Welcome to our Venture Road Trip

VRT08: Learnings and Results

Wed, 8 Oct 2008 13:34:30 +0200

Almost four months have passed by since we returned to Germany. What has happened in the meantime?
Ralf and I were overwhelmed by the feedback we had gotten from our interviews around the US. In July and August, we sat together in order to structure all what we had learned throughout our journey. It is our goal to publish our key learnings so that every young entrepreneur might benefit from our experience. In addition, we want to maintain this blog to keep you posted on what is happening in our lifes.
Thank you very much again for all your help, time, and efforts related to our Venture Road Trip 2008!

Socia Media: Medium and Message

Fri, 3 Oct 2008 13:30:31 +0200

In social media…is the medium still the message?
The more we use social media tools and the more we come across companies inside these tools (think Facebook, Second Life, Twitter, etc) the less relevance their existence inside these tools seems to have - especially if there is little or no actual utility involved for the individual user.
You might have a Facebook group, but seeing you on Facebook doesn't make someone think of you any differently.
Has something changed? Wasn't it once cool to find companies in strange places, places you never thought you might see them?

What to filter in an “open world”?

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:25:54 +0200

Very early on, startups aim at cultivating a certain brand image. However, on the internet, they expose themselves to open criticism and risk their brand image and value to be diluted.
Should information be filtered in an “open world”? We discuss this topic with marketing specialists Christina “CK” Kerley, David Berkowitz, Alan Wolk, and Paul Soldera in our weekly social media special.

Right vehicles for the right audience

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:19:28 +0200

How do you identify the social media vehicles (and influencers) that best suit your target audience? Where do you even begin to find them?
With so many social media tools out there, it is sometimes hard to decide what suits best your target customer segment. Why use Twitter if no one of your customers use it?
We raised this question in our social media panel. Listen to what the experts have to say.

Knowing what your customers say

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:15:18 +0200

How do you balance the fear of people saying bad things about your company or product with the desire to receive authentic consumer feedback?
This question is especially important for young startups who have only very little been exposed to the market and rely on honest consumer feedback in the pursuit of developing their product and service offerings further.

Which tool to use?

Tue, 9 Sep 2008 13:11:21 +0200

With so many social media tools, how to decide which to use?
This question stems from Alan’s point of sometimes preferring message boards to blogs. “I sometimes prefer the former because they don't rely on someone on staff actually knowing how to write well or coherently. Blogs are great only if you have people who can maintain them and do them well.”
Together with Christina “CK” Kerley, David Berkowitz, Alan Wolk, and Paul Soldera, we try to identify what are the best social media tools out there for startups.

Ways to use social media

Tue, 2 Sep 2008 13:06:53 +0200

What are the myriad ways that companies can use social media? Listen to what real experts in the domain of social media have to say.
This video stems from our social media panel which took place Mid June in New York City.
Enjoy watching!

When to rely on social media?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:05:46 +0200

Together with marketing specialists David Berkowitz (www.marketersstudio.com), Christina “CK” Kerley (www.ckEpiphany.com), Paul Soldera (http://insightbydesign.blogspot.com) and Alan Wolk (www.toadstoolblog.com), we discussed the question:
“When is the best time to start using social media?”
When in the life of a startup is the best time to start using social media? Most startups blog very early on, even before they have anything to show. Some start in earnest at funding. Others much later. Are there any best practices around this? If not, any good rules of thumb to follow?
Have fun watching this panel of marketing specialist giving you guidance on a very important topic.

The “new guard” of social media

Tue, 5 Aug 2008 13:03:34 +0200

Especially online startups spend a lot of time on thinking of how to market their products. We discussed this question with four leading marketing specialists in the field of technology startups.
The main topic for our panel discussion is: “How has marketing changed with the 'new guard' of social media…and how hasn't it?”
This question stems from CK’s point that every time a new technology is divined so many hail that every old rule is so over. While, yes, some things have changed—important things—the core principles are as strong as ever.
Have fun watching!

Tech StartUps and Marketing

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:02:29 +0200

At SF’s Web 2.0 Conference, we met Christina “CK” Kerley, a New York based specialist in marketing tech startups with more than 15 years of experience.
Based on the question when technology startups should think about marketing, the idea of a social media panel with leading marketing specialists arose. Mid June, Ralf and Carsten traveled to New York City in order to meet David Berkowitz (www.marketersstudio.com), Christina “CK” Kerley (www.ckEpiphany.com), Paul Soldera (http://insightbydesign.blogspot.com) and Alan Wolk (www.toadstoolblog.com). Together, we recorded a panel series of nine issues around technology startups and marketing.
Today, we want to post our first video with the topic: “When should technology startups be thinking about marketing?”. Have fun watching this video and post the link to other fellows who might be interested.

From backpacking to social networks

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:45:07 +0200

During our stay in Boston, we met with Victoria Ransom and Alain Chuard, co-founders and partners at IncFuel Corporation.

Being backpackers and loving the outdoors, both founded an adventure travel company after following a career in investment banking. After reaching the limit in growing their business, both decided to go for an MBA at Harvard in order to learn more about builiding up big companies. And it worked: during their studies, Victoria and Alain build up two additonal businesses: IncFuel sells the booking software they use for their adventure travel company to other travel companies. WildFire builds an application for promoting business information in social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and opensocial.

In their podcast, Victoria and Alain talk about their experiences in building up their companies and the learnings they took from them. Both have just moved with their companies to the East Coast.

Location: Café at Harvard Square, Boston (MA)

TV goes digital media!

Fri, 4 Jul 2008 10:32:28 +0200

On our last week in the US, we met with Avner Ronen, Co-Founder of BOXEE. Together with a developing community spread around the world, Avner develops a social media center which allows you to bring digital media to the TV.

Before founding BOXEE, Avner gained experience at Odigo, an internet startup which he co-founded in 1998 and successfully sold to Converse in 2002. During his time at Odigo, Avner learned that it is important to not give away control too early and that the customer should included in the development of the product from a very early stage. Consequently, Avner applied these experiences to BOXEE which has just launched its first private beta version on June 16th, 2008.

In our podcast, Avner talks about BOXEE and the learnings he took from his previous company.

