Boot camp drills local entrepreneurs

Two-day training session full of tough questions

Ann Arbor News – Friday, April 27, 2007

By Jenny Rode

David Liu jotted down some notes on a piece of paper, took a deep breath and headed to the front of the room.

He spent the next 90 seconds or so summarizing what he has been thinking about day and night for the last nine months: kantalk.com, a Web site that helps non-native English speakers talk with others and practice their language skills.

Feedback on the potential of his business came swiftly: "Who pays for it? There's that damn question again,'' said Chuck Salley, an instructor running the Thursday morning session of Ann Arbor Spark's entrepreneurial boot camp. Others in the class asked Liu questions about advertising and how he plans to get more users.

Liu said he was nervous in front of the group, but was gladhe did it.

"It forced me to think hard about what we'regoing to provide,'' the 37-year-old Ann Arborresident said. "First lesson learned: Be prepared. ...Sitting here listening to all the other entrepreneurs, itwas like, 'We're not alone.'''

The camp is an intensive two days of training that involvesworkshops, presentations and one-on-one meetings withmentors and drill instructors. Spark holds the camp twice ayear, and all types of businesses - in all stages ofdevelopment - participate, hoping to take their companies tothe next level.

Liu and his business partner, Danielle Zhu, were one of 15teams of aspiring entrepreneurs who spent Thursday at theMichigan Information Technology Center for the event. Thecamp's second day is today.

While Liu's Web community is growing fast - it'sgone from zero to 3,500 users in less than four months -there are still many unanswered questions about theviability of the business. Liu hopes to get those questionsanswered at the camp.

At an afternoon session with two business mentors, Liu andZhu faced tough questions: Have they thought about copyrightor patent issues? What about partnerships with languagecompanies? How many competitors do they have? How quicklycould they grow the business if the number of users suddenlyskyrocketed?

"It was terrific,'' Liu said of the session."The mentors themselves are entrepreneurs and are veryseasonal business executives,'' he said, quicklycorrecting his use of 'seasonal' to'seasoned.' "See? Now you know who reallyneeds to use the Web site.''

Liu, who has an MBA from the University of Michigan, gotthe idea for the business through his own difficultexperience 14 years ago when he came to the United Statesfrom China.

Although he had studied English for years, when he gothere, he found he couldn't understand English speakersand couldn't communicate effectively.

"That was the first real shock I had,'' hesaid. "It was not culture shock, but language shock.Over the next couple of years I thought, let me start overand try to improve my spoken English as fast as Ican.''

That's what users are doing now on kantalk.com, aresource that could have helped him 14 years ago if it hadbeen around. He hopes others will feel the same way.

At the boot camp, he got started at 8 a.m. Thursday morningand had meetings well into the evening. He planned to beback today for the second half.

"I'm very passionate about what we're doingand I definitely hope the boot camp can help us define andrefine our model so we can be successful,'' hesaid.

Jenny Rode can be reached at jrode@annarbornews.com or734-994-6843.