Becoming Accidental Entrepreneurs

Given at Web Directions South, in Australia http://lanyrd.com/2011/web-directions-south/shyrh/

Transcript

1. making conferences work Lanyrd.com
2. Lanyrd.com The New Shiny
3. Lanyrd.com accidental entrepreneurs http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuckp/21394313
4. Lanyrd.com
5. Lanyrd.com $US 1.4 million
6. Casablanca August 2010
7. Casablanca August 2010
8. Lanyrd.com People who use Twitter Professional Events Something interesting
9. Lanyrd.com Private Beta
10. Bootstrapping on Twitter
11. 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
12. Lanyrd.com Tom Coates
13. Lanyrd.com @lanyrd attending #wds11
14. Lanyrd.com
15. Lanyrd.com
16. Lanyrd.com "We'll scale it live!" http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuckp/21394313
17. Read only mode http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuckp/21394313
18. Lanyrd.com El Jadida September 2010
19. 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
20. Lanyrd.com Launch early, launch often
21. 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
22. 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
23. 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.
24. Lanyrd.com Marrakech September 2010
25. Lanyrd.com Marrakech September 2010
26. Lanyrd.com Marrakech September 2010
27. Lanyrd.com
28. Lanyrd.com Cairo September 2010
29. Lanyrd.com http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html
30. Luxor October 2010
31. 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?
32. Mountain View, USA January 2011
33. 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
34. Mountain View, USA March 2011
35. Demo Day
36. Lanyrd.com
37. 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!
38. Lanyrd.com Investment
39. Lanyrd.com Reasons startups die 1. Not making something people want 2. Fundraising http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html
40. Lanyrd.com "Raise money or Bootstrap?" http://www.flickr.com/photos/stawarz/3526784136/
41. 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?
42. 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)
43. Lanyrd.com "Equity or convertible notes?" http://www.flickr.com/photos/dicknella/2145511833/
44. 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
45. 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
46. 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?
47. Lanyrd.com What you'll need Executive summary Elevator pitch Pitch deck The phone number of a really good lawyer Answers to common questions
48. 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?
49. Lanyrd.com Finding (the right) investors Introductions are essential Ask investors for intros to more investors Look at who they have previously invested in
50. 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!
51. 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
52. Lanyrd.com Raising money takes longer than you expect, even when you take that in to account
53. 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
54. Lanyrd.com Runway http://www.flickr.com/photos/15545136@N06/5891705931/
55. 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
56. Hiring
57. Lanyrd.com London October 2011 photo by @bfirsh
58. Lanyrd.com Have a Vision
59. 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!
60. Lanyrd.com Lanyrd app for iPhone
61. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pattylagera/ The emotional roller-coaster
62. 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?
63. 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
64. 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
65. Lanyrd.com There are many ways to do a startup
66. Lanyrd.com Make something people want
67. Lanyrd.com http://lanyrd.com/shyrh Thank you!
68. Lanyrd.com http://lanyrd.com/shyrh Any questions?