Location: BOXEE Headquarters, New York City (NY)

The Evaluation WebSite

Tue, 1 Jul 2008 10:08:07 +0200

Today we met Jonathan Clay on Skype as he is not located in the USA but in the Zurich, Switzerland. He is CEO and founder of Coworkers.com (www.coworkers.com). After his studies at MIT, a couple of years with consulting companies and experiences with founding start ups he came up with the idea for coworkers.com. Coworkers.com gives users the opportunity to evaluate colleagues making evaluations more transparent and comprehensive. In the following podcast Jonathan will share one important learning for entrepreneurs.

Location: Skype

Mr. Serial Entrepreneur

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:05:36 +0200

During our last week in New York City, we had the chance to talk to David Rose. David is apart from others the Chairman of the Board of New York Angels which is the leading angel investment consortium in the New York region. Furthermore he provides capital and management expertise through his venture fund Rose Tech Ventures. In 1998, he is was named on the Inc. 500 as CEO of one of the fastest growing private companies in America. Crain's New York Business saw him as one of the 25 most influential technology executives. In the following podcast David introduces himself more broadly and talks about learnings from his experiences.

Location: New York Angels Headquarters, 30 East 23rd Street, 8th floor, New York City (NY)

climate culture – live smarter.

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:16:58 +0200

Last week we met Tom Scaramellino, Founder and CEO of Climate Culture. After receiving his degree in political philosophy from Harvard, Tom attended law school at Yale. During his studies, he became increasingly interested in climate change and its impact on society. In 2007, he helped found climatevoters.org, a project organized by a leading environmental NGO to make climate change a key topic in the 2008 elections.

At Climate Culture, Tom focuses on building the premier Internet destination for reducing human impact on global warming. While taking the company from concept to a team of over 25 people, he recognized the importance of team and network building. Climate Culture believes that launching with the premier product is crucial in a competitive space.

You can sign up to be notified of Climate Culture’s launch at www.climateculture.com!

PS: We would like to thank the whole Indaba Music Team for providing us with the opportunity to interview entrepreneurs in their music studio.

Back to Germany!

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:09:24 +0200

This morning, we both landed at Frankfurt Airport. We are thankful for all what we have experienced on our road trip through the United States and would like to thank everybody who provided help and/or participated in our study. In New York City, we conducted a series of further very interesting interviews and will update this website shortly. Stay tuned!

The new way of dating and playing

Mon, 9 Jun 2008 06:31:28 +0200

This afternoon we met with Charles Forman. Charles co-founded the IT start-up company Biosocia, in 2006, and created a dating website, I'm In Like With You (www.iminlikewithyou.com), where people post questions to potential dates and then choose a winner. Furthermore a multi-player Tetris-like game called Blockles was recently added to the site.

During his professional career Charles spent a year in Japan and also some time in South Korea where he got exposed to new web concepts. There he also got the idea for today's company. In 2006, back in the US, he applied together with a partner for the Y-Combinator and finally got in. He and his team learnt a lot and they would highly recommend for young entrepreneurs to apply for Y Combinator. Watch the following podcast and see what Charles has to tell us about starting a company.

Location: Biosocia Inc. Headquarters, New York City (NY)

The Pirate's Dilemma

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 00:11:04 +0200

This morning, we met with Matt Mason, author of the book the Pirate's Dilemma (www.thepiratesdilemma.com). The book tells the story of how youth culture drives innovation and is changing the way the world works. It offers understanding and insight for a time when piracy is just another business model, the remix is our most powerful marketing tool and anyone with a computer is capable of reaching more people than a multi-national corporation.

Matt himself started his career at a pirate radio station in London. Later he co-founded the seminal magazine RWD. Just recently he founded the non-profit media company Wedia (www.wedia.tv) which helps volunteer filmmakers and journalist of all kind with non-profits around the globe. In the following podcast Matt will evaluate on how piracy and social capital can have an impact on the business world.

Location: Le Pain Quotidien, 38 East 19th Street, New York City (NJ)

Get started in the world of finance!

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 00:58:06 +0200

Yesterday, we met Michael Reich, Co-Founder and CEO of Updown, a social network for virtual investing. On updown.com, you can create your profile and virtually invest money in actual stocks. The platform is ideal for beginners making their first steps in the field of stock investment, not willing to invest real money at that early stage.
Michael Reich quit his job as a consultant in Germany last year and went to Harvard to pursue his MBA studies. Only after his second week, he got the idea for updown.com and started drafting a product concept and looking for financing. After acquiring business angel money from a German investor, Michael immediately put his studies on hold and now works on further extending the palette of features as well as expanding internationally.
During his time as an entrepreneur, he learned how important it is to pick the right people to form a high class team. Giving up equity to attract A-class people is key. In addition, it is important to think about the distribution of competences within the team so that everybody is involved in the position he or she can bring a maximum level of performance.

Location: Cambridge Incubator, One Broadway, 12th floor, Cambridge (MA)

Learn your language at MyHappyPlanet!

Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:48:24 +0200

Today, we met with Karen Ong, founder and CEO of MyHappyPlanet. MyHappyPlanet applies social networking features to language learning. Karen founded the company last year in parallel to her MBA studies at Harvard University. Instead of taking seed capital by a business angel or venture capitalist, Karen chose to bootstrap and finance the first start up out of her own pockets. Together with a development team in India and Pakistan, Karen took her website www.myhappyplanet.com live beginning of this year. Since then, more than 200,000 users have registered and use the platform to learn languages on a regular basis.
With regard to outsourcing web site development to India and Pakistan, Karen made very positive experiences on the cost side. In addition, she was forced to learn about project management and web site development from ground up rather than leaving it to a local IT expert. With regard to disadvantages, Karen pointed out that the danger of delays of course exists and that she faced problems in finding high quality engineers. However, for a proof of concept, outsourcing the development of the website to India and Pakistan proofed to be the right way. Nowadays, Karen relies on a team mixed with local high-class programmers and an offshore team in order to keep up a fast execution speed.

Are you interested in learning another language? If yes, have a look at www.myhappyplanet.com and sign up today! It’s free!

Location: Cambridge Incubator, One Broadway, 12th floor, Cambridge (MA)

Abroad101 – Welcome abroad!

Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:12:07 +0200

Today, we met with Michael Stone and Mark Lurie from Abroad101 (www.abroad101.com). Abroad101 is an interactive online community for students, parents, and study abroad administrators to foster a safer, well-researched, and more meaningful experience abroad. Michael, Mark and their partner Adam Miller have been friends since their early childhood. During their studies in the Boston area Michael and Mark came up with the idea for Abroad101 independently. Michael for example worked during a course in his last school year on this idea. After their graduation in 2006 and 2007 they decided together to pursue the start up full time. The website is live since last week. Check it out for more information and watch the following podcast what Michael and Mark have to tell us.

Location: Abroad101 Headquarters.

Start small, take baby steps!

Sat, 31 May 2008 00:17:44 +0200

Today we spoke with Amit Sinha, CTO of AirDefense, a 4 year old startup in the field of network security. Amit holds a master and PhD degree in electrical engineering from MIT. After his studies, he directly joined Engim as a co-founder and later CTO. Engim was active in the wireless networking space and targeted the enterprise market with multi-channel broadcasting solutions. However, Amit had to recognize that customers would not only demand Engim’s core product, but also a fully fledged product solution around it. The development of a full system took a lot of resources from Engim and finally led to the company’s bankruptcy in 2005. Shortly after leaving Engim, Amit joined AirDefense and later became CTO. Asked what he would do differently after experiencing what has happened at Engim, Amit answered that instead of taking big steps, he would rather prefer to start with less capital and take baby steps, one at a time. In addition, re-locating the business to the Silicon Valley would also have helped the business. As an advice to young entrepreneurs, Amit would only raise as much as money as is absolutely needed.

Location: Nokia 6110.

Good news for entrepreneurs

Fri, 30 May 2008 01:39:13 +0200

Today we had a phone conversation with Alex Osadzinski, Venture Partner at Trinity Ventures. At Trinity (www.trinityventures.com) Alex focuses on the areas software, communication, network systems and semiconductors. Before starting his professional career Alex gained a degree in computer science from Dulwich College and Bristol University. In his professional career before coming to Trinity in 2001 he had gained operational experience in computer science and software sales, marketing, engineering and general management. He says about himself that he was fortunate to be part of five successful startups that created great products, employment and great value whereas he experienced his limits with his sixth sobering startup. After that he had the chance to join a position as entrepreneur in residence at Trinity and finally converted to a full time position there. He likes to be a venture capital investor as it is firstly mentally very stimulating because of the diversity of startups he is working on and secondly he likes to work with entrepreneurs and teach them based on his experiences.

Alex thinks that it is a perfect time to start a company as there is too much venture capital in the market for too few good startups. He does not see an indication of a bubble as the valuations are high but not as high as before the crash in 2001. Especially for web companies he is very optimistic as Alex expects a shift of advertisement spending from the traditional media to the internet. He advices entrepreneurs to follow their passion if they want to identify a good business idea. Additionally it is very important to think deeply about the problem the company wants to address before thinking about a solution the company can provide. Furthermore entrepreneurs should keep in mind that luck is an important factor for success which is not really influenceable... .

Location: Nokia 6110.

Getting started twice!

Thu, 29 May 2008 01:38:33 +0200

Gopal Krishnan is a very well networked entrepreneur in the Boston area. According to him a well developed and diverse network is very crucial for the success of young companies. After gaining professional experience at Motorola among others he is currently launching two startups which are up to this moment top secret. Listen to the following podcast what Gopal has to share with young entrepreneurs.

Location: Museum of Science, Boston, MA.

Welcome to Boston, MA!

Wed, 28 May 2008 10:54:27 +0200

After more than 3,000 miles and frequent stops on our way from San Francisco, we have finally arrived in Boston, MA. We are very happy that everything went smoothly and safely. Our interview series at the East Coast will last for two weeks and also includes New York City.
Are you an early-stage entrepreneur based in or close to either Boston or New York City? Feel free to send us an e-mail at team@ventureroadtrip.com !

Plug and Play in the Silicon Valley

Fri, 23 May 2008 08:27:25 +0200

This afternoon we were guests at the Plug and Play EXPO 2008 in the Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale. The Plug and Play EXPO was an event where 47 entrepreneurs had the opportunity in 2-minute presentations to pitch their idea, vision and future plans to investors. Most of the companies belonged to the web 2.0 industry but there where also telecom, security, software and media companies. Besides the keynote speeches given by representatives of the sponsoring companies Microsoft and Sun Microsystems there was a company exhibit where investors and other guests had the chance to talk to the entrepreneurs.

The Plug and Play Tech Center (www.plugandplaytechcenter.com) was founded in 2006 by Saeed Amidi to provide a place, support and financing for early stage companies. Since then the center has become home of more the 150 start ups. Apart from space the Plug and Play Tech Center offers valued added services and additionally introduce the companies to the established network of business angels, venture capitalists and mentors. Saeed Amidi has founded his own investment company Amidzad and has built a network with all first tier venture capital firms in the silicon valley. Since the inception more than $450 million in venture capital have been invested in companies located in the Plug and Play Tech Center.

Saeed and his crew have the vision to build many more centers like the existing ones across the US and in countries around the world. Listen to the following podcast and learn more about Saeed and the Plug and Play Tech Center!

Location: Plug and Play Tech Center, 440 N Wolfe Rd., Sunnyvale (CA).

Leaving Microsoft to change the world

Wed, 21 May 2008 23:18:32 +0200

At TieCon 2008, we met with John Wood, founder and CEO of RoomtoRead. After eight years of hard work as an executive at Microsoft, John decided to leave the corporate world to follow his vision of changing the world by providing educational resources to children in third-world countries.
After initially setting up a library for children in a small Himalayan village in Nepal, John quickly expanded RoomtoRead’s operational scope to neighboring countries India and Sri Lanka. The fact that by 2050, 50% of India’s population will face illiteracy shows the underlying need for immediate action and help.
Coming from a corporate background, John knows how to leverage his network and manages his non-profit organization in the same way as he run his business at Microsoft. RoomtoRead received several awards for its transparency in donation spending as well as for the slim administration overhead. 87% of everyone’s donation to RoomtoRead directly reaches a local educational project in one of the organization’s chosen areas of operation, may it be the building of a library, entire school or the sponsoring of school materials for one school child.
In his motivating speech, John pointed out eight success factors which were critical in building up RoomtoRead’s business:

Hire local people: Only if local people are responsible for the building and management of a library or a school, RoomtoRead decides to support the project.
Engage the community: RoomtoRead places special emphasizes on the fact that local people are involved in building the library or school.
Be nimble and act quickly. It is very important to be there where help is needed most. After the tsunami catastrophy in South East Asia in 2004, RoomtoRead set up operations in Sri Lanka within a few months.
Invest heavily in HR.
Invest in monitoring an evaluation. Make your business transparent to your donors and provide key metrics to measure yourself against with at a constant basis.
Have an intense focus on results. John learned from his former boss, Steve Balmer, that “what gets measured, gets done”.
Be super-efficient about donor dollars.
Create a worldwide movement of “super-empowered individuals”.

