Week 1 at TEC

First week at the True Ventures TEC program; where should I start?!  First off, I am Connor Hood, from Austin, TX.  I am a rising Senior at Babson College which is a small school out in Boston that’s main focus in Entrepreneurship.  I’ve founded a few companies in the past; the most recent is a company that offers front end web development services, more specifically, PSD to HTML conversion and PSD to Word Press conversion.  I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s been a fun business that I’ve grown over the past year and I am excited about where I plan to take it going forward.  You can check out the rebranded (originally Elite CSS, now The Site Slinger) site here: http://www.thesiteslinger.com .

I originally found out about the TEC program from a random email I received last March from a friend.  It was the most interesting internship offering I’d seen, and the uniqueness of it is what ultimately made me apply.  To be honest, I’ve never really “worked” for a company before simply because I’ve always done my own thing on the side.  However, I knew I needed to get some hands on experience working for a startup if I ever wanted to really make it big with one of my own companies in the future.  I am so grateful to have an opportunity like this one for the summer.

I don’t think anything can really prepare you for an experience like this.  I was really unprepared coming out here, so unprepared that I actually had to change my flight at 4AM, two hours before I was supposed to fly out.  The first day after a few transportation mishaps, I finally made it to the True offices and I immediately realized I was in for a really challenging and rewarding summer.  After listening to the True team – Shea, Christiaan, Phil and Jon – talk a bit about their background and founding, it was amazing to hear their unique insights on how they vest and choose their portfolio companies.  From my standpoint, their strategy is to find strong entrepreneurs at an early stage and give them the support they need from day 0.  This strategy means they are really investing in the “entrepreneur” rather than the “idea” or the “business plan” because they want to give that entrepreneur the support they need to develop the vision they have.  From True Venture’s success, I think it goes without saying that this is a winning strategy.

After lots of great insight from the True team, we walked over and had a chance to listen to the brilliant Dan Ariely speak his mind and talk about his latest creation, “The Upside of Irrationality”.  It was really interesting to hear Professor Ariely talk about all the really cool studies he and his team have done.  What was even cooler for me was to sit next to a really cool guy that I’ve been following for quite some time now: Tim Ferris.  I’ve read his book, and follow his blog closely.  After a quick handshake/introduction, I didn’t get a chance to chat with him, however, maybe that opportunity will come later.  So to sum up the first three hours at True with the TEC program: (1) Awesome people (the true team), (2) Awesome speakers (Professor Ariely), and (3) met Tim Ferris (cool!).

If the first three hours were that good, I can only imagine what my life is going to be working at BrightRoll, the company I have been assigned to for the next two months.  I’ve only been at BrightRoll for two days now, but it’s already been really interesting and insightful learning from the greatest.   I think some of the stuff I am working on may need to be kept “hush hush” for now, maybe later I can write more about the cool stuff they are doing there next week.  But just one last quick story: I walked into the BrightRoll office and noticed the sea of Apple computers (I had been warned by Barry – the director of product at BrightRoll and my awesome supervisor/contact/mentor/ect At BrightRoll – about this).  I walked in carrying my Lenovo laptop, sat down at my desk and started up the laptop.  As Bright Roll’s CTO, Dru Nelson, walked by desk, my computer decides to crash and show the infamous “Blue Screen of Death”.  It was a funny moment seeing my trusty Windows 7 fail so miserably in a sea of Apple; I am sure the people around got a good laugh out of that one.  Maybe it’s time to make the switch?  Anyways, I am really looking forward to the coming weeks working for Bright Roll; they have an amazingly talented team that I look forward to working with and learning from.