Posts tagged ‘Startup company’

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May 12, 2013

SI2013 – Speaker Profile – John Sechrest

johnsechrest_headshotI got connected to John through Kristjan Freyr Kristjanson, CEO of Innovit+Klak and who runs Startup Weekend in Iceland. I had always felt that what we lacked in Iceland was broader participation of investors and mentors in the Startup community. John has been solving that problem in Seattle and in the greater Washington state. I am excited to hear about how he has been able to get new Angels to invest into the startup companies. I am also really excited by the philosophy that John has put into practice through his Seattle Angels Network. Startup companies need a lot of due diligence and investors need to play a role in actually helping the startup get off the ground. I believe strongly that Investor group has to work as hard as the Entrepreneur to make the startup a success. I have been writing about Brad Feld, Brad Burnham and Fred Wilson, in my opinion the successful venture investors work much harder than any entrepreneur I know. Check out the documentary “Something Ventured“, it is obvious how much effort the early VCs started to invest much like Angel investors and how much effort they put into each of the companies that they invested in. I think the advent of the Investment Management profession has killed the spirit of each and everyone to become an investor and entrepreneur. I think we have some really smart people working in the Investment management and Asset management business but I don’t think Investment is something that we should outsource. By getting involved with early stage companies with the partnership of experienced angel investors and investor mentors I believe anyone and everyone can invest in Startups and be successful. Don’t believe the fear mongering that your Financial Advisor gives you, Risk is misunderstood consistently by everyone so Investment or Fund managers are no different or better than any of us.

Anyways, I have digressed enough. The post was about John, John Sechrest is the founder of the Seattle Angel Conference and the Willamette Angel Conference, each providing a venue for new angel investors to explore the process. He is a co-organizer of the Lean Startup Seattle, helping entrepreneurs get focused on stronger company processes. As a global facilitator for Startup Weekend, he has worked with several communities take a step forward on entrepreneurial ecosystem development. The motivation to get John to visit Iceland and participate in Startup Iceland is to bring some knowledge on how we can create an Effective Angel Investor community here. I want to expand on the idea that John and other successful Angels have created. Maybe we will launch as I had wrote about before an Accelerator for Investors so young and new investors can get started early and participate in building an Antifragile Startup Community in Iceland.

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April 9, 2013

Iceland Seafood Cluster

I have been writing a lot about Entrepreneurship and Startups, but I am not a big fan of the Cluster concept primarily because getting sjavarklasinn-70established companies to be Entrepreneurial is very hard because they look at different metrics and the incentive for the established companies to participate in Cluster building is a long term game, however established companies are relatively short term focused because they are trying to increase their yield on invested capital by getting more efficient on the operation, sales etc. On the other hand a startup in the same sector is more or less not too focused on efficiency, they are trying to exploit a weakness or a problem in the existing solutions, therein lies the challenge. It would take visionary leaders in established companies to harness, foster and encourage the building of a ecosystem around the sector that their companies are built in. This is exactly what Dr.Thor Sigfusson has done with his startup/project Seafood Cluster a.k.a Sjávarklasinn in Icelandic. thor_sigfusson-145It is fascinating to see how he has convinced established companies in the Seafood sector and new emerging companies to co-located in a building in harbor of Reykjavik. He has ambitious plans to expand the facility to allow more startups and established companies to have meetup spaces. It was exciting for me to watch this because Seafood is the sector that is as traditional as they come, we are talking about really established fishermen looking into working with young new startups, mentoring them and seeing if they can improve the established methods using new technology.

There is a wealth of information and reports around the concept, I have not read all the reports but I believe this is something that I believe can work. I like the idea and the execution of the fact that if you put new companies and established companies near each other and once they start talking magic usually happens. In addition, the same location has some support services like legal, marketing and publishing etc Think of this as an Accelerator for a startup in the Seafood Sector. I think the missing piece is what typical accelerators do which is a 3 month bootcamp like environment that basically focuses on the validation of the new startups and also getting investors to be part of the project. I think Dr.Thor Sigfusson has already done that because the Seafood sector or the Fishermen are the richest cohort in Iceland and they are starting to see the value of having such a place and are investing in this.

We have invited Dr.Thor Sigfusson to be a Speaker in Startup Iceland 2013, I think this concept needs to be communicated in the Startup Iceland platform, and he has agreed to do that. In addition, it would be interesting to learn from his talk what were the challenges, opportunities and road block that he had to cross to get this project off the ground. If you are interested you should definitely buy the tickets soon as they tend to run out fast.