At the end of his speech, John showed a slide comparing RoomtoRead’s growht to Starbucks as a blue-chip company. Interestingly, RoomtoRead was outperforming the number one coffee shop chain in the USA in a number of distinct growth factors ;-).

For a video on John’s speech, please look at www.tiecon.org ! For more information on RoomtoRead, please look at www.roomtoread.org !

Wikis for the world

Tue, 20 May 2008 08:35:42 +0200

A couple of days ago we met CEO of Wikia, Gil Penchina. Wikia is a community destination supporting the creation and development of wiki communities on any topic people are passionate about. Gil has been an entrepreneur since the age when he was 17. He started a fundraising business for non-profit organizations and later at the age of 19 wrote resumes for college students. After he graduated from University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a degree in industrial engineering he got hired by General Electric. He learnt how big corporations work and what structures they have. Gil said that it is advategeous for entrepreneurs in early stage companies to know how big companies look like as every company wants to grow big. Additionally Gil gained consulting experience with Bain & Company and joined ebay when it had 80 employees. He spent 8 years there. Most of the time he was involved in growing the business internationally. He also started very early investing in start-ups including Linedin and Evite. That would have made him a perfect candidate for any vc company but instead he joined Wikia in 2006 and became its CEO. Listen to what he has to tell by clicking on the podcast!

Location: Wikia Headquarters, San Francisco (CA).

Going east – we are on the road again!

Mon, 19 May 2008 08:30:40 +0200

As part of our venture roadtrip, we left San Francisco and Silicon Valley today and made our way to the East Coast by car. On Wednesday, June 28th, we are scheduled to arrive in Massachusetts.

From May 29th to June 12th, we will continue our interview series with leading entrepreneurs from the Greater Boston and New York City area.

If you want to become part of our venture roadtrip, don’t hesitate to contact us at team@ventureroadtrip.com !

Leveraging a global network of experts

Sun, 18 May 2008 03:23:54 +0200

In Palo Alto, we met with Marta Bulaich, Network Associate from Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ; www.dfj.com). In 2007, DFJ was the most active venture capital company in the world with 94 investments the firm was involved in. Marta told us about the venture capital market in general and her company in particular.

Marta’s job is to foster and widen DFJ's network which is one big success factor for the fund. DFJ's mission is to  find entrepreneurs that will change the world. That's why DFJ tries to pull down barriers and try to establish a global network which helps it to achieve this objective. Tim Draper, the company's managing director, is the driver behind this strategy. He believes in diversifying in different geographic and industry areas. This big network of experts around the globe differentiates DFJ from other venture capital companies as when a question in the company's business comes up there is most likely an expert who can help to find a solution for the problem. This network can be very helpful for DFJ's portfolio companies and therefore these companies can expect very "smart" money...

Express yourself on Gaia Interactive

Thu, 15 May 2008 06:05:11 +0200

Tonight we met with Charles Hudson, Senior Director of Business Development at Gaia Interactive, the fastest growing online hangout for teenager on the web. Charles got his MBA from Stanford University and worked among others before he joined Gaia for Google as a New Business Development Manager.

He is very critical on web 2.0 companies as most of them do not have a proper business model and not all of them will become rich through advertising. Therefore he thinks that it is very crucial to think about a business model from the very first moment. According to Charles after graduation it is the best time to join or found a start up company as the personal development goes much faster as everyone has to take higher responsibilities than in big corporations. If you are interested in learning more about Charles thoughts please watch the following podcast or visit his blog www.charleshudson.net.

PS: If Charles had a $1 million he would rather start a wine bar in the silicon valley than a web 2.0 company...

Location: Red Rock Coffee Shop, 201 Castro Street, Mountain View (CA).

TieCon 2008

Sun, 11 May 2008 22:50:37 +0200

Marking the end of our stay at the Silicon Valley, we attended this year’s TieCon in Santa Clara. Besides an interesting schedule of workshops on the future of the social networking and cleantech space, a number of highly interesting speakers complemented the conference’s agenda.
Peter Thiel, partner at Founder’s Fund, held an interesting speech about entrepreneurs today and their difficulties in finding a niche which allows them to co-exist besides other fellows starting with the same idea. Increasing competition and people starting with the exact same idea at the same time make it hard for entrepreneurs to sustain. Among other key factors of entrepreneurial success, Peter especially pointed out the importance of an all-encompassing entrepreneurial mindset among all members of the founding team. For him as an investor, a team has to show on the one hand a certain open-mindedness to think out of the box, and on the other hand has to solve stubbornness in order to deal with arising unexpected problems.
Personality of the founders as a key investment criterion was also a hot topic at a subsequent session on the trials of starting a business. The chemistry and complementary skill set among the founders is of high importance. In addition, members of the panel discussion showed agreement that the majority of startups should not be venture-funded. Venture funds are normally structured in 10 year cycles which does normally not fit the development cycle of a startup. With VC funding, firms have to grow at an unnatural rate and show faint signs of revenues at a very early stage. This creates pressure on the founding team at a very early stage and might lead to not short-sighted business decision. For further information and a discussion forum on venture-backed startup financing, Jeff Claver, VC at SoftTech, recommended www.venturehacks.com !
Finally, Chris Anderson, chief editor of WIRED, spoke about the internet as the perfect free distribution system for all niches of products. Referring back to Gilette initially giving away free razors in order to introduce the concept of disposability, he drew an outlook on the distribution opportunities which the internet offers. Drawing on the “freemium” concept, Chris is of the opinion that “everything will be free or have a free part in the future”. Some information wants to be free, and some other information wants to be really expensive. Web entrepreneurs will have to learn to give 99% of their content away for free and to charge the 1% of their customers who are really interested and find value in the information provided.

