I am blogging from the MIT Enterprise Forum sponsored talk about raising seed funding at MIT. On the panel are representatives of Techstars, Spark capital, Google ventures and a angel/serial entrepreneur. About 10 minutes in, I heard something particularly interesting:
VCs are often hesitant to come in and invest in start-ups that have received angel funding already. They would rather be first investors. I did not understand why, I intend to find out.
Moderator asked what can inexperienced entrepreneurs do to get funded. Rich Miner said good ideas will be funded and to send email to miner@google.com. Shawn (techstars) pointed out that people in Boston are reticent as far as it comes to publicizing themselves as angels or people with good ideas and encouraged people to speak up.
Moderator asked generically, what can founders do to be successful raising a seed round? Shawn (techstars) says move the duck (idea) forward. Make progress. Spark rep. advises being ambitious and contacting highly placed people for advisors. Miner (Google ventures) says to be organized and focus on fund raising. Cold call people and ask for advice. David (angel) says to have a good elevator pitch that can be delivered in less than 2 minutes.
Twitter qn: What milestones need to be hit before looking for seed investment? Answer: depends on start-up. Need to agree with investor what that is for your start-up. An interesting response from David: if you are a new entrepreneur, take what you can get. Don't push for one form vs. another, take what you get. If you, the entrepreneur, are integral to the business, investors will give you equity in later rounds to keep you. If you are good at what you do, you will get compensated properly. Save the negotiations for the second start-up when the first has been successful.
Qn: if you are an angel looking to invest the first 25 to 50 K in a company, what should you look for? Answer was a vague look at the team and essentially, go with the gut.
Qn: among panelists, who invests in what industry sector and how capital intensive would they like their investments to be?
Spark: media, technology.
Techstars: extremely capital efficient businesses. B2B, consumer Internet, SaaS plays
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The UPromise Story
Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jeff Bussgang, co-founder, president and COO of Upromise. UPromise was acquired by Sallie Mae in 2006.
UPromise is a loyalty program where participating retailers deposit 1% of the end-consumers spending into a designated college savings account. The amount deposited can be used to pay off existing school loans or to pay for future loans. UPromise's business model was to reach out to students on college campuses, and encourage them to ask their parents to shop at participating retailers, thus saving/earning money for college. This allowed UPromise to drive business to retailers, and they were in turn paid by retailers for this.
Jeff started out by saying that when he and his co-founder Michael Bronner launched UPromise, it was around a very unique set of circumstances.
- Both he and Bronner were experienced entrepreneurs who had exited their previous ventures successfully.
- The company was launched in 2000, when the internet bubble was still intact.
- These two facts helped them raise $34 Million without having a single customer.
- Bronner had extensive contacts in the retail industry, which made it relatively very easy to get their foot in the door, and land the first few customers.
Their experience, branded VC backing, and Bronner's contacts earned them credibility with retailers and once the first few retailers signed up, it was an easier task approaching everyone else. He also mentioned a couple of other interesting points:
- When they approached retailers, they had a CMO with credibility, who had executed a similar strategy before.
- They approached retailers with a comprehensive marketing plan and a branding document.
- The typical time between first contact to contract with a retailer averaged 9 to 12 months.
I found it very interesting when Jeff commented that he was not sure he could found such a company in today's climate and be as successful. It goes to show entrepreneurship is as much about luck as it is about sweat and guts.
UPromise is a loyalty program where participating retailers deposit 1% of the end-consumers spending into a designated college savings account. The amount deposited can be used to pay off existing school loans or to pay for future loans. UPromise's business model was to reach out to students on college campuses, and encourage them to ask their parents to shop at participating retailers, thus saving/earning money for college. This allowed UPromise to drive business to retailers, and they were in turn paid by retailers for this.
Jeff started out by saying that when he and his co-founder Michael Bronner launched UPromise, it was around a very unique set of circumstances.
- Both he and Bronner were experienced entrepreneurs who had exited their previous ventures successfully.
- The company was launched in 2000, when the internet bubble was still intact.
- These two facts helped them raise $34 Million without having a single customer.
- Bronner had extensive contacts in the retail industry, which made it relatively very easy to get their foot in the door, and land the first few customers.
Their experience, branded VC backing, and Bronner's contacts earned them credibility with retailers and once the first few retailers signed up, it was an easier task approaching everyone else. He also mentioned a couple of other interesting points:
- When they approached retailers, they had a CMO with credibility, who had executed a similar strategy before.
- They approached retailers with a comprehensive marketing plan and a branding document.
- The typical time between first contact to contract with a retailer averaged 9 to 12 months.
