(note the site is moving to http://prodigalmba.rstoem.com . . . !)
Well I've participated in a few competitive grant program recently - and actually won one of them. The first was GreenStsrt. It's an incubator right in the middle of San Francisco. Unfortunately I didn't make that one. At that point the pivoting was undeveloped enough that I had to half-a$$ the application, and I'm sure they knew it.
However, separately I also got introduced to the fine folks at HYSTA (Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association). It's a Silicon Valley organization of Chinese American entrepreneurs and investors that counts AliBaba's Jack Ma and Yahoo's Jerry Yang among its participants.
A lot of the folks at HYSTA work as unpaid volunteers - so good for them, their work is appreciated. The program is to send entrepreneurs to mainland China to network with investors and go to all the tech parks. In fact I've visited a lot of these tech parks before, but only one in any kind of official capacity. Basically the park administrators try to convince you to rent space in the parks, which is fine.
I had more time and help to prepare than with Greenstart, so two weeks ago I found myself pitching Really Solid Technology over on University Avenue in Palo Alto to a few VC's acting as gatekeepers. That was really fun because all of the kibbitzing was in Chinese. There were about twenty other entrepreneurs pitching that same evening. Turns out they thought my pitch was one of the best there! I was really stoked about that, especially since I hadn't converted my slide deck into Mandarin. Just goes to show that substance still matters, not just the sheen.
Anyways, HYSTA organized grant-seeking from the city of Guangzhou to its participant who had pitched well - where the grant wasn't guaranteed. A close friend helped me translate my bio into Chinese, submitted it, and lo and behold last night I found out I was awarded a $1200 reimbursement for flying to Guangzhou and visiting the convention there.
So I felt fantastic, but I already knew I probably couldn't go: you see HYSTA would pick up most of the rest of the expenses (food, lodging, domestic travel) throughout the Chinese cities, provided I was able to commit soon enough. And a commitment equaled paying a previously unannounced $100 fee for their volunteer efforts. It took too long (precisely one day too long) for Guangzhou to come through with their reimbursement response. Since I had to count on the Guangzhou subsidy before I could even *consider* going, HYSTA had to pass my opportunity on to the next person. Whatev, they're still nice people and they had already extended the deadline for the better part of a week on my behalf; and i appreciate that.
I felt ok overall. After all I enjoy the chance to connect with investors as much as the next overly-optimistic entrepreneur, but I've got bigger fish to fry in the form of executing on a bootstrapping plan. (NB Bootstrapping = don't need investors).
So good luck to the Chinese-American entrepreneur who got my spot - ya better make the most of it!
(and don't forget, I continue transitioning to the blog to http://prodigalmba.rstoem.com , so have a look, bookmark it or rss it (click the big orange button on the right of the opening page), and let me know what you think!
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