Days #25–30: Survival Week with Tesla

Survival Week was not as deadly as people thought it might be.

Last week was all about survival week, how to be better leaders and survive in difficult situations. But this week started with a visit to Tesla factory.

We still cannot tell you much about what exactly happened in survival week, but I can tell you only going there was worth of my money. Instead I can mention, how we thought about it.

I mostly enjoyed every bit of it — walking close to 50 miles, swimming and doing other things that could be seen as a part of military, especially as the program managers were soldiers. Basically it was all one leadership training and was designed for us to get more familiar with our teams during the survival.

Our team members managed to hurt themselves by stepping a nail in a foot, getting stung by something unknown and fainting after a long run. Still, we finished all the activities without cheating and worked great as a team.

We learnt that an entrepreneur should always keep going, even if they lose their way or some other members. Also that sometimes it’s better to make sacrifices, as well as how to function as a team. It was a great experience and after a new TV series, Startup U comes out, I can give you a more detailed story.

On Monday, we finally had a normal DraperU day with Ron Suber from Prosper talking about their P2P marketplace and Kerry Barrett from Accretive Solution. Twenty of us also visited Tesla factory, where we saw the new Tesla model X. Back at Draper, we played BizWorld — Tim’s game about entrepreneurship. Later on, Jack taught us some things about finance and we bounced some ideas with Josh.

Basically, we now only have one more week until pitch day, meaning it’s time to start working hard!