Posted in 2013, Accelerator, Conference, Entrepreneurship, Execute, Investing, Philosophy, Speaker Profile, Startup Community, Startup Profile, Sustainability | 1 Comment »

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March 4, 2013

Startup Risk

Cover of "Fooled by Randomness: The Hidde...

Cover via Amazon

I usually get really worked up when I am speaking with some employees in a bank about Startups and Entrepreneurship, they immediately say that it is Risky. I always ask them could they please tell me why they believe Startups are risky? Their usual answer is well 90% of all startups fail, which is anecdotal evidence because there is no way anyone has documented all the startups in the world and calculated the failure rates. I have written a lot about how we as humans are wired to be fooled by statistics and we just underestimate the risks associated with many things. What is even fascinating is that those same people from the bank were still working in the bank when the entire financial system in Iceland collapsed. I think banks are bigger risks than startups, atleast with Startups you know the risk of failure will only wipe out what you invested, whereas with Banks it can wipe out the entire equity base of Iceland. No wonder, Warren Buffett called Banks sit of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The risk on banks are exasperated by leverage, were as Startups run on equity which means what you put in is what you loose if the company goes under. Typically Startups that I have been pounding the table on require very little capital to validate, build a Minimum Viable Product and get market traction.

I have written about the books that really changed my perspective on Risks and I have Nasim Nicholas Taleb to thank for. I listen to audio books all the time and I think this is the 100th time that I am listening to his classic book “Fooled By Randomness“. There are so many pearls of wisdom in that book that I discover something new every time I listen to it. The only positive aspect of risk taking is in the Startup world because a black swan event ie. the chance of finding a Google or Facebook or Twitter or Amazon is very low but when it does happen it usually results in such a positive impact I don’t know why not everyone invest a small portion of their investment egg in this asset class. The monstrous returns that are possible can only be achieved if one takes enough bets but the size of the bets are usually very small and thats the point of doing this.

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February 23, 2013

Startup Iceland 2013 – Platform to present your Startup

GreenQloud Booth – Career Day Reykjavik University

We had our planning meeting yesterday and Stefan suggested that we should have the startups from Iceland and around the world come and setup a booth during the Hackathon and UNConference event. We all thought that it would be a great idea so we are going to market and allow Startups from Iceland and all over to setup a booth space. This would be a perfect setting where more than 350 people who are interested in Startups, Entrepreneurship and Startup Communities will be present and a great audience to present one’s startup idea
pitch.

Remake Electric – UTMessan 2013

I have felt that it is a great way for people who are starting up to tell a story about their vision. The original idea was to give a 5 min slot to a handful of startups to present during the conference, which is too short a time and does not give enough depth to a startup and the audience will not have time to absorb why they should be interested in the company. So we are calling all startups to contact us by sending an email to booth at startupiceland dot com and reserve your space. This is a perfect opportunity to practice your pitch and who knows maybe you will find your angel investor. Let us know what you think of the idea as well.

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November 10, 2012

StartupVille

I am a big fan of the Kaufmann Sketch series and this is the latest one about building Startup Ecosystems. For those of you who have been reading my blog for more than a year now know that I am committed to building a sustainable and resilient startup ecosystem in Iceland. The above video says it all, Brad Feld has documented it in his book Startup Communities, as he says it is not going to happen in the next year or the year after or the year after that. It is going to take time. I wanted to bring attention to another video by Steve Blank, on the Secret of Silicon Valley… it actually describes what really created Silicon Valley. I am not for once trying to suggest that we need to follow that path, but every crisis is an opportunity and I want to really take this opportunity and create something that is tangible that we can look back to and teach out future generations about Creativity and Mastery, not consumption and destruction. I believe Iceland has a fantastic opportunity to make it right, do things right and invest in the right things. However, it is not going to happen if we loose sight of the road map as described in the above video. Here is the Secret History of Silicon Valley:

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September 7, 2012

What does it mean to Execute?

I was very impressed with the blog post by Ben Kaufman titled “What Raising Money Means to Me“. I believe personal stories tied to the ups and downs of building a business are always fascinating to read. Ben is young, went through the Paul Graham’s Startup Curve and I believe has had his awakening. You can see it in his passion and language

quirky.com About Team

My grandfather called me to congratulate me on building a successful company. We still hadn’t done shit. We just got some dude to write a check.