All speeches can be viewed online at www.tiecon.org !

Location: Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara (CA)

How pancakes can ease deal flow!

Fri, 9 May 2008 23:41:21 +0200

Yesterday, we met Martin Eberhard, founder of Tesla Motors at his favorite restaurant: Buck’s of Woodside. After the interview, we had a chance to talk to Jamis MacNiven, the owner of Silicon Valley’s restaurant with the highest deal flow.
Jamis told us many interesting stories about companies like 3Com, Netscape, PayPal and Tesla Motors, who have started negotiating with investors at this popular place. Some entrepreneurs even turned the restaurant tables in their day office space. Jamis says: “I have nothing against somebody staying here all day.” Asked whether he would not also deserve a share in every investment decision which is done at his place, he responds: “Well, people enjoy food or drinks over their talks and by that way, I always get a piece of the cake.” In his podcast, Jamis introduces Buck’s of Woodside and his experience in the last 15 years.
Have a look and don’t forget to stop by Buck’s Woodside in case you are in the area.

Location: Buck’s of Woodside, 3062 Woodside Rd., Woodside (CA)

Revolutionizing online video

Thu, 8 May 2008 23:50:34 +0200

This week, we met with Ori Cohen, CEO of Skyrider, an online video company which enables video content owners and publishers to maximize the distribution potential of their content at no cost.
Ori is a technology pioneer, leading innovation in the telecom and video arenas. Prior to founding Skyrider, Ori founded Narus, a global leader in software and technology for the telecom industry and government agencies. Ori had previously served as Vice President of Business and Technology Development for VDOnet, an early leader in internet video. Additionally, Ori served as Chief Executive Officer for IntelliCom Ltd. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Imperial College in London, U.K. .
During his time working at StartUps, Ori recognized the value of culture and its importance in building a company. At Skyrider, he especially pays attention at not compromising on hiring and involving the whole team in important decisions. From his experience, he learned that “people look at the CEO and his core values.” Consequently, it is important to keep the decision-making process open and transparent and communicate everything. In addition, it is important to drive the business as an CEO in order to retain core people in the team: “People don’t leave for money, in order to retain them they have to be challenged constantly.”
Skyrider launches its services this summer. Be sure to keep up to date on the product launch and sign up on www.skyrider.com !

Location: Skyrider HQ, Mountain View (CA)

Soonr - not later!

Thu, 8 May 2008 09:42:47 +0200

This week, we met with Martin Frid-Nielsen, Founder and Chief Product Officer at soonr, a company providing mobile data access by using the power of the cloud.
Martin is responsible for setting direction for all dimensions of the product strategy including operations, functionality and user experience. He brings extensive start-up and larger company experience to Soonr. He spent 3 years in various executive positions at enterprise software provider Merant including VP of Development, and was actively involved in selling the company to Serena for about $400 million in 2004. Prior to joining Merant through an acquisition, Martin was at NetObjects for over six years, where he was the VP of R&D since founding and through its IPO in 1999, he was instrumental in defining and creating the company's leading web-authoring product NetObjects Fusion. He was also a principal of Hilltop Software Technologies, a provider of pre-internet communication applications and consulting services. Prior to that, Martin spent ten years at Borland International in senior engineering and program management positions. Martin is a named inventor on four (4) U.S. Patents related to data synchronization and web authoring technologies.
Asked about his learnings as an entrepreneur, Martin differentiates between two essentials way of building up a company. Either an entrepreneur chooses to dance by initially deciding upon one target segment and adjust the company’s strategy on the way on. Alternatively, an entrepreneur might also choose to gamble and get engaged in multiple market segments with multiple products. Both ways show their distinct advantages and disadvantages, rather it’s a question of personality which one suits you best.
During his time as an entrepreneur, Martin had to learn who hard it to is to change decision which seemed to be of tiny importance back at the time when they were made. Nowadays, Martin spends much more importance on such key issues, driving the focus of his company.

Get your data soonr than later at www.soonr.com !

Location: Starbucks Sand Hill Road, Palo Alto (CA)

Success is the management of failure

Wed, 7 May 2008 09:24:06 +0200

Yesterday, I met with Kamran Elahian, Chairman and Co-Founder of Global Catalyst Partners based in Redwood City (CA). Before co-founding GCP, Kamran gathered experience as an entrepreneur in no less than 10 ventures. In a very inspiring podcast, Kamran talks about his learnings as an entrepreneur as well as his view on the goals in life.

After graduating from the University of Utah with a master's degree in computer graphics, Kamran first joined HP as a design automation software engineer. In parallel, he also enrolled for a Stanford University course in Integrated Circuit design. After failing to build a chip that works, Kamran approached his boss at HP with the request to lead a project to create design automation software for chips. Being rejected by his boss, Kamran decided to aim for the entrepreneurial freedom and founded his first company, CAE Systems, together with four colleagues in 1981. After three years, Kamran sold the company for $75m - his entrepreneurial carrer had started.

In 1984, Kamran co-founded Cirrus Logic which was went public with $150m in market capitalization after 5 years. The tremendous success in building his first two companies was followed by a failure in building and growing Momenta, Kamran's third venture in the field of pen-based computing. After 3 years of struggle, Kamran finally had to leave his own company and decided to travel the world. On his travels, Kamran recognized many similarities between the different countries and people he visited.

Shortly after returning to the United States, Kamran decided to use technology as mean to bring people together and co-founded NeoMagic, a company in the field of multimedia semiconductor which went public with an IPO of $300m after 4 years. At this point, Kamran decided to not only focus on a single company, but to become a polygamous investor and advisor. In 1996, Kamran co-founded planet web, linking the world of video games with the internet. In parallel, Kamran initiated SchoolsOnline as his first philantrophic investment to bring the internet to classrooms in developing countries. One year later, Kamran co-founded Centillium Communications, a company providing broadband solutions which successfully went public in 1997. In 1999, Kamran co-founded Global Catalyst Partners, a venture capital firm focusing on technology investment with a global focus. Since then, he co-founded Actelis, Cahoots as well as Kangaroonet as well as serves on the boards of Beceem Communications, Ikoa, Melodis, and Yoomba.

