Welcome back to the Sunstone Way.
All the hype and hoopla is over – it’s time to play the games!
I’m talking about the NCAA men’s and women’s national basketball tournament games, of course.
The first in-bracket games are today, March 19, for the men and tomorrow for the women. It’s win or go home for all the teams, and the intensity level is uniformly high.
Favorites vs. Longshots
Part of the fun of March Madness is predicting winners – some people call it bracketology. There are 64 teams in each bracket (four teams on both men’s and women’s sides play to get the final two spots, so there are actually 68 teams in the tournament). The idea is to pick the winner of each game, right down to the championship.
That means doing research by reading what the “experts” say, comparing records, looking at playing styles and the like. There usually are consensus favorites to win it all, and the tournament organizers rank all the teams to determine seeding in the brackets.
Those teams with lower seeds often are happy to just make it into the tournament. But one of the most exciting parts of the event is when a longshot upsets a favorite – a 15-seed beats a 2-seed in the first round, for example.
Build A Champion
Most of the favorites this season are familiar names, often with championship trophies already displayed on their campus. On the men’s side, think of Duke (John Shen’s alma mater), Michigan, Arizona, and defending champion Florida. On the women’s side, it’s perennial power UConn, UCLA, South Carolina, and Texas. Some pundits include Duke (did I mention that Duke is John Shen’s alma mater?) in the mix.
There are reasons these teams are favorites. They have created a tradition of excellence. They work hard to maintain and exceed their standards. They go out and find the best possible talent to reload, year after year.
How do new teams crack that elite ceiling? It’s probably no surprise that it requires the same tools. They work hard to raise their standards game after game, season after season. They build a tradition by making the tournament one year, winning a game the next, getting to the round of 16, etc. They attract talent by becoming something talent wants to be a part of.
Startups Step Up
It is not a stretch to attribute these same characteristics to successful founders of startup companies. It takes a lot of hard work by a talented team to gain traction in the competitive world of entrepreneurial ventures.
In a bit of irony, spring is the time when university-based founders are asked to prove their mettle in competitions as well. We call them pitch competitions, and both the intensity and talent displayed can come close to the March Madness pressure cooker. After all, there are usually cash prizes at stake!
I am pleased that Sunstone is involved in and a sponsor of several of these events. And I think our presence will be enhanced this year with the help of the Sunstone Venture and Innovation Center.
Three Examples
Perhaps the oldest of the competitions is at California State University, Long Beach. It is a culmination of the academic year at the CSULB Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and it’s called the Sunstone Innovation Challenge. Student teams compete primarily on their business plan for a startup company, and are judged by professionals in the venture capital world. This year’s finale is on April 22.
The Sunstone Economic Development Challenge @ USC Price is different in that the student teams are presenting economic development plans instead of business plans. But the competition is still heated, and the top three teams win a significant amount of money. These teams work directly with top staff from municipalities in California, upping the stakes since portions of the plan they create may become part of that city’s public policy. The final projects will be presented on April 23 at USC (our team will be plenty busy that week!).
In May, the action shifts to the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine for the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition. Stella is John Shen’s partner, a founding partner of Sunstone Management and the CFO of American Lending Center – and an alumna of UCI! This is one of the biggest pitch competitions around in terms of the number of students involved and the amount of prize money. The big day is May 21.
Whether it’s on the basketball floor or the pitch competition stage, these students are striving for excellence and using their talent to get there. That’s most definitely the Sunstone Way!
And remember, always be a Sunstone.
John Keisler
CEO & Managing Partner
Sunstone
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Sunstone Investment Group, headquartered in Southern California, is the holding company for the Sunstone family of entities, including: Sunstone Investment Management Services, responsible for administrative services; Sunstone Advisors, an SEC-registered investment adviser, which oversees Sunstone Venture Partners LLC, a private capital fund manager; Sunstone Cities, a government economic development consulting firm; and Sunstone Community Fund, a charitable organization that supports entrepreneurship. Sunstone is dedicated to enriching lives through investment, entrepreneurship, and community. Email us at contact@sunstoneinvestment.com.
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