Becoming Accidental Entrepreneurs

by Natalie Downe

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making conferences work Lanyrd.com

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Lanyrd.com The New Shiny

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Lanyrd.com accidental entrepreneurs http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/chuckp/21394313

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Lanyrd.com

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Lanyrd.com $US 1.4 million

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Casablanca August 2010

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Casablanca August 2010

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Lanyrd.com People who use Twitter Professional Events Something interesting

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Lanyrd.com Private Beta

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Bootstrapping on Twitter

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Lanyrd.com Tips on beta testing Launch in beta ﬁrst ... but not for too long Keep the beta testers after launch Make sure beta-only features obvious

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Lanyrd.com Tom Coates

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Lanyrd.com @lanyrd attending #wds11

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Lanyrd.com

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Lanyrd.com

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Lanyrd.com "We'll scale it live!" http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/chuckp/21394313

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Read only mode http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/chuckp/21394313

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Lanyrd.com El Jadida September 2010

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Lanyrd.com Learn from our mistakes Don't over-engineer... but... Do plan for at least a small spike in traﬃc Don't miss out on users because your site is too unstable

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Lanyrd.com Launch early, launch often

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Lanyrd.com Community support Any contact from a user is a chance to turn them into a fan, no matter how grumpy they are It is not the bug that reﬂects you, its how you deal with it 140 characters in public is not the best forum for discussion Let people know about their pet features

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Lanyrd.com Watch how people use your site Have an activity stream, even if it is just admin only Data is a symptom of design. Watch for duplicates and bad data: these bugs are important to ﬁx quickly because they aﬀect the quality of your data.

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Lanyrd.com Marrakech September 2010

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Lanyrd.com Marrakech September 2010

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Lanyrd.com Marrakech September 2010

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Lanyrd.com

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Lanyrd.com Cairo September 2010

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Lanyrd.com http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html

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Luxor October 2010

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Lanyrd.com YC application What substitutes do people resort to because what you plan to make doesn't exist yet? What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don't get? How will you make money?

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Mountain View, USA January 2011

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Lanyrd.com Y Combinator $11,000 (+$3000 per founder) for about 7% $150,000 follow-on investment from Start Fund 'Oﬃce hours' meetings with YC partners for advice Weekly oﬀ-the-record dinner with invited speakers 'Demo Day' after 3 months

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Mountain View, USA March 2011

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Demo Day

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Lanyrd.com

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Lanyrd.com 2 minutes, 10 seconds You'll be lucky if investors remember a single noun from your pitch... so make sure it's the right noun!

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Lanyrd.com Investment

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Lanyrd.com Reasons startups die 1. Not making something people want 2. Fundraising http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html

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Lanyrd.com "Raise money or Bootstrap?" http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/stawarz/3526784136/

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Lanyrd.com "How much should I raise?" Raise enough money for 18 months You'll have to start fundraising again after 12 How much of the company are you willing to give away?

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Lanyrd.com Valuations If you can convince someone to invest $1,000,000 for 10% of your company, your valuation is $10m (Actually it's $11m post-money, and $10m post-money)

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Lanyrd.com "Equity or convertible notes?" http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/dicknella/2145511833/

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Lanyrd.com Convertible Notes Also known as "bridge loans" Investor can give $100,000 now as an advance on your future equity round When you raise the full round later, they get $100,000 worth of stock at whatever the valuation is They get perks for investing early (a cap and/or discount) http://martin.kleppmann.com/2010/05/05/valuation-caps-on-convertible-notes-explained- with-graphs.html

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Lanyrd.com "Angel investors or VCs?" Angels invest their own money, usually $5k-$50k Frequently exited founders themselves Not necessarily looking for a massive exit VCs invest other people's money Looking for the big 10x hits, to make up for losses You can raise money from both

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Lanyrd.com Ask for more than money Have a hit-list of skills you wan't to ﬁnd in investors Marketing? Internationalisation? Hiring? Growing a company from 2 to 10 to 100 people?

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Lanyrd.com What you'll need Executive summary Elevator pitch Pitch deck The phone number of a really good lawyer Answers to common questions

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Lanyrd.com Common questions Where do you see your company in ﬁve yours time? What's your TAM - your Total Addressable Market size? How are you going to spend the money?

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Lanyrd.com Finding (the right) investors Introductions are essential Ask investors for intros to more investors Look at who they have previously invested in

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Lanyrd.com Investor meetings Good investors decide quickly - just one or two meetings ... but it takes a LOT of meetings to ﬁll up your round Meet with less exciting investors ﬁrst, to practice At the end of the meeting, ask for the money!

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Lanyrd.com Closing a round A VC will offer you a "term sheet", outlining their proposed investment Show it to a lawyer! If you're lucky, you'll get more than one offer from different firms. Then you can negotiate. Even when you sign it, you'll still need to round up the other investors and negotiate on the full legal documents

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Lanyrd.com Raising money takes longer than you expect, even when you take that in to account

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Lanyrd.com Lawyers are translators VCs are professional negotiators - you aren't Your lawyers can translate the legalese, and tell you what terms are standard and what terms aren't To negotiate, you need reasons Investment is full of strange etiquette - good lawyers can guide you through that as well

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Lanyrd.com Runway http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/15545136@N06/5891705931/

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Lanyrd.com Announcing your round It's a free news story, time it well Don't share your valuation Do say who your investors are, how much you raised and what you are going to spend the money on Give the exclusive to one publication, follow up with diﬀerent angles to subsequent publications if you can

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Hiring

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Lanyrd.com London October 2011 photo by @bﬁrsh

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Lanyrd.com Have a Vision

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Lanyrd.com http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/21680590@N06/4654423909/ It may look like a glamorous life ... but it's not all sunshine and daisies!

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Lanyrd.com Lanyrd app for iPhone

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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/pattylagera/ The emotional roller-coaster

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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/pattylagera/ On top of the world! Everyone likes us! Why would I ever want a real job? Oh crap! The world is ending, Servers are down, Bad comments on twitter Maybe I can still get a real job?

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Lanyrd.com It's a tough job! You don't get to go home and stop thinking about work You will have no idea what you are doing - but nobody else does either, ask a founder! You don't need to be born an entrepreneur ... but you do need to ﬁnd a great co-founder

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Lanyrd.com Would we do it again? ... Yes! You have something that is yours Knowing that you are improving peoples lives, even slightly You get to build the company you want to work for