Being asked about his learnings as an entrepreneur, Kamran defines success as the management of failures. Rather than avoiding them, an entrepreneur should celebrate her/his mistakes and see them as an excellent learning opportunity. The license plate at Kamran's car today still reminds him of the company with which he failed the most: Momenta. Kamran bases his actions upon three distinct pillars:

1. It's not just about creating a company but to use technology to promote peace among people: make use of technology to bring people closer together.

2. Support global companies with a truly global mindset: use business to create peace.

3. Donate your money and only use a part for yourself.

Being asked on how he personally measures success, Kamran responds in the podcast: "The richest person is the one who has the fewest needs." He continues that it is important to stay grounded as an entrepreneur in business life as well as a human being in private life. In addition, it is important to always look for the challenge and think different. "The way you look at things has a lot to do with your success", says Kamran. Happiness comes from making your dreams come true. Success will then follow automatically.

Location: Global Catalyst Partners HQ, Redwood City (CA)

The World of Crowdsourcing

Tue, 6 May 2008 09:30:32 +0200

On our roadtrip to San Diego, we met Anil Rathi, President and CEO of IdeaCrossing, an internet platform using the wisdom of crowds in order to generate high quality ideas for its clients.
Already at the very young age of 13, Anil started calling big companies like Sony and IBM from his home and suggested new products and cool enhancing features to their existing products to them. At that time, he got rejected many times but never gave up in communicating his ideas. A few years later, he took the challenge and started developing a miniature scan pen which he thought would eventually allow IBM to gain market share in the educational sector, in his garage at home. However, Anil could not complete the prototype in time. Again a few years later, Anil gathered experienced as part of a software startup in Chicago.
During his MBA at Thunderbird, Anil got in touch with organizing an idea competition for big companies and liked the idea of student teams competing against each other for the best idea. Anil recognized the business potential behind it and subsequently founded IdeaCrossing, a company which has so far organized more than 13 idea challenges across the globe.
In the future, Anil plans to expand the service offerings which will allow users to host their own idea competitions online. Listen to Anil’s podcast and get to know more about it!

Location: Kings Road Café, 8631 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles (CA)

I am still learning

Mon, 5 May 2008 09:35:51 +0200

On Tuesday, we met with Samba Murthy, serial entrepreneur and currently actively involved as an active advisor in several entrepreneurial ventures.
Following his studies in the field of engineering, Samba started working in corporate environments at BHEL and SEEQ. Through work at a small startup, Samba learned to value the freedom as an entrepreneur and strived for founding his own company.
As a product marketing manager at SEEQ, Samba developed the programming solutions and application notes for Flash memory chips. The chance to gather experience as an entrepreneur came few years later with XaQti, a company in the semiconductor industry. Along with his colleagues, Samba was among the first to release a commercial Gigabit Ethernet network processor.
By building and growing his business, Samba learned a lot of lessons which are briefly summarized as follows. As a summary, Samba mentions that, as an entrepreneur, you are always in a learning process and never stop to educate yourself about new matters.

As an entrepreneur, you have to have the ability to convince someone to follow you.
You should have domain expertise and provide leadership for your team.
Build up your ecosystem. There is no way to develop markets without passion.
Pay a lot of attention to failures as they might be a fruitful source of new ideas.
Think of it from the end user perspective. Listen to the customer but take into account the short-termness of customer thinking.
Focus. Be simple.
Accept the existing standards and try to co-exist. You cannot make the market.
“My way or highway” does not work. You cannot convince people to bet on your technology without recourse.
It is really about networking.
Show willingness to change your decision. Be flexible.

Listen to Samba’s entrepreneurial message in his podcast.

Location: Coffee Society, 21265 Stevens Creek Blvd, Cupertino (CA)

A startup for startups!

Sun, 4 May 2008 09:23:52 +0200

On Wednesday, we had the chance to interview David Li, CEO and co-founder of TradeVibes, a platform which allows you to discover, find, and share opinions about hot and new startups.
David holds a MBA from the Graduate School of Business from Stanford and a B.A. with honors in Economics from Stanford University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
Prior to founding TradeVibes, David worked at PayPal, Netscape/AOL as well as a consultant for Mercer Management Consulting. At PayPal, David also got to know his four co-founders with whom he jointly started TradeVibes in early 2007.
In his podcast, David introduces TradeVibes and invites you to join on www.tradevibes.com !

Location: TradeVibes HQ, Mountain View (CA)

Sailing with the right wind!

Sun, 4 May 2008 03:34:42 +0200

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, we went sailing in the Bay and had a great time together. Being at a steering wheel of our beautiful boat, I realized similarities between a sailor and an entrepreneur.
If the winds are strong and in your favor, it is comparably easy to sail in the direction you want and use the momentum which the wind offers you as an opportunity. Strong winds made force you to still take a zig-zag route – however, the general direction is set by the origin of the winds. Similarly in the life of an entrepreneur, once you are on the wave, one event catches the other and business grows quickly. You might make mistakes in your path in developing the business, but if you operate in a growing and positive market, you should not face too many problems to grow as a company.
However, there are also times where there is less wind or, even worse, no wind at all. As a sailor, even technical assistance through GPS and AutoPilot does not help much. You have to rely on your own intuition and eye judgment on how long it takes till you can catch the next gust of wind. If there is no wind at all, only a motor might make you and your boat move forward.
In the life of an entrepreneur, these periods of low winds exist as well. May it be an economic downturn or a lack of customer traction, entrepreneurs go through the same struggle. In these moments, it is very important to keep the passion for the idea up and adjust according to the situation. Friends and family can be a useful “motor” to keep an entrepreneur moving forward in these hard times.
As a sailor, you might also sometimes face obstacles like rocks or icebergs which force you to alter your original course and sail around them. Similarly, an entrepreneur also regularly faces critics and objective reasons which leads him to change directions.
Finally, a sailor has to recognize when he has to strike the sails in order to navigate safely into the harbor. In any other case, she/he will miss the exit and pass the safe dock. In parallel, an entrepreneur has to recognize when it is time to step back from the business or to sell it in order to move on and not loose momentum.

Location: San Francisco Bay (CA) and San Diego.

