GoDaddy support is terrible.

I've been trying to get a hold of them for an hour, to fix the setup of our emails. Nothing.

We're in a competition and time is so valuable. I don't understand why they're system isn't intuitive and there are too many places to do the same thing.

>:[

The EIA to this date.

What a ride.

It's been several days since I last wrote, mainly because by the time I get back, I pass out. 

The first week was all about ideation and user validation. We decided to change the name from The Box to ExplorIt, which I much rather prefer.. We thought we were falling behind, but it turns out that we've caught up now. We're working on customer development, business models, prototyping, and much more this week. It's past 1 am here and I'm still up working on customer development. My team is doing great - we have to go live by the end of the week and everyone is working extremely hard to make things happen.



It's also extremely hot and humid here, so I can't fall asleep. It's been such an exhausting week and the public transportation hasn't been the best. Twice I've had buses drop me off at the wrong University. The first time, I had to walk 5 km in heels, uphill, to the dorms. The second time, I was just carrying my laptop bag and thankfully wearing flats, and only had to walk about 2.5 km. And the SMOKING. Way too much here. I've gotten a little to used to how much people smoke - kind of worrying.

Despite the craziness, it's been an amazing trip so far. I got really lucky to have a teammate with a car, so we do get to go travel all over. We went to Nice for Bastille day on Monday, which was amazing. We walked around the city, went shopping, went to the beaches - just had a great time! The beaches in Nice were quite rocky, so we also ended up in Antibes, to find some sand! We came back just in time to watch the game, creatively projected on the side of a table, while all us students gathered around it outside our dorms, in the woods. 1-0! Such a close game!

Here's to another great week!

Day 2 at the EIA - Team Formation

That game last night was insane! I was in a bar in Antibes called The Blue Lady, with most of my newly formed team, where we saw Simon Baker (from the Mentalist). A yacht boy bought us all shots in celebration of the crazy score. The best part was definitely being there with my team. 

We did a lot of team formation exercises yesterday in attempts to build a team. We created many ideas and pitched them for each other, hoping to create a stellar team. It went back and forth a lot as team members went in and out. 

Finally, my team came together and I couldn't have been more satisfied. Everyone is very smart and all excited to work together and make things happen, including myself. 


Here's to the start of day 3!

First day at the EIA

Yesterday was the first day at EIA and man, was it a wild one.

The program itself was fine. We started out the day in the University of Nice in Sophia Antipolis with an Art Hackathon. We created a painting, which we are going to have to peddle in Nice to raise some funds for our companies. The team that raises the most money will get a helicopter ride to Monaco! We listened to a bunch of speakers, including Peter Vesterbacka from Rovio (Angry Birds). We also built Lego cars and helicopters as a team building exercise. We got to meet a bunch of people, but nowhere close to how many I want to meet. Everyone seems really interesting and passionate - I love people like that. I really want to start building my team and start to work on our projects!

The day went wild after we went the wrong direction on the bus. We ended up in Antibes, quite the opposite direction from the dorms in Valbonne. Then it started to POUR and I was in a thin, flowy dress. We waited in the rain for the next bus, which took us to a town near the dorms. We then had to walk 20 minutes in the rain, carrying groceries, all the way back up to the dorms. It was definitely an adventure, and I got to become friends with some cool guys from London and Norway.

We all unwound later and played some games in the common room downstairs in the dorms. We got to know each other a little - although I'm not so sure they've gotten to know me quite yet. I tend to observe at first. There are people from all over the world, which I found really cool.

I'm writing this while eating Doritos, since there is no real breakfast here (I didn't feel like walking down to the main hall for hot chocolate today). Send me food please! #nomnom

Definitely looking forward to today, when we get to form our teams - wish me luck!

Flying to France today.

I just finished packing all my bags to fly across the world to Nice, France, for a start-up competition called the European Innovation Academy.

We have to create a company in three weeks! I will be pushing an idea I had a couple years ago called The Box: a personalized Yelp/EventBrite for adventures. The name is derived from Pandora's Box, a box full of mystery and wonder.

I will be traveling around France, as well as taking a trip to London, all within the next month. I'm very excited and looking forward to meeting the 300+ people participating in this program!

Keep an eye out on here for updates on my adventures in Europe - à bientôt!