Things I have learned from closing rounds & announcing funding:

  1. Be bigger than your round: If the press is only writing about how much money you raised, it’s because you haven’t done anything bigger. That’s on you and your team. Work your ass off to make sure the money is not the news. You should be really fucking uncomfortable if the money you raised overshadows the work you’ve done. It scares the shit out of me every night. Still does. Don’t rest on your round. Fight your round, be bigger than it. Make people forget that time you raised money.
  2. Lead through it: The way you carry yourself through the announcement of a financing has a huge effect on your team and community. If you pretend it’s the coolest biggest deal in the world- they will too. Suddenly, all the hard work they are putting into launching a new product is out-shined by the fact that you got someone to write a check. As some illusion of success is felt, the collective level of hustle will naturally wane.
  3. Be insecure: When I sign a term-sheet, I get angry and uncomfortable. “Shit, ok no excuses anymore–I gotta do this.” There is an immense sense of responsibility. Let your team feel your stress, your angst, your hunger. The passion of all around you will go through the roof. People won’t just throw money at problems, they’ll work with the same scrappiness and drive that got you this far. You don’t have to pretend you’re a big fucking deal. You’re not (yet). Be insecure.
  4. Congratulations: Don’t congratulate people for raising money. That was never the goal. The goal is building a successful and meaningful business. When people raise money, instead of congratulating them, wish them luck. Their work is just getting started.Congratulating people for financing perpetuates a problem that has plagued the startup world. The problem is that that it’s easy to focus on the hype surrounding a company, and lose sight of the fundamentals. This is why our industry is flooded with what I call “startup fuckers.” These are people whose only ambition in life is to raise money, and then sell their company. They have no real interest in building a meaningful and enduring business. If we let startup fuckers dominate, we all lose. Read TechCrunch and any other “deal blog” and you’ll see countless companies boasting about how much money they’ve raised and how great they are as a result. It’s bullshit. They’ve done nothing (yet). Don’t fall into the trap of congratulating them. This is my favorite startup quote of all time (although I don’t know who said it): “Congratulating an entrepreneur for raising money is like congratulating a chef for buying the ingredients.” That says it all.
  5. Put your ass on the line. Lay out clear goals for your users and staff as to what you hope to achieve with this round of funding: why you’ve raised the money, what you’ll do with it, and how the collective performance of everyone involved can be measured. Even if the money is news in the short term, you’ll have something to point to. “Judge me on this.” Some say under-promise / over-deliver. That’s fine. But do promise something, otherwise everyone will make up their own mind about how much your round should let you accomplish.

The above 5 points says it all. I have written a lot about not putting emphasis on raising money, it is distracting and gives a wrong sense of accomplishment. I think every startup should be focused on building something of value, solving a tough problem, don’t give into the hype of TechCruch or the Media although I think the Media and everything else comes to you when you are able to really Execute on the solution to the problem that your startup was founded on. Being an Entrepreneur is always about juggling priorities and ensuring that you are making slow progress but one cannot take the eye from the ball about Executing on the promise to your customer, your partner or your investors. That is what I saw in the post by Ben. Having the discipline to Be Bigger than Raising Money is hard when you are 25, I really take my hat off to Ben Kaufman. I wish all entrepreneurs to learn the same wisdom.

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September 4, 2012

Guest Post: Ragnar Fjölnisson Founder of DataTracker.io

We have a guest post from Ragnar Fjölnisson, the founder of Datatracker.  Datatracker helps business professionals gather disperse online data and convert it into a structured dataset which then can be integrated with business intelligence software for further analysis. Our solution makes it easy for sales and marketing professionals to automate the collection of competitive data. Datatracker is one of the Startup Reykjavik companies and have been receiving good amount of media attention. They have now been selected as one of the finalists for the Artic15, a competition for startups in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Here is Ragnar’s experience of applying and being nominated for the award:

Arctic15 here we come!

Image Source: Arctic 15 The annual conference for Nordic and Baltic growth entrepreneurs

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon ArcticStartup.com, a technology news site which focuses on tech startups and growth companies in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The site is targeted at startup enthusiasts and reports on product launches, funding news and investor events similar to betakit.com but with focus on Northern Europe territory.
Since I discovered this website I have added it into my daily web surfing routine. Eventually I found out about their annual investor conference called Arctic15, where they select 15 startups to present towards potential investors based in the Nordics and Baltics.
After watching the Arctic15 trailer from 2011, we at Datatracker didn’t hesitate to apply. Because we had been preparing for our pitch in StartupReykjavik it took roughly 10 minutes to throw together a application to fit their format.
This morning we received news that we had been nominated as semi-finalists in the Best Enterprise Startup category. There are 14 categories, including Best Product Launch, Best Consumer Startup and Best Gaming Startup and the winner of each category, which is decided by public vote and a supporting decision by a secret jury, will get to pitch on stage at Arctic15 on October 18th.

We are absolutely thrilled to have been nominated. Arctic15 is the premier industry event for Nordic and Baltic startups and growth companies. The conference was organised for the first time last year with some 400 people attending, and last year’s Arctic15 finalists raised $12.85 million in 10 months following the conferences.

