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Newsletter #18, 06th December, 2012

TradeDare among the 20 lucky guys at Slush                             BGI announces the 3rd Ed. Finalists & Honorable
                           3rd Ed. P&S Track                                                    Mentions
                           Honorable            Mention
                           represented Portugal at
Slush in Helsinki, Finland. The startup summit is            On 13th November, in a packed full auditorium, the semi-finalists pitched live
probably one of the largest of its kind in the world and
certainly the most prominent in Europe. TradeDare            and the Award Partner announced the 4 Finalists, each one receiving €100k in
enjoyed international exposure with many institutional
and corporate investors. TradeDare has created a web         financial support from Caixa Capital: RDFixer (Life Sciences), Veniam (E&T),
platform that integrates customer loyalty and stock          faces.in (IT & Web), D-Orbit (Products & Services).
management that allows businesses to increase,
sustain and drive sales through their channels in an
efficient way.



faces.in on Vodafone and Robi

After having successfully launched with Vodafone PT,
the 3rd Ed. IT & Web Finalist is now available for Robi
Axiata subscribers. Faces.in was first launched for
smartphones and works by displaying on a single
screen all your friends in social networks in your
proximity. Faces.in also works in non-smartphones via a       And the 4 Honorable Mentions are: Cardiocare (Life Sciences), RetroSiM
proprietary geo-location algorithm based on SMS texts -
integrated with carriers' LBS platforms. It enables users     (E&T), Fidesys (IT & Web) and TradeDare (Products & Services).
to check-in and find their friends through simple text
messages, allowing millions of users worldwide to
participate in geo-location and social discovery on any       Congratulations to all teams, this is only the start of a challenging process
device without a data plan or GPS.
                                                              that is creating a technology-based company!

                                                              The competition next steps will be to prepare Finalist teams to the Grand
MIT: At the Top
                                                              Finale (28th February 2013, Lisbon, Portugal) where one selectee will
                                                              double the award to €200k in non-dilutive financing. Out of the 20 finalist
                          How did MIT become the              candidates, the top 12 will enroll in the international catalyst program.
                          most important university in
                          the world? Hint - it has a lot
                          to do with the Institute's focus
                          on tech entrepreneurship, the
Trust Center, and the unique, innovative students that
MIT attracts.                                                                 Lessons learned from an entrepreneur

                                                                      João Afonso, Founder & CEO of Musikki, 2nd Ed Grand Finalist

Unlugg on its way to Plug & Play Tech Center
                                                              Lately, everyone keeps asking us what we have learned over the past year.
Silicon Valley recognizes the quality of the 3rd Ed           Well, we have learned a lot and we could sit all day discussing that but I
Building Global Innovators E & T Semi-finalist –
Unplugg. The start-up was offered a 3-month stay in the       was taught to be objective and synthetic. If we subtract all the daily tasks of
Plug and Play Tech Center by Leadership, a
Portuguese-based consultancy company, to do further           running a company which I must admit - we also had to learn what those
development on their energy management B2B2C                  are, I come to the conclusion that there were four major lessons.
solution. Unplugg is an IoT, cloud-based start-up that
focuses on Home energy management platform,
Awarded by




gathering data from smart meters and delivers potential        1. It is a long run, not a sprint
savings of up to 20% to its customers via a mobile app.

