was made easier by the large group. I think, however, that the game was pretty much up when people started leaning up against the edge to take photos. For some reason even other people getting close to large drops makes me cringe. Just watching it on TV is enough to make my legs go weak.

Thankfully dinner was had on the ground floor in a very nice restaurant nearby. And the view from the bar really is quite good, even if it is terrifying.

Day 80: Hypothetical question

Wednesday, 11th February 2015 23:02

This afternoon I attended a talk on the current investment environment. Given the past 7 or so years have been in the shadow of 2008 there was a fair amount of history covering the events leading up to the financial meltdown.

The fact I am working for Rainbird is a direct result of that meltdown. Until 2008 I was working for a large investment bank in London. I actually did quite well out of the crisis, but I was one of the lucky few. Many people suffered, including those in the industry. And it wasn’t just financially. I know people who are still broken after the banking system chewed them up and spat them out.

Which got me thinking. Techstars is an incredibly intense, incredibly stressful period. Teams and individuals are put under immense pressure. I look around the cohort and see the cracks. People are digging deep within themselves - deeper perhaps than they ever have before. And the pressure is just going to increase while the clock continually ticks down to Demo Day.

What happens if someone breaks? Hopefully no-one will, and it will remain a hypothetical question, but it does make you think.

And since I’ve just put a massive downer on things, here’s a picture of a rabbit with a pancake on its head.

Day 81: Tonight Matthew…

Thursday, 12th February 2015 21:31

…I’m going to be drunk¹.

Day 82: I think we’re ready

Friday, 13th February 2015 18:47

I’m in bed already². This is the third time today I’ve been to bed. I got to bed at gone two this morning and managed to get about 5 hours sleep³. By 1pm I’d hit a wall and needed to head home for a nap. I’ll be surprised if I make it past 8pm tonight. Oh, and I had fried chicken for lunch. It was the Best. Thing. Ever.

All of which gives an idea of the state I was in today. Regardless, I had a go at pitching at pitch practice today. We had some tweaks to the wording that we’d worked on last night and Ben was out at a meeting, so unable to try them out. I figured I may as well give it a go.

So, a tired, hungover, unprepared me presented an unfinished keynote deck, reading the script to the assembled audience. And it didn’t suck. Which is cool, because it sure as hell wasn’t my presentation skills that held it together. An eager, well prepared, well rehearsed Ben is going to knock this pitch out of the park.

Day 84: (Bonding)

Sunday, 15th February 2015 22:11

Techstars talks about family. You have the Techstars family, which is all the alumni, mentors, hacksociates⁴, basically everyone who is involved with Techstars in some way. But then you also hear about the feeling of family you get with your fellow founders in your cohort. You bond through a shared experience.

If I’m honest, I wasn’t really feeling that bonding. We get along. We talk. We help each other out. But no really special connection. I was beginning to think that perhaps that was a more US centric thing and that we, being based in London would have the very British attitude of “Over the past 102 days, I’ve come to think of you all as ‘people I’ve shared an office with’“.

As demo day draws ever closer, and the stress levels start to rise I’m beginning to see those tight bonds forming. Just being here over the weekend and going into the office to work, pitch and help out has seen me learn a lot more about my fellow founders. I suspect this last week will be truly transformative.