We did not have high hopes that we would be considered for this event, but it goes to show that you never know unless you apply! Now we are determined to win the public vote and we encourage all Icelandic startup enthusiasts to go to the Arctic15 website and vote datatracker as the best enterprise startup. This conference needs Icelandic representatives, don’t you agree?

For investors and entrepreneurs interested in attending the conference, don’t forget to check out the program schedule here: http://arctic15.com/program/

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August 21, 2012

Whats Next – Start Selling

We have a guest post again by Ashwin Bhambri on what the next things the teams should focus on now that Startup Reykjavik is over. I think he has good points and strategies on moving again. It is hard after all the hype and now it is real life, the teams needs to get on the road, meet customersand try to do what I call the hardest of things to do… SELL. I have included the new Startup Curve, which is what typically happens after a big rush of media blitz, everyone wanting to meet with you as the founder and everyone saying how you crushed it in the presentation (guilty as charged!) etc but the reality is that the teams are still in their infancy and they need to go through the Product to Market Fit phase and then through creating a Repeatable Business Model phase and while doing all this they need to build a team culture, develop processes, maintain customer interest and solicit investors if the teams are starting to run out of money. Did I mention that doing a startup is HARD!

Source: AVC.com

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Startup Rekyjavik has been an amazing experience and it’s now come to an end.  As startup founders we are faced with the question where do we go from here and what should be our next move. This is a typical scenario faced by every startup exiting an accelerator around the world

Startup’s move on with investor liaison, completing the product and the tons of other things start-ups do nevertheless there is a one thing that is a must do for every startup exiting an accelerator program. Start meeting customers and focus on sales, I repeat start selling whatever you have built in the last three months irrespective weather its good, bad or ugly

Sales and getting customers is the reality that’s hit me in the face today. I am still hesitant about our MVP and think it’s not refined enough however I do have to take into account that I have just few days left in Iceland and if I dont make an attempt to sell this is going to be a lost opportunity. Secondly, talks with investors are going to be futile if you cannot demonstrate customers interest and last but not the lest you wont believe how big a motivator getting customers is. Taking a page out of the ‘Do more faster’ book authored by Brad Field & David Cohen refer to the ‘Be Tiny Until You Shouldn’t Be’ chapter where a startup failed to raise funding but started selling and got cash flow positive

I have a few sales tips that could work for whatever its worth

  1. When you meet investors, ask them for sales leads. This would build their confidence in your startup
  2. All start-ups share the noting that their product is not ready so engage potential clients by asking for feedback and you can sell to the interested ones down the line
  3. Invite potential customers to attend focus groups. This might be a tough one to pull off but works amazingly well
  4. Contact you mentors and ask them for references
  5. Email marketing works
  6. Don’t forget approaching friends & family
  7. Use LinkedIn, it’s amazing

Would it not be amazing to connect with an investor with the alibi ‘we got customers and need money to service them’ maybe you can help us with that.

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August 13, 2012

Startup Reykjavik – Investor Day

Today we have a guest post by Kristján Kristjánsson, one of the organizers of Startup Reykjavik and CEO of Innovit. I am going to the Investor day in Startup Reykjavik, if you know of an Angel investor in the Icelandic investor community, they should participate in the Investor Day or if you have been thinking about becoming an angel investor here is your chance to get into the deal flow, you should get a chance to meet with other angel and venture investors to build your network and start investing in your community.

StartupReykjavik Investment day – August 17th, go? #Friday

StartupReykjavik is Icelands first and only accelerator program. Ten teams were picked out of 200 applicants, given 16k, housing and mentorship to go as far as they could with their businesses in ten weeks. Every day they have showed up for work to listen to roughly 50 mentors giving advice in business models, networking and pitching, with hope to get their business going to create value.

Next friday (August 17th, 2012), all these teams will pitch in front of an audience of investors seven minutes each, hoping to find the right investor, explaining why that would make sense and showing of their final products that they have worked on during the period.

There are two ways to attend the event.

1. Reception at Arion-Bank headquarters, Borgartún 5, 101 Reykjavík
2. Online live stream from the event.

If you are an investor and would like to attend or view online streaming, don’t hesitate to ask for an invite and we will send you the invitation and live stream link.

Other reasons you should attend?
1. Are you a runner? Icelands biggest Marathon is on Saturday, August 18th. Sign up here
2. Do you like culture? Culture night 2012 is the country’s largest one-day culture event, with thousands activities for tourists and locals alike ending with big fireworks on midnight.
3. The country has some of the most amazing landscapes known to man. If you like the pure atmosphere, in your in for a treat. (video made by one of the participants http://vimeo.com/44193401)

The teams:

When Gone
First and foremost. WhenGone services people who face premature death, people that are losing their health and people that face risks in everyday life. Through when gone, everyone can leave their loved ones their greatest stories, memories and words in person. Thus allowing people of all ages, races and economic level to leave their legacy for generations to come.