                                                               Just over a year ago we entered a bootcamp at ISCTE-IUL, a prominent
                                                               Lisbon-based social sciences school, for the first day of the e-teams I crash
                                                               course. We had no idea of what was about to happen, so we were a little
                                                               nervous. In the afternoon, all teams were invited to stand in front of the
Some of the emerging accelerator programs are                  classroom and pitch their ideas. On that day, I probably made my worst
sponsored by some large Turkish corporations.
                                                               presentation ever. And I really mean it! When we left the campus later at
Turkey today is a fast-growing dynamic economy in a
very dynamic part of the world. Many large corporations
                                                               night, I thought I had ruined every chance of succeeding in the Building
see the entrepreneurship-related activities as part of         Global Innovators competition. Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves we got
their social responsibility. The government, through
many different programs, has been aggressively                 back the other day and tried to make it better. Seven months later we won
promoting entrepreneurship. More universities are
introducing courses, programs, and facilities towards
                                                               the Grand finale. So, who would have thought it possible? To us this meant
entrepreneurship to attract better students to their           that it does not matter how or where you start and what sort of mistakes we
degree programs. The outlook for entrepreneurship is
as bright as ever. Further advancement of                      make on the way. What really matters is how you respond to those
entrepreneurship depends on the skills to develop new
and creative ideas and business models. Read more.
                                                               challenges and where you get to. So if you start behind your competitors,
                                                               this only means that you will have to run faster somewhere down the line. It
                                                               just means you have to adapt your product offering or strategy because at
Consumer, Internet startups Increasingly Targeted              the end of the day, your mission is still the same: to succeed. In fact, the
for VC Backing
                                                               mission is probably the only thing that will not change throughout the life of
Venture dollars have shifted to early rounds from late-        your startup. There is no problem on stumbling as often as you might, as
stage deals over the past several years. It is a shift that
proved fastest in quick changing industry segments,            long as you are not afraid of falling and starting again.
such as the consumer Internet, and slowest in
segments like semiconductor, which are less
dynamic…Since the Great Recession of 2008 and                  2. The only thing that is constant is change
2009, venture capitalists have shifted substantial dollars
to the early stage. Read more.
                                                               When you are in a startup you fail in the morning to succeed in the
                                                               afternoon. It is an action-reaction pair that pushes your learning process

All Desk, mobile launching                                     forward and pushes you to the limit. This all seems logical. Everyone knows
                                                               about the trial and error process. You learn from experiment and make it
                                                               better the next time. However, it is very difficult to keep everyone in your
                                  , 2nd Ed. IT & Web           team motivated and aligned to work this way. Some people do not like to
                                  Finalist, can now be
                                  accessed via a mobile        work for two weeks on a task and find out later that what they have
App. In this version you can: 1) See locations around          achieved will be thrown to the bin or that you have to start all over again
you, 2) Search all over the world and 3) Make
reservations. The startup will extend these                    because now there's a different layout or a different programming language.
functionalities in the future and for that they are eager to
get your feedback so feel free to let them know of your        It is your job as a CEO to persuade and convince your team that this is the
opinion.                                                       right way. Being opened to change allows a continuous iteration, which will
                                                               result on a better product at the end. If you work in innovation and
                                                               disruptive products you have to be extremely open to change without losing
DIGITAL 100: The World's Most Valuable Private
Tech Companies                                                 focus. That seems easy, but those who have been there will certainly share

It's been a crazy year for technology companies. Many
                                                               this experience. And you only have 24h in a day, 7 days a week, which is
of the top companies from last year's list have gone
Awarded by




public. Some (most) of their stocks have gotten              never enough. If you have someone on your team that is not aligned 100%
clobbered lot of young companies are receiving wild
valuations that are starting to get corrected by the down    that probably means that he or she is not the right person for your startup,
market, and there's a new mentality shift in startups:       no matter how good he/she might be. There are a lot of opposite strengths
users aren't everything; making money matters. Click
here to scroll through the Digital 100. By Alyson            when you are trying to build a successful company. You just cannot afford
Shontell, Business Insider.
                                                             loosing efficiency as time is of the essence. And don't forget: time is money.
                                                             A scarcity a startup typically does not have.
Top 15 U.S. Startup Accelerators and Incubators
Ranked                                                       3. Consistency of speech

