Have a look at our great series of 2-week seminars with Russian entrepreneurs. For our awesome speakers: Steve Blank, Jim Smith (Partner, MDV), Mark Iwanowski (Partner, Trident Capital), Brian Jacobs (Founding Partner, Emergence Capital), Vivek Mehra (Partner, August Capital) - have a look at http://www.tecglobal.org/tec_20101129.
Deep Dive Day One:
Steve Blank - Why Accountants Don't Run Startups
customer discovery comments:
- Maverick - for disruptive innovation it is required to have mavericks inside the corp
- IBM PC disruptive innovation (IBM PC division with 12 engineers)
- Microsoft+IBM story :) CPM guy's wife declined to sigh NDA -> MS got Seattle Silicon QDOS for $25k+$25k
- customer discovery done by founders !! - psychological aspect. in a large company full support of CEO is required to Maverick
- 9 components canvas, 9 boxes, 9 building blocks
- product complements: "i am not making this, but this is essential to my business"
- stickers idea for working with the blocks
- pivoting via design rather then crisis ;)
entrepreneur is capable to frame the market type he wants to play:
- resegmenting - taking a piece of the market
- playing better/faster/cheaper game - existing market
- playing never-done-before game - new market
- TIVO replaced VCR (but never said "we are digital VCR")
- 1984 blackberry succeeded pager -> called "interactive pager"
- you decide if you want to define TLA - three letter acronym ;)
constantly learn:
- "i failed because"
- listen, look for patterns
innovation:
- technology innovation would be the easiest way
- cultural changes, changes in gov
4 steps helps you reduce mostly customer & market risks:
- competitive risk is another discussion to have
- you are to operate like it matters a lot!
For Steve's Presentation go to: http://steveblank.com/2010/04/15/why-accountants-dont-run-startups/
Next, we met with Jim Smith, Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures. Some points he made for $500k seed investments case study:
- team is the most important thing that matters (not a perfect idea). The founders have to be aggressive, crazy and at the same time reasonable, and think big. :)
- always think about the customer (always ask what it takes for a customer to write a check to you as a company)
-monetazation: always experiment but don't do it at the cost of building the product or the customers
important things to consider for consumer:
- try really quickly, don't hold on with the launch
- simple concepts! needs - free, discount, socializing, ..
team patterns:
- infrastructure companies started by technology entrepreneurs
- consumer companies started by obsessive entrepreneurs
in between - SaaS, SMB
- simplicity
- low risk of exiting product
- quick TCO/revenue calculations
- quick sales results
- measurability!
- TCO - harder to sell
summary: three different usecases:
- infrastructure, consumer, in between :)
- all three are driven by technology and team
- enterprise - apply more science, position thru customer meetings
- consumer - just experiment, try&fail
evaluating entrepreneurs when investing early stage:
- WHO this person really is? Knows what he knows; knows what he doesn't know.
- what are the theses around him? capable to grasp a question? capable to handle?
- what are he milestones where value created? what the capital efficiency is?
- recognition of where you need to build the team is very important
- preparing your investment preso - what would be the key motivator for investor?
when replace CEO:
- ask CEO before invest or accept investment, where do you see yourself? what should be changed?
- when mgmt team has concerns
- ask what kind of business would you run?
Jim spent 7 years with Si Graphics. You need to be in the game:
- try, learn
- have relevant people around you
- be lucky :)