Capzles - Social Storytelling

Sat, 3 May 2008 08:56:39 +0200

Yesterday, we met Chris Anderson, co-founder and ceo of Capzles (www.capzles.com), at the Rose Café in the beautiful town of Venice Beach close to Los Angeles. The idea of Capzles is to tell a story using linear, time-based, layouts of media, including photos, videos, audio, blog entries. The user can for example structure his or her content about vacations, trips and a product history on Capzles and present that content to other people. Chris has always been keen on working on design issues. He gained experience as a product manager and a consultant with various companies and founded a consultancy in the hard days after the after the crash in 2001. When his parents asked him to digitize old pictures in late 2005, he came up with the idea for Capzles to organize those pictures in a chronological order.

He has had hard times since then as he continued on working for his employer Fox Interactive till December 2007. That meant working during the day as an employee to earn money and at night as an entrepreneur to bring his business forward. Chris could gain a couple of good programmers for his team so that Capzles did not have to invest a lot of money for the sophisticated flash animations. He advises young entrepreneurs to think about monetization strategies early as this should be the objective of each business to achieve profitability some day. Further more according to Chris it is very crucial to develop good communication skills. Especially entrepreneurs have to interact with various stakeholders as customers, investors, suppliers etc. It is important always to ask oneself what information the other party is looking for.

For more information on Capzles and Chris check out the following podcast and it is definitely worth to have a look at the website and participate in the public beta.

Location: Rose Café, 220 Rose Ave, Venice Beach (CA)

Link your phone to the internet

Thu, 1 May 2008 09:12:19 +0200

On Wednesday, we met with Touraj Parang from jaxtr, the world's largest social communications company. It was launched by Touraj and Phillip Mobin in March 2007 and has rapidly gained a user basis of 10 million people in 220 countries. Jaxtr links your phone to the web, so you can hear from callers worldwide while keeping your existing phone number private.

Touraj gained a lot of experiences in his earlier jobs with social communities while his colleague was experienced in the telephony world. They wanted to bring these two worlds together and finally came up with jaxtr which uses the internet for making phone calls. Jaxtr went the traditional funding path. First, the two founders took money from friends and family, then, secondly, from business angels and, thirdly, from venture capitalists. Touraj said that the business angels and a group other advisors were very important for the company's development. For example the today's CEO Konstantin Guericke first was a mentor to the two founders for the first year and then became the CEO of the company. It was a good chance for the whole team to got to know each other. Listen to the following podcast ans learn more from Touraj's experiences.

Market, Team, and Technology!

Thu, 1 May 2008 09:11:17 +0200

On Wednesday, we met with Ryan Junee, CEO and co-founder of Omnisio, a recently launched online video sharing platform based in Palo Alto (CA).
After moving from Sydney, Australia for his masters degree in engineering at Stanford, Ryan first worked in the telecommunications industry at Telstra as well as at Sensory Networks in the networks and security space.
Together with friends from college and back home in Sydney, Ryan co-founded Omnisio in October 2007.
In his podcast, Ryan talks about the market, team, and technology as the three key success factors in the field of idea generation. While the team and technology can be easily managed and influenced, the market is the hardest point to deal with in his opinion. Listen to Ryan’s podcast and have a look at Omnisio’s WebSite.

Location: Coupa Café, 538 Ramona St, Palo Alto (CA)

Socialize with socializr!

Thu, 1 May 2008 06:33:31 +0200

This afternoon we met at the socializr headquarters in San Francisco with Jonathan Abrams. He is the CEO and founder of the company although his business card says: Jonathan Abrams - Junior Computer Programmer. This entrepreneur has a good sense of humour. Socializr (www.socializr.com) is a free web service for sharing event and party information with friends.

Jonathan showed us a couple of critical thoughts about the business landscape in California we have not heard before. He said that it is not necessarily an advantage being in the silicon valley as people get easily distracted by the events and the networking culture and do not concentrate on the substantial business things. Furthermore according to Jonathan it might be easier to find good programmers in other regions of the world where competition is not as fierce as in California.

Jonathan, a Canadian citizen, got inspired by the silicon valley in the late nineties when he joined Netscape. He has experienced ups and downs of since then, got laid off, started with friendster one of the first social networks, raised millions of venture capital... Jonathan came up with four learning which can be very helpful for young entrepreneurs:

1. Control: Keep control over the company as long as possible. That gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to build the product and the company in the way they want it to be.
2. Product: Focus all your energy on the product and the technology as it is the core of the company.
3. Patience: Do not grow to fast as it is sometimes wiser to think intensively about the development of the company.
4. Passion: Prefer candidates who are passionate about the product and the company to candidates who have an outstanding resume.

After bringing socializr to success Jonathan can imagine producing reality TV shows or becoming a book writer. We are sure that his entrepreneurial experiences would be interesting to read about in more detail...

Location: socializr hq, San Francisco (CA)

What is a “Frienemy”?

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:09:15 +0200

Have you ever been annoyed by the fragmented and intransparent world of hotel bookings? So have Adam Healey and Charles Seilheimer who founded VibeAgent in early 2006 to help people make more informed hotel booking decisions. Since then the company has recruited a small but talented team to help realize its vision. We met with them today to talk about their story and about the interesting phenomenon which they call “frenemy”.

Adam and Charles started from their own passion for travelling and bootstrapped their company until they found a business angel with a background in the industry to commit to their business. Now VibeAgent.com has become a new online resource for travelers to research and book hotel accommodations. It is the first site that combines user-generated hotel reviews, meta-search, and social networking to provide its users with free personalized hotel recommendations and booking at the best available rates. VibeAgent's meta-search engine assembles rates and availability for more than 120,000 hotels worldwide from leading sites and providers. Although the company has invested a lot of manpower into the algorithm, in the founders’ view it is all about execution in the end: “When you are afraid of competitors stealing your idea, you are probably focusing on the wrong thing”.

Currently, VibeAgent has started working closely together with Facebook, having launched the Facebook application “JetSetter” just recently. Facebook has already become the third-largest traffic generator, demonstrating again the influence of the social communities on the web in general and on many other business models. In operational terms the big topic for VibeAgent is currently the issue of “partnering”, in a way both internally and externally. Adam and Charles spend 25% of their time on recruiting, having created a strong team of 14 people out of which 11 work on the technology side. In the market they have formed 30 partnerships up to now which are based on success-based fees. Looking ahead they do not see a web3.0 on the horizon: “There is no 3.0, there is just the web”. In their view, it is necessary to understand that the online market place demands a thorough understanding of an empowered consumer who has become an active player in something that we could call the “democratization of markets”.