There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator
programs in the United States. We are fans of these          We have defined our company’s culture as “a company that is all about
programs (not to be confused with pure co-working            music. That perceives technology as a mere tool to achieve an end, to offer
spaces) as they offer entrepreneurs a way to spend a
few months laser focused on a single idea... With all the    the perfect musical experience to the user". That aims for the user' senses
startup accelerator programs popping up across the
country, one is curious to find out which programs           through music and other forms of art expression like photography, film and
would offer the biggest bang for the time, money and         design. Users that love simplicity. We know that to convey such message
effort spent in the program. TechStars Boulder narrowly
edged out Y Combinator for the top spot, read more.          we have to be very careful on how we communicate. What we forgot is that
                                                             this must be applied in the most simple of tasks, like writing an email. When
                                                             I first started contacting possible partners within the industry I wrote detailed
Small but Mighty: Startups Are Shaking Up
Healthcare                                                   introductory emails, explaining what the company was all about, all the
                                                             product benefits, how the world would be a better place with us and so on.
 “…it has become abundantly clear that startup
companies can play a big role in healthcare innovation       Guess what? No one replied. I then decided to take a different approach.
and should not be ignored. While their company size          Instead of a detailed email I sent one with a short phrase and the company
may be small, their ideas and determination are mighty.
What they may lack in the way of ability to scale, they      links on the email’s signature. “Hi, we would love to get your comments on
more than make up for in creativity and rapid
development… Rising costs, skyrocketing demand and           what we’re trying to do here.” The difference was huge. Almost 100%
a need for improved safety and efficiency makes the          conversion rate! What happened was that, in the second approach, we
healthcare industry ripe for out-of-the-box thinking. But,
no single company holds all of the answers. Read more        didn’t let them any other chance but to actually try the product. “Who are
                                                             these guys? Oh, here’s the link!” We advocated that we were all about
                                                             simplicity and let what matters speak for itself but we sent long complicated
Mobilize 2012 discusses emerging trends in mobile
                                                             emails that showed exactly the opposite.
Each year GigaOM’s Mobilize conference explores the
next frontier for connected devices. Watch the world’s
                                                             4. Be prepared to act fast
leading mobile thinkers and doers discuss the wealth of
opportunities spurred by the skyrocketing expansion of
devices and apps. Speakers include Dave Morin (Co-           I have always been an advocate of less talk and more action.
Founder & CEO, Path), Dennis Crowley (Co-Founder
and CEO, foursquare), Spencer Rascoff (CEO, Zillow)          Consequently, this also meant less planning and more action. Although I
and Vlad Sejnoha (CTO, Nuance). Watch an authentic
discussion of what's happening in mobile lead by             still believe this can be achieved when we are talking about product
GigaOM Pro analysts and writers.                             development, I have completely changed my mind when it comes to
                                                             business development. The only way to move fast is by planning everything
                                                             ahead of time and collect as much knowledge and information as you
New job postings available - here for more
information.                                                 possibly can about your market segments. This will allow you to respond
                                                             quickly to every move of your competitors or approach a possible investor.
                                                             For example, if you are planning to go for a funding round you can start by
Awarded by




                                                  screening every venture capitalist firm out there in your field or industry and
                                                  ask yourself: what is their selection process? What kind of information are
Save the Dates – update your calendar now:
                                                  they looking for? What are they looking in their investments? Can they bring
     04 – 06.12.2012 LeWeb                        more than money (smart money) to you? Who have they invested in? Are
          17.12.2012 UTEN Portugal Annual
                     Conference                   there any competitors on their portfolio? What is there track record? Who
     26 – 29.01.2013 Midem                        do you know on their network? Is there anyone you could talk that could
  28.01 – 18.03.2012 Start Smart Class
          28.02.2012 Building Global Innovators   give you more information about them? Who in their team seems to be the
                     Grand Finale
                                                  best lead? What are you looking to achieve with your round?

         More events around Europe? Here          This may and indeed are simple and obvious questions, but so of then left
                                                  poorly answered. So beware when you start down the funding path. Think
Follow us on                                      big but act small. With this information you can prepare your line of action
                                                  and make your choices depending on your strategy and roadmap. If you
                                                  research all of this in advance, when the time comes you will have all the
                                                  required data ready, you will know who to contact, what to expect and even
                                                  to whom you say no. Being able to draw a line and being assertive is really
                                                  key in such a funding process. By the way, saying no is probably one of the
                                                  difficult things you will have to do in your job but also one the most common
                                                  and you must be prepared for that. It is great to found a company, lead a
                                                  group of people on trying to achieve a common goal and fulfill a dream. But
                                                  you must be ready to understand that such a great job comes with great
                                                  responsibility. It has been more than a year since we entered the Building
                                                  Global Innovators Venture Competition and a lot has happened since then,
                                                  most of them I could never have dreamed of possible. We were
                                                  inexperienced, we had no clue on how to run a company and we had this
                                                  crazy idea that we could change the world of music. We have grown,
                                                  matured and established the foundations of a promising company and…
                                                  guess what? We have this crazy idea that we can change the world of
                                                  music.


