By Vivian Le, Arts & Entertainment Editor
On Monday, Dec. 11, Virtual Enterprise’s (VE) Business Plan team, consisting of seniors Colin McGlinchey, Monique Nguyen, Chloe Dinh, Cole Spalter and junior Vivian Le, traveled to the Orange County Department of Education (OCDE) to present an overlook of their company Grow N’ Go to a panel of judges.
VE firms were to prepare a presentation regarding the following: marketing plan, financial plan, work environment and overall company. The team was graded on their opening statement, oral presentation, presentation design and ability to answer arbitrary questions.
“Before [the presentations], I was anxious since I kept messing up during rehearsal and practice sessions. But after taking a walk outside and relaxing myself, I felt more confident and did well at the presentation,” said Dinh, Co-Director of Marketing.
Their first presentation at 8:30 a.m. was judged by former Fountain Valley VE student, Carson Capanash and Ranjit Mayadas, while their second presentation which took place at 9 a.m. with judges Kepley DePalma and Joni Fultom.
“It was a bit nerve wracking since this was regional and would determine whether we would make state or not so I definitely felt a lot of pressure to do well, especially since I was representing the marketing branch of the company,” said Dinh.
On Dec. 12, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Spalter received an email from VE Southern California Regional Director, Teri Jones congratulating the company for reaching the top 42 firms and qualifying for the State Business Plan Competition in Bakersfield.
“Within the next few weeks leading up to Bakersfield, I plan on improving the company environment. I’m grateful that we are a very close knit company and all of us are close friends; however, this leads to the line between friendship and professionalism to become blurry, so our company can get disorganized and people go off task. I think with a slight nudge in the right direction, and the right amount of encouragement and preparation, we will be successful at Bakersfield,” said Chief Operating Officer (COO) Nguyen.
On Dec. 17, Jones sent the official score sheet for the company to review and base their revisions off of. Grow N’ Go received a total score of 82.000.
“When I saw the results I was very happy for our team, but no surprised. Our team put in the effort to get this result through hours of planning and presenting. I’m proud of us for putting in the work, and I’m glad that our results reflect that,” said Spalter.
FVHS students can support VE on their trip to Bakersfield by attending their Chiptole fundraiser on Thurs. Dec. 21 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and mention “Virtual Enterprise.”