Location: Darden Business School, University of Virginia

Finding the best location for your business

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:34:21 +0200

Today, we met Peter Olfe, President and Founder of Yojo mobile, a location- and time-sensitive mobile service provider based in San Francisco.
Yojo started its operations in late 2005 and got popular with MizPee, a mobile app which allows you to find the nearest bathroom to your current location. But not only that: you may also rate the cleanliness of the location and suggest improvements.
Currently, Yojo works on the release of additional mobile products in the field of child care. Stay tuned for updates and check out Yojo’s services on www.yojomobile.com !

Location: Yojo HQ, San Francisco (CA)

5-Legs to success!

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:34:14 +0200

Today, we met Henry Wong, serial entrepreneur and Venture Partner at Garage Technology Ventures in Palo Alto, CA.
Henry has founded 5 companies so far. A seasoned angel investor and entrepreneur, he has succeeded as the founder, chairman & CEO of SS8 Networks Inc., a world class startup with major R&D operations in Beijing and Ottawa; which in 2002 merged with the Enhanced Service Division of ADC Telecom (Nasdaq: ADCT). Henry was also the co-founder of IP Communications, a VoIP Gateway startup which was acquired by RampNet, now a division of Nokia (Nasdaq NOK). He was also the co-founder, chairman, president & CEO of XaQti Corporation, which merged with Vitesse Semiconductor (a S&P 500, Nasdaq VTSS), and was the co-founder of CNet Technology Inc., now a multi-million dollar public network hardware company. In 1988 he founded Combinet (ISDN Systems), which was sold to Cisco Systems (Nasdaq CSCO) in a pooling of interest stock swap valued at $165 million.
In our interview, Henry introduced us to the five legs table, a framework which he uses to evaluate startup teams. In order for a new startup to be stable, these 5-Legs will help to substantiate the stability of a newly formed business. This addresses the key points in a business plan for a VC Funded deal here in Silicon Valley.

Market Size

Can you reach your market potential? What is your market size using the Total Available Market (TAM) and Specific Available Market (SAM) share measurement method? Is it applicable to your products & services? We are interested in projects that can reach large market potential.

Technology and Your Barrier-to-Entry

Is your technology a leading edge technology with high barriers to market entry because of a unique patentable technology? Can someone pick up your business plan and re-create the same company elsewhere in the world? What is your Product Roadmap and Development Plans? Competitive Matrix? SWOT Analysis?

Team

Is your team a cohesive and experienced team with a deep understanding of their technology and market? Have you sweat together as a team before? Or just college roommate? Do you have P&L experience?

Customers

You have access to customers who could help to reach your market potential. Can you differentiate yourself in the competitive landscape of the market? Who are your customers? Please provide a Sales Forecast with potential product sales, number of units and how much? Would you customers answer my call in the Due Diligence test?

Network Connections

It is often said that to be successful, "it's not what you know, but who you know." Remember the “Old-Boys-Network”? The connection that guides you directly to your target, bypassing all the usual courting appointments. It is not only “Who-You-Know” and why they can help you, but what is the difference in your relationships to make your company successful in this dynamic market?

With educated guesstimates, technological know-how, calculated risks, mathematically sound modeling, and the right connections, these all summarize into a higher probability of being successful.

Location: 360 Bryant St., Suite 100, Palo Alto (CA)

Introducing: The Angel Capital Expo

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 03:32:11 +0200

Today, we had the great opportunity to attend the Keiretsu Angel Capital Expo. Angel Capital Expo is a premier gathering of the angel capital community. The Expo is a recurring event across the United States and internationally; bringing together investors and entrepreneurs looking for funding. Angel Capital Expo is organized by Keiretsu Forum, the largest North American angel investment network, and was created to foster collaboration among angel groups, as well as reach out to the larger investment community.

In the following podcast the founder and CEO of the Keiretsu Forum Randy Williams will explain more about the angel network, the Angel Capital Expo and gives reasons why it Keiretsu is a very valuable network for entrepreneurs seeking funding.

Location: PG&E Auditorium, San Francisco (CA)

RockYou rocks!

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:33:42 +0200

Yesterday, we met Ro Choy, VP Business Development, of RockYou, one of the hottest social community app providers out there.
RockYou currently has more than 70m unique users and an amazing 2bn page impressions. Initially starting with a slideshow app on Facebook, the company now offers with Superwall a wide variety of cool plug-ins on all common social network platforms.
Ro provided us with insights on how he build the business from a handful employees to nowadays 37 people. In addition, he emphasized how important it is to execute and not wait too long to release your product - make mistakes and learn from it. Finally, he pointed out the importance of blogs nowadays. Personally, he subscribed to more than 75 feeds and skims roughly 500 messages a day which are critical in decision-making.

Location: Web 2.0 Expo, San Francisco (CA)

Web 2.0 Expo Highlights

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:25:43 +0200

Today, the annual Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco opened its doors to the public. Among the vast amount of exhibitors, we picked four hot startups for you.
Michel Chioini introduces inpowr, a web service which allows you to quickly and easily explore your well-being and measure the progress you make as you pursue your goals. Give it a try and set up your account on www.inpowr.com !
Next, Stephen Rouse presents igloo, a social productivity software which allows small and medium sized enterprises to easily create their own social community within the boundaries of their company. The service is easy to use and includes a lot of enhanced features. If you are interested, go to www.igloosoftware.com for a free test version.
Subsequently, Kevin Merritt, President and CEO of blist, gives a brief introduction into his easy-to-use web-based database management software. blist was launched in January and received a lot of press coverage lately. Ready to set up your own account? Then, go to www.blist.com.
Finally, Greg Spindler invites you to open a circle and use his service to collaborate with your project team members online. OpenaCircle provides you with everything you need to share documents, chat, and make a conference call online. If you want to be among the first ones to set up a circle, go to www.openacircle.com !
Have fun watching our podcast and be sure to stay tuned for further news on hot startups in the Valley and beyond!

Location: Moscone West, San Francisco (CA)