On Wednesday 16th May two of our DN employees (Imran Tehal & Natalija Wollny) participated in the VC section of one of the Bizworld programmes at Kings College, Wimbledon run by Lorena Szerman and Agnes Berns.
BizWorld UK provides fun, project-based programmes that promote financial responsibility, leadership and teamwork skills for 10-13 year old students. They give children the opportunity to create businesses in a real-world environment while giving them a safe-space to develop their talents and gifts, learn by trying out their innovative ideas, and make the critical connections to their futures. The BizWorld foundation was originally set up in 1997 by venture capitalist Tim Draper who saw a need for inspiring entrepreneurship in children. This is a vision DN Capital wholeheartedly aligns with.
On the day Imran and Nat stepped in, the school group were already well underway in their 3-day program. They had created their company, divided up job roles, mapped out Marketing & Business plans and created their product. Now it was time to present their product to Venture Capitalists for funding – that’s where we step in! Nat and Imran were split up and spent 15mins with 3 different teams who were all pitching for funding. Imran said he aimed to give them authentic feedback that would serve them well in the real world; “we told them to have conviction in what they said, that they had all done really well and not to be disheartened by our questions; we were asking the tough questions to simply try understand their companies better and give them as much money as possible!’
Natalija was very impressed how advanced and engaged the children were, “They are smart kids who took it seriously and had some great ideas”.
Imran added, “There were no pretensions from the kids; they all took it seriously and wanted to succeed (e.g. spending breaks and lunches gaining feedback from peers). They believed in themselves and pushed back when I offered less than expected and tried to convince me otherwise.”
Overall the day was very fun and valuable. We think this is a great initiative for our future founders and leaders and commend Bizworld for their efforts!