I found it very interesting when Jeff commented that he was not sure he could found such a company in today's climate and be as successful. It goes to show entrepreneurship is as much about luck as it is about sweat and guts.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Dr. Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm at MIT
After about 6 months of planning, 5 hours of meetings and 200 emails later, I had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Paul Jacobs, the CEO of Qualcomm on behalf of the Mobile, Media and Internet Technology (MoMIT) club at MIT. The talk titled "The future of wireless" was held at the Bartos theater in the MIT media lab and was very well received. Dr. Jacobs was incredibly down-to-earth and I had the pleasure of spending some time with him and his colleagues immediately before and after the talk. Here are the slides from the talk. I will upload the audio track when I get the green signal from Qualcomm's PR department.
Can't wait for Gobi to get here already! Mirasol and Kayak sounded pretty cool too.. look at the slides if you don't know what Gobi, Mirasol and Kayak are!
Can't wait for Gobi to get here already! Mirasol and Kayak sounded pretty cool too.. look at the slides if you don't know what Gobi, Mirasol and Kayak are!
Monday, April 27, 2009
Conversation with Paul Citron, Medtronic
I had the pleasure of speaking with Paul Citron who is the retired Vice President of Technology Policy and Academic Relations at Medtronic last week. I found some of Paul's comments about how to think about innovation and the innovation pipeline to be particularly insightful and relevant to our times. Though he made his comments with respect to innovation in medical devices, he made some terrific points that any innovator (and manager of innovators!) will do well to keep in mind.
Paul pointed out the importance of recognizing the mix of incremental vs. break-through innovations in a portfolio, and being mindful of how R&D dollars are effectively invested. He stressed the importance of recognizing that a larger R&D contribution does not necessarily mean that more dollars are going towards research, and that executives would do well to be aware of the actual contribution. A lot of the money is spent satisfying regulatory requirements and jumping through hoops instead of on research iteself.
He also pointed out how the lay person who is allowed to decide the fate of innovation (by being allowed to preempt FDA approvals and decisions per recently proposed bills in the congress) is often not best equipped to make the judgment. He felt strongly that the power to make such decisions must be removed from state courts and vested with the federal courts, where the people involved tend to be more sophisticated about these issues that affect science. He pointed to patent law as an example, and mentioned that there's a reason why patents can't be attacked/defended in state courts and must go only through the federal system.
Another excellent point Paul made: the scientists and researchers working on the breakthrough innovations we depend on for progress as a society are not fools - when company management/society consistently refuses to back their science in the name of minimizing risk and regulating them, they become progressively risk averse. This effectively stifles best-in-class, breakthrough innovation that we have come to rely on for progress.
In all, much food for thought for innovators, and manager of innovators.
Paul pointed out the importance of recognizing the mix of incremental vs. break-through innovations in a portfolio, and being mindful of how R&D dollars are effectively invested. He stressed the importance of recognizing that a larger R&D contribution does not necessarily mean that more dollars are going towards research, and that executives would do well to be aware of the actual contribution. A lot of the money is spent satisfying regulatory requirements and jumping through hoops instead of on research iteself.
He also pointed out how the lay person who is allowed to decide the fate of innovation (by being allowed to preempt FDA approvals and decisions per recently proposed bills in the congress) is often not best equipped to make the judgment. He felt strongly that the power to make such decisions must be removed from state courts and vested with the federal courts, where the people involved tend to be more sophisticated about these issues that affect science. He pointed to patent law as an example, and mentioned that there's a reason why patents can't be attacked/defended in state courts and must go only through the federal system.
Another excellent point Paul made: the scientists and researchers working on the breakthrough innovations we depend on for progress as a society are not fools - when company management/society consistently refuses to back their science in the name of minimizing risk and regulating them, they become progressively risk averse. This effectively stifles best-in-class, breakthrough innovation that we have come to rely on for progress.
In all, much food for thought for innovators, and manager of innovators.
Monday, April 13, 2009
My conversation with Dan O'Malley, CEO, PerkStreet Financial
Last week, I had the pleasure of having breakfast with Dan O'Malley, the CEO of PerkStreet Financial. He had a very fascinating story to tell as a first time entrepreneur who closed his first round of funding within 6 months of starting, and an uncommon passion and willingness to walk off the edge of a cliff in order to pursue his dreams. That really resonated with me.
Dan was a senior executive at Capital One before he launched PerkStreet last year. At Capital One, he successfully introduced the decoupled debit card. A decoupled debit-card is is so-called because the cards are issued by Capital One but they are linked to checking accounts held at other banks. When he then came up with the idea of offering a debit card with rewards, there was a conflict of interest within Capital One that prevented the idea from being pursued, even though he had the backing at the highest levels inside the organization. Something Dan said at this point put things I was pondering in perspective for me:
"Regret is a powerful emotion. I did not want to regret not taking the chance and watch someone else build my product".