                                                   The Organization wishes to thank to João Afonso & Musikki for contributing to the
                                                  current Newsletter issue with this press opinion article.

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Lessons learned from an entrepreneur

  • 1. Awarded by Newsletter #18, 06th December, 2012 TradeDare among the 20 lucky guys at Slush BGI announces the 3rd Ed. Finalists & Honorable 3rd Ed. P&S Track Mentions Honorable Mention represented Portugal at Slush in Helsinki, Finland. The startup summit is On 13th November, in a packed full auditorium, the semi-finalists pitched live probably one of the largest of its kind in the world and certainly the most prominent in Europe. TradeDare and the Award Partner announced the 4 Finalists, each one receiving €100k in enjoyed international exposure with many institutional and corporate investors. TradeDare has created a web financial support from Caixa Capital: RDFixer (Life Sciences), Veniam (E&T), platform that integrates customer loyalty and stock faces.in (IT & Web), D-Orbit (Products & Services). management that allows businesses to increase, sustain and drive sales through their channels in an efficient way. faces.in on Vodafone and Robi After having successfully launched with Vodafone PT, the 3rd Ed. IT & Web Finalist is now available for Robi Axiata subscribers. Faces.in was first launched for smartphones and works by displaying on a single screen all your friends in social networks in your proximity. Faces.in also works in non-smartphones via a And the 4 Honorable Mentions are: Cardiocare (Life Sciences), RetroSiM proprietary geo-location algorithm based on SMS texts - integrated with carriers' LBS platforms. It enables users (E&T), Fidesys (IT & Web) and TradeDare (Products & Services). to check-in and find their friends through simple text messages, allowing millions of users worldwide to participate in geo-location and social discovery on any Congratulations to all teams, this is only the start of a challenging process device without a data plan or GPS. that is creating a technology-based company! The competition next steps will be to prepare Finalist teams to the Grand MIT: At the Top Finale (28th February 2013, Lisbon, Portugal) where one selectee will double the award to €200k in non-dilutive financing. Out of the 20 finalist How did MIT become the candidates, the top 12 will enroll in the international catalyst program. most important university in the world? Hint - it has a lot to do with the Institute's focus on tech entrepreneurship, the Trust Center, and the unique, innovative students that MIT attracts. Lessons learned from an entrepreneur João Afonso, Founder & CEO of Musikki, 2nd Ed Grand Finalist Unlugg on its way to Plug & Play Tech Center Lately, everyone keeps asking us what we have learned over the past year. Silicon Valley recognizes the quality of the 3rd Ed Well, we have learned a lot and we could sit all day discussing that but I Building Global Innovators E & T Semi-finalist – Unplugg. The start-up was offered a 3-month stay in the was taught to be objective and synthetic. If we subtract all the daily tasks of Plug and Play Tech Center by Leadership, a Portuguese-based consultancy company, to do further running a company which I must admit - we also had to learn what those development on their energy management B2B2C are, I come to the conclusion that there were four major lessons. solution. Unplugg is an IoT, cloud-based start-up that focuses on Home energy management platform,
  • 2. Awarded by gathering data from smart meters and delivers potential 1. It is a long run, not a sprint savings of up to 20% to its customers via a mobile app. Just over a year ago we entered a bootcamp at ISCTE-IUL, a prominent Lisbon-based social sciences school, for the first day of the e-teams I crash course. We had no idea of what was about to happen, so we were a little nervous. In the afternoon, all teams were invited to stand in front of the Some of the emerging accelerator programs are classroom and pitch their ideas. On that day, I probably made my worst sponsored by some large Turkish corporations. presentation ever. And I really mean it! When we left the campus later at Turkey today is a fast-growing dynamic economy in a very dynamic part of the world. Many large corporations night, I thought I had ruined every chance of succeeding in the Building see the entrepreneurship-related activities as part of Global Innovators competition. Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves we got their social responsibility. The government, through many different programs, has been aggressively back the other day and tried to make it better. Seven months later we won promoting entrepreneurship. More universities are introducing courses, programs, and facilities towards the Grand finale. So, who would have thought it possible? To us this meant entrepreneurship to attract better students to their that it does not matter how or where you start and what sort of mistakes we degree programs. The outlook for entrepreneurship is as bright as ever. Further advancement of make on the way. What really matters is how you respond to those entrepreneurship depends on the skills to develop new and creative ideas and business models. Read more. challenges and where you get to. So if you start behind your competitors, this only means that you will have to run faster somewhere down the line. It just means you have to adapt your product offering or strategy because at Consumer, Internet startups Increasingly Targeted the end of the day, your mission is still the same: to succeed. In fact, the for VC Backing mission is probably the only thing that will not change throughout the life of Venture dollars have shifted to early rounds from late- your startup. There is no problem on stumbling as often as you might, as stage deals over the past several years. It is a shift that proved fastest in quick changing industry segments, long as you are not afraid of falling and starting again. such as the consumer Internet, and slowest in segments like semiconductor, which are less dynamic…Since the Great Recession of 2008 and 2. The only thing that is constant is change 2009, venture capitalists have shifted substantial dollars to the early stage. Read more. When you are in a startup you fail in the morning to succeed in the afternoon. It is an action-reaction pair that pushes your learning process All Desk, mobile launching forward and pushes you to the limit. This all seems logical. Everyone knows about the trial and error process. You learn from experiment and make it better the next time. However, it is very difficult to keep everyone in your , 2nd Ed. IT & Web team motivated and aligned to work this way. Some people do not like to Finalist, can now be accessed via a mobile work for two weeks on a task and find out later that what they have App. In this version you can: 1) See locations around achieved will be thrown to the bin or that you have to start all over again you, 2) Search all over the world and 3) Make reservations. The startup will extend these because now there's a different layout or a different programming language. functionalities in the future and for that they are eager to get your feedback so feel free to let them know of your It is your job as a CEO to persuade and convince your team that this is the opinion. right way. Being opened to change allows a continuous iteration, which will result on a better product at the end. If you work in innovation and disruptive products you have to be extremely open to change without losing DIGITAL 100: The World's Most Valuable Private Tech Companies focus. That seems easy, but those who have been there will certainly share It's been a crazy year for technology companies. Many this experience. And you only have 24h in a day, 7 days a week, which is of the top companies from last year's list have gone
  • 3. Awarded by public. Some (most) of their stocks have gotten never enough. If you have someone on your team that is not aligned 100% clobbered lot of young companies are receiving wild valuations that are starting to get corrected by the down that probably means that he or she is not the right person for your startup, market, and there's a new mentality shift in startups: no matter how good he/she might be. There are a lot of opposite strengths users aren't everything; making money matters. Click here to scroll through the Digital 100. By Alyson when you are trying to build a successful company. You just cannot afford Shontell, Business Insider. loosing efficiency as time is of the essence. And don't forget: time is money. A scarcity a startup typically does not have. Top 15 U.S. Startup Accelerators and Incubators Ranked 3. Consistency of speech There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these We have defined our company’s culture as “a company that is all about programs (not to be confused with pure co-working music. That perceives technology as a mere tool to achieve an end, to offer spaces) as they offer entrepreneurs a way to spend a few months laser focused on a single idea... With all the the perfect musical experience to the user". That aims for the user' senses startup accelerator programs popping up across the country, one is curious to find out which programs through music and other forms of art expression like photography, film and would offer the biggest bang for the time, money and design. Users that love simplicity. We know that to convey such message effort spent in the program. TechStars Boulder narrowly edged out Y Combinator for the top spot, read more. we have to be very careful on how we communicate. What we forgot is that this must be applied in the most simple of tasks, like writing an email. When I first started contacting possible partners within the industry I wrote detailed Small but Mighty: Startups