Winston Choe will give a talk on starting a new tech venture in Silicon Valley. The talk will cover emerging tech areas like wearables, mobile, gaming, big data and more. It will also discuss the venture lifecycle from early stage funding to later stage VC, IPOs, acquisitions and more. Key areas for developing an idea will be discussed like market trends, evaluation criteria, and sources of ideas. Developing the business model will also be covered including assessing the market size, value proposition, customer acquisition channels and competition. Other topics will include team building, Silicon Valley incubators, and preparing an investor pitch.
6. Market Size
Characterize the Market
•
•
consumer, business, advertiser, devices, industry, etc
start with more; focus on largest
Find industry-reports
•
usually not as relevant
Learn how competitors size the Market
•
web-site, press-release, blog
Validation
•
•
test assumptions
surveys, interviews, focus-groups
Meetup
7. Value-Proposition
Characterize the Problem
•
•
•
are you focusing on the most compelling problem?
is the problem Real and Urgent
Avoid: “Your Solution Is Not My Problem”
Clarify the Value-Proposition
•
•
•
how are users solving the problem today?
why is your solution much better?
how often would they use your solution?
Validation
•
•
test assumptions
Prototype, Alpha
Meetup
8. Customer-Acquisition
Meetup
Characterize the Channels to Market
•
•
Direct, Channel, Online, Social, Mobile, etc
start with more; focus on lowest cost
Benchmark Customer-Acquisition
•
Sales-cycle, Deal-cycle, Search-Advertising, Social-Media, Mobile-downloads
Learn from Competitors Market-Traction
•
•
•
•
which channels did they use?
how long did they take to get to X users?
how much funding did they burn through?
do you really think you can do better?
10. Team Building
Meetup
• Who do you need for the next 2 milestones?
(eg. Seed, Series-A)
– Engineers, Designers, Marketing, Sales,
Operations
• Agree with Founders on:
– Roles/Responsibilities + Commitment +
Timeframe
• Pre/Post Incorporation Shares
• Advisors
12. Business Model
Meetup
Freemium
Subscription
•Can we sufficiently scale Free users?
•Are there other ways to monetize
Free users to cover costs?
•Are the Premium conversion
incentives strong enough?
•Consumer-market
•Enterprise-market, Cloud-services
Licensing
•Enterprise-market, Desktop-SW
•Technologies, Royalty-based
Revenue-Share
•App-Stores
•Time-Horizon, Exclusivity
Advertising + Affiliates
•Do we have sufficient scale?
Hardware
•Devices, Accessories, Supplies
18. Investor Pitch
Title
• Elevator Pitch
Problem
• Real and Urgent
Solution
• Clear Value-Prop and ROI
Business-Model
• Validation
Underlying Magic
• Sustainable, Measurable
Competition
• Defensible, Asymmetric, Disruptive
Meetup
Sales & Marketing
• Bottom-up TAM
• Strong Strategy, Sound Tactics,
Realistic Plan
Finance
• 3-year Forecasts, Key-Metrics,
Comparables
Team
• Track-record, Differential Insight,
Cohesive
Status
• Use-of-funds, Traction, Invest Now!
19. Preparation
•10/20/30 = Slides/Minutes/Font
•3 most important things for Investor?
•Why did Investor give us a meeting?
•Special questions, issues, landmines?
•Investor organizational and people background?
•Investor’s current efforts?
•Pitch 10 times to friendlies & refine
•Qualified introduction to the Investor
•Goal of 1st meeting -> To get 2nd meeting
Meetup
Update on Nexus Program
Discuss Plans for 2012
More Nexus Meetups, Workshops (+ Accelerator)
More Countries
Other Sectors
The next key element in the SV Ecosystem are Incubators
Incubators have traditionally been government-funded non-profits with a weak track-record.
Over the past few years a dozen Incubators have been established that have led to a significant increase in the number of high-quality startups at the Seed Stage
Incubator programs cover Concept -> Launch and generally include ….
Y-Combinator (includes $150k funding, excludes Co-Working, SV-based)
Founder Institute (Curriculum-centric, excludes Funding and Co-Working, 22 cities worldwide)
PnP (Co-Working Centric)
Vator.tv (Online-Media Centric)
I am a mentor at Founder Institute and PnP
Question: What are the Incubators in Malaysia and Region?
Answer: Domain-specific (eg. TPM, Biotech)
Question: What is their operating model?
Answer: Co-Working Centric (low-rent)
Question: What is working and not-working?
Answer: Not enough mentorship
Summary
There are opportunities to connect the MSC Companies with Incubators in SV
There are opportunities to setup Regional Incubator in Malaysia
Investment is usually Bootstrapped or Friends/Family
Convince yourself that the venture is viable for the next Stage
Question: How many MSC companies at Stage #1
Questions?
Key-Factors for Investment in Stage #2
Founders
MVP Traction
Social-Proof (Mentors, Key-Users, Lead Investor, Co-Founder)
Question: How many MSC companies at Stage #2
Questions?
Key-Factors for Investment in Stage #3
Complete Team
Market Traction
Revenue Model
Question: How many MSC companies at Stage #3
Questions?
Angels & Incubators: around $100k
Seed Funds: around $500k
Small/Large VC Funds: around $2-3m
Question: What are the types of Investment Funds in Malaysia and Region?
Answer: Startup Funding + VC Funding
Question: Are there any foreign VCs in Malaysia?
Answer: Walden
Question: Where are the gaps in Investment?
Answer: Seed funding (RM $1-2.5m)
Summary
There are opportunities to connect MSC companies to VCs in SV
There are opportunities to introduce Foreign Angels/VCs to Malaysia
Update on Nexus Program
Discuss Plans for 2012
More Nexus Meetups, Workshops (+ Accelerator)
More Countries
Other Sectors