That is the passion a founder must feel! When he said that, something cleared in my head and I knew the choices I had to make. An entrepreneur must feel that kind of burning need to act on his vision in order to have a chance of successfully navigating the challenging, arduous path to the finish line.
Dan also said something else that really stuck in my mind. I asked him about the highs and lows of his entrepreneurial journey so far. He offered a philosophical response - it's dangerous to be swept to the peaks of happiness or be overwhelmed by setbacks, because higher the peak and lower the trough, farther the fall to the bottom. The key is to maintain a somewhat neutral steady-state, that allows you to wake up each day and roll with the challenges the day brings.
How very true! Dan said this so much better than I ever could have, and the point really struck home.
It took me forever to learn this lesson, and I am still working on trying to maintain a steady-state at all times. Some times I am more successful than others, but I suspect it's a very important lesson for me to learn and master in my journey as an entrepreneur.
Dan was a senior executive at Capital One before he launched PerkStreet last year. At Capital One, he successfully introduced the decoupled debit card. A decoupled debit-card is is so-called because the cards are issued by Capital One but they are linked to checking accounts held at other banks. When he then came up with the idea of offering a debit card with rewards, there was a conflict of interest within Capital One that prevented the idea from being pursued, even though he had the backing at the highest levels inside the organization. Something Dan said at this point put things I was pondering in perspective for me:
"Regret is a powerful emotion. I did not want to regret not taking the chance and watch someone else build my product".
That is the passion a founder must feel! When he said that, something cleared in my head and I knew the choices I had to make. An entrepreneur must feel that kind of burning need to act on his vision in order to have a chance of successfully navigating the challenging, arduous path to the finish line.
Dan also said something else that really stuck in my mind. I asked him about the highs and lows of his entrepreneurial journey so far. He offered a philosophical response - it's dangerous to be swept to the peaks of happiness or be overwhelmed by setbacks, because higher the peak and lower the trough, farther the fall to the bottom. The key is to maintain a somewhat neutral steady-state, that allows you to wake up each day and roll with the challenges the day brings.
How very true! Dan said this so much better than I ever could have, and the point really struck home.
It took me forever to learn this lesson, and I am still working on trying to maintain a steady-state at all times. Some times I am more successful than others, but I suspect it's a very important lesson for me to learn and master in my journey as an entrepreneur.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Pattie Maes @ TED
Dr. Pattie Maes of the MIT Media lab and her doctoral student Pranav Mistry rocked TED this year with their presentation of this game changing sixth sense technology. Check out the talk. Now, this is very cool technology, even better than the stuff in the Minority Report movie that it's being compared to. The elegance of the solution appeals to me - it's systems engineering at its best, using several interconnected subsystems to achieve the intended effect.
What stands out in my mind:
(1) It was built with off-the-shelf components, nothing fancy, costing $350. So, anyone could have built this.
(2) The "device" consists of a phone, marker caps of different colors, a camera, a projector, and a mirror. That's it.
(3) It makes sense of natural gestures.
(4) It's mobile, unlike the minority report technology.
(5) The processing power is from a regular cell phone, no extraordinary parallel processing or computing resources required
(6) Totally fabulous application for someone with a really poor memory for names like me: display person's name when you see them!
I hope to meet Pattie Maes on Thursday after her talk at the Media lab, so either shoot me an email or post a comment with any questions you may have for her.
What stands out in my mind:
(1) It was built with off-the-shelf components, nothing fancy, costing $350. So, anyone could have built this.
(2) The "device" consists of a phone, marker caps of different colors, a camera, a projector, and a mirror. That's it.
(3) It makes sense of natural gestures.
(4) It's mobile, unlike the minority report technology.
(5) The processing power is from a regular cell phone, no extraordinary parallel processing or computing resources required
(6) Totally fabulous application for someone with a really poor memory for names like me: display person's name when you see them!
I hope to meet Pattie Maes on Thursday after her talk at the Media lab, so either shoot me an email or post a comment with any questions you may have for her.
Monday, March 23, 2009
A woman in technology that I admire..
A woman in technology I admire greatly is Helen Greiner of iRobot. Helen is the co-founder of iRobot and holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters degree in Computer Science from MIT.
To me, she represents a unique and rare combination of technical skills and business savvy, and is a tremendous role model for women who aspire to be successful engineers and businesswomen. She gave a great speech at last year's Women of Vision awards where she won the 2008 award for innovation. The speech beautifully summarizes the challenges of becoming (and staying) a woman in engineering, and for that, I tip my hat to Helen.
To me, she represents a unique and rare combination of technical skills and business savvy, and is a tremendous role model for women who aspire to be successful engineers and businesswomen. She gave a great speech at last year's Women of Vision awards where she won the 2008 award for innovation. The speech beautifully summarizes the challenges of becoming (and staying) a woman in engineering, and for that, I tip my hat to Helen.
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