Are Shaking Up Healthcare introductory emails, explaining what the company was all about, all the product benefits, how the world would be a better place with us and so on. “…it has become abundantly clear that startup companies can play a big role in healthcare innovation Guess what? No one replied. I then decided to take a different approach. and should not be ignored. While their company size Instead of a detailed email I sent one with a short phrase and the company may be small, their ideas and determination are mighty. What they may lack in the way of ability to scale, they links on the email’s signature. “Hi, we would love to get your comments on more than make up for in creativity and rapid development… Rising costs, skyrocketing demand and what we’re trying to do here.” The difference was huge. Almost 100% a need for improved safety and efficiency makes the conversion rate! What happened was that, in the second approach, we healthcare industry ripe for out-of-the-box thinking. But, no single company holds all of the answers. Read more didn’t let them any other chance but to actually try the product. “Who are these guys? Oh, here’s the link!” We advocated that we were all about simplicity and let what matters speak for itself but we sent long complicated Mobilize 2012 discusses emerging trends in mobile emails that showed exactly the opposite. Each year GigaOM’s Mobilize conference explores the next frontier for connected devices. Watch the world’s 4. Be prepared to act fast leading mobile thinkers and doers discuss the wealth of opportunities spurred by the skyrocketing expansion of devices and apps. Speakers include Dave Morin (Co- I have always been an advocate of less talk and more action. Founder & CEO, Path), Dennis Crowley (Co-Founder and CEO, foursquare), Spencer Rascoff (CEO, Zillow) Consequently, this also meant less planning and more action. Although I and Vlad Sejnoha (CTO, Nuance). Watch an authentic discussion of what's happening in mobile lead by still believe this can be achieved when we are talking about product GigaOM Pro analysts and writers. development, I have completely changed my mind when it comes to business development. The only way to move fast is by planning everything ahead of time and collect as much knowledge and information as you New job postings available - here for more information. possibly can about your market segments. This will allow you to respond quickly to every move of your competitors or approach a possible investor. For example, if you are planning to go for a funding round you can start by
  • 4. Awarded by screening every venture capitalist firm out there in your field or industry and ask yourself: what is their selection process? What kind of information are Save the Dates – update your calendar now: they looking for? What are they looking in their investments? Can they bring 04 – 06.12.2012 LeWeb more than money (smart money) to you? Who have they invested in? Are 17.12.2012 UTEN Portugal Annual Conference there any competitors on their portfolio? What is there track record? Who 26 – 29.01.2013 Midem do you know on their network? Is there anyone you could talk that could 28.01 – 18.03.2012 Start Smart Class 28.02.2012 Building Global Innovators give you more information about them? Who in their team seems to be the Grand Finale best lead? What are you looking to achieve with your round? More events around Europe? Here This may and indeed are simple and obvious questions, but so of then left poorly answered. So beware when you start down the funding path. Think Follow us on big but act small. With this information you can prepare your line of action and make your choices depending on your strategy and roadmap. If you research all of this in advance, when the time comes you will have all the required data ready, you will know who to contact, what to expect and even to whom you say no. Being able to draw a line and being assertive is really key in such a funding process. By the way, saying no is probably one of the difficult things you will have to do in your job but also one the most common and you must be prepared for that. It is great to found a company, lead a group of people on trying to achieve a common goal and fulfill a dream. But you must be ready to understand that such a great job comes with great responsibility. It has been more than a year since we entered the Building Global Innovators Venture Competition and a lot has happened since then, most of them I could never have dreamed of possible. We were inexperienced, we had no clue on how to run a company and we had this crazy idea that we could change the world of music. We have grown, matured and established the foundations of a promising company and… guess what? We have this crazy idea that we can change the world of music. The Organization wishes to thank to João Afonso & Musikki for contributing to the current Newsletter issue with this press opinion article. Need more Information? Unsubscribe