The event’s objective was to assist student entrepreneurs working on an innovative idea to obtain a structured understanding of the issues at stake in business, before making the decision to launch their startup. The students benefitted from the expertise of the coaches and put their business ideas into practice to create and present the first version of their business model in front of a group of experts.
Philippe Chereau, director of SKEMA Ventures, and Mitchell Weisberg, SKEMA Ventures manager for the Raleigh campus, guided the students during the interactive sessions at HQ Raleigh to develop a good proposal and innovative business model, and coached them for their pitch to a jury of investors and entrepreneurs.
They were also helped along the way by a team of mentors and jury members, including Mohamed Desoky, director of SKEMA’s Raleigh campus, Gisa Rollin, development director of SKEMA Raleigh, and Oussama Ammar, director of undergraduate programmes. Taylor Meyer, managing partner at Hyperspace Ventures, Sue Weems, business advisor and co-founder/director at Venture Management Inc., Tim Rosenberg, senior design manager at Lithios, Robert Jordan, business development officer at Lithios, and investor Jessica Jones were also part of the team.
François Osemont, a student at SKEMA, said: “The organisation of Bootstrap was excellent. I learned a lot and was able to strengthen the concept of my start-up company called Dicoti.”
For more information, visit https://skema.ventures