StartupVille
Startupville is a place for investors and start-ups to play the investing game. A social game where investors make virtual investments in real start-ups for virtual equity and in the process they interact, get to know each other better and have fun. It’s also about the investor – startup relationship transcending to a real one where an investor gets to be proactive in the progress of a startup

MyMxLog
Mymxlog is a professional online software service for airline, operators and technicians. They enable management of licences, certificates, training and experience necessary to maintain aircraft in accordance with european regulations.

CloudEngineering
Cloud Engineering is a developing advanced techniques to extract data from a wide range of web-pages and other data sources quickly, reliably and robustly, without requiring any specialised knowledge of programming concepts, HTML structure, or regular expressions. And all within your browser ö no installs required. Our customers will be able to extract online market intelligence which will give them a competitive edge in an ever more competitive world.

Designing Reality
A solution based company specialising in Imaging technology and custom solutions. Offering highly accurate and realistic looking three-dimensional models from photographs.

Live Shuttle
Live-Shuttle is a service for smart phone users to share their experience live. The service allows the user share live footage from his travels around the world and friends and family to stay updated on his current location. Upon returning from a trip the user has a photo or video map of his travels. All incoming media is geo-tagged and sorted to provide the world with live footage from every possible location simultaneously which allows Live Shuttle to broadcast live from interesting events like Music Festivals, Natural Disasters or protests to name a few.

RemindMe
RemindMe is an automatic medical dispenser. For medication to be effective people have to take them according to their doctors advice. Unfortunately only 50% of people take their medicine correctly. Remind me intends to increase medical compliance and people’s quality of life by using a new reminding service for the elderly and forgetful.

GuitarParty.com
Provide high quality lyrics, lessons and guitar tabs to users. One stop shop for lyrics, chords and lessons.

Heilsufar
No one is more aware of his health than the individual himself. People should therefore have the opportunity to access their own health related data and be able to make informed decisions regarding those matters. Heilsufar.is will be the portal where you can request your data to be sent to, where you can add your own information and analyse and compare your health situation to others. Heilsufar is about modernising the area of personal healthcare information

Stream Tags
Stream Tags make more value out of the movie experience by giving viewers the opportunity to tag movies and provide information and buying opportunities relevant for the viewer.

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August 12, 2012

2 ways to get an Investor Meeting

Jan Schultink is in Iceland on holiday, he contacted me a couple of months back and asked if he could spend some time with the Startup Reykjavik Teams to mentor them for their presentation for the upcoming Demo Day. I obviously said YES! and connected him to Kristjan. For those of you who don’t know the first batch of Startup Reykjavik will present to a invited list of investors on Demo Day on August 17th. Jan has blogged about it here. I wrote about pitching to an investor. Jan used to work for McKinsey, a strategy consulting firm and I have been very impressed with the firm and the work they do.

Idea Transplant: The Art of Pitching VCs

The fact that he wants to teach us some of the tricks of the trade is huge and I am taking advantage of that. I am planning to be there. Startup Reykjavik organizing team has made it into an open presentation, so if you have an hour and want to participate show up at  Armuli 13 around 11:00. I think we will learn something. I truly believe one has to take time to build beautiful presentations but it is a balance. I have seen enough pitches to know which ones stick and which don’t. The usual format of a demo day is 6 to 7 minutes for a startup to pitch their idea, product and traction. Although it seems like 6 to 7 minutes is not a lot a time, believe me it is more than enough to get an investor to want to meet with you. I have been telling every entrepreneur who would listen that the key to the pitches is to get a follow up meeting. Investment decisions especially in a startup is a lengthy process, you as the entrepreneur need to make sure that you are providing all the decision point data to the investor so the cycle gets shorter. Having someone like Jan help you get that message and content organized properly is extremely important. Check out some of the presentations that he has prepared. They are impressive.

Idea Transplant: Six minute startup pitch

Oh, I forgot to mention what the 2 ways to get an investor meeting… if you have figured it out by now then you get 10 points! otherwise read on:

  1. Presentation has to be beautiful and professional ~ Memorable
  2. Pitch the problem, sell the problem and leave the audience with a bit of your solution and why they need to talk to you more ~ Make them want more

There are obviously many micro strategies to implement the above two big ideas, I am hoping to learn a lot listening to Jan tomorrow.

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