busy week

Ahh, Saturday evening. Got a few minutes before it's off to our second Thanksgiving celebration. With most people working on Thursday, it's not uncommon to have invitations for parties on the weekend after Thanksgiving (unheard of back home). We were lucky enough to get to go over to Raul and Massi's on Thursday, and then tonight over to Lauren, Damian and Sylvie's. Looking forward to another feast and lots of laughs.

I'll spare you the long list of the things that I'm thankful for, but I'm sure you know that I've been thinking about them a lot. Curtis wrote a nice post over at the Foundation's site that covers some of the nice memories that Thanksgiving will always have for me.

The Mo-Fo event was a nice little recap of listing requirements and some of the considerations between listing in London, Hong Kong or New York. A little was said about Shanghai and Shenzhen, but I've got about 6 inches of readings from the day, so could be more therein. Otherwise, drop me a line if you're thinking about this issue and want more details. I'd be happy to answer questions or share what I picked up.

Couldn't stay for too much of the I and I talk on Thursday, what with lots of antipasti and wine waiting for me before a turkey feast. What I did see was pretty much par for the course. I'm still always amazed by how little most people (and even entrepreneurs), especially here in China, don't really understand the VC business. Hopefully some people picked up some good connections or some good pointers. The line of the night is that while there's lots of cash looking for start-ups, teams here are flooded with proposals and can afford to be extremely picky. Guess that's mostly true, and self-evident. And guess it's good news for the experienced entrepreneur teams who will likely get caught up competitive up-drafts.

Friday was spent churning out a quick business plan for our CEO. Well, given the work on Thursday in pulling together the text, Friday was just me and the familiar comfort of building out a financial model in Excel. I have to confess I do have a place in my heart for spreadsheet financial models. Not having built one in a little while, I definitely missed it. So much so, that I spent my Saturday morning tinkering around with one for me and Ang at home. Not a model per se, but a nice little workbook that charts some upcoming milestones we're working on. Confessions of a serial nerd.

And just a few hours ago it was lunch with our cousin Kristen. She's my great uncle Wahgy's daughter who is studying at 北大 for a semester. It's part of a UC program on international studies. Sounds pretty neat. She was a sweetheart, and Angie and I really enjoyed taking her to Element Fresh to satisfy her cravings for pancakes. We ended up dropping her off at Dragonfly for a lavender oil massage. Not bad eh?

Best get ready. Forgot to mention three local high school students I interviewed for Yale last week. All great kids. Gotta squeeze in some time to write up their reports. After I spend a little more time thinking about their candidacies, I'll post a little bit about some of the differences I've noticed between the kids I've interviewed in the US and here.