I’m in New York at the moment attending the Endeavor Annual Gala event. I have the benefit of attending talks by Barry Diller (IAC CEO), Scott Meyers (About.com CEO) and a host of other great speakers. It’s a 3 day conference – hence my time for other things, like blogging, is very restricted!
The Endeavor network is really a great network for entrepreneurs from “Emerging Markets”, although arguably, some of these markets have already emerged! I can only highly recommend the support we’ve received from Endeavor, which is a non-profit organisation.
Synthasite was fortunate enough to be one of the companies selected by MIT (Massachusetts Institute for Technology) to host a team of MBA interns who will work closely with us for the next 3 months and fly down to Cape Town in January to assist us with post-Beta testing. I had dinner with the team on Monday night, and I can honestly say that I’m thoroughly impressed by the calibre – but would you expect any less from MIT? I might add that there were more companies applying than interns available – so getting selected was seriously something special!
I was also privileged to speak to a class of students at MIT in Boston as well – and it was great to be able to share my experiences as an entrepreneur with them.
Also, through Endeavor, we also received an eMBA from Harvard who spent 3 months with us earlier this year, and he did a great job! Now I get 4 MBA’s – it’s going to be great having some extra resources – we’re very excited!
The bottom line is:
I can really encourage any and all emerging market entrepreneurs to at least apply to join Endeavor – the benefits are fantastic and it’s great being part of a support network. You need to be operating primarily in an emerging market – but check their website for more details.