A new recipe for sweet success for turning your idea into a start-up business.

1. Turning your idea Into a business A new recipe for success Dave Moskovitz Chairman, WebFund dave@webfund.co.nz Twitter: @davemosk Mob: 027 220 2202

2. Agenda Background The old recipe for humble pie A new recipe for sweet success Getting the resources you need What is your idea really worth? Discussion

3. WebFund engineers start-up success by cultivating ideas, people and resources as well as providing incubation, seed capital, strategic advice, governance, access to networks, technical know-how, and plenty of hard yakka. Do you have what it takes to be our next investment?

4. Background Why am I here?

5. The Old Recipe Ingredients: You, an idea, a garage, some family members, some friends Method: 1. Scribble idea on back of napkin. 2. While working your day job, stay up really late every night refining your idea to where you think it's really killer.

6. The Old Recipe 3. Move into garage to build prototype. 4. Get opinions from family members and friends – they think it's cool. 5. Get Dad to invest $30k to build a better prototype. 6. Get his second ex-wife's mate to help out with the legals.

7. The Old Recipe 7. Keep adding features to your product for a year so it's exactly as you'd like it. 8. Get your mate from high school to help you on some evenings when he can spare the time. 9. Appoint your unemployed sister as sales director; she puts up a naff web page trying to sell your product online.

8. The Old Recipe 7. Live off the money you're getting from GST refunds. 8. Go into liquidation. 9. Christmas is an unmitigated disaster. Result: Humble Pie, Serves one. Garnish liberally with whakamā, bathos, and a sprinkling of tears

9. Why did it fail? Single point of failure Free of the confines of strategy Under-resourced Lack of professional input No focus on customers or market Execution too slow

10. Warning The new recipe for sweet success is high-risk , potentially expensive, and ALWAYS involves a lot of work doing things you don't enjoy.

11. The New Recipe Ingredients: You, an idea, a vision, a plan, a team, customers, support networks, dogged determination, hard yakka, investors, the world. Preparation time: 5-10 years Serves: everyone

12. The New Recipe 1. Find a structural inefficiency in society that really bugs you.

13. The New Recipe 2. Scribble a solution on the back of a napkin, and back it up with a couple of pages on who might buy it and how you will reach them.

14. The New Recipe 3. Research existing solutions, and figure out ways to make your solution a lot better than the others.

15. The New Recipe 4. Visualise how you might scale this into a global business and develop an elevator pitch to explain this to the world.

16. The New Recipe 5. Identify key people who might want to buy your product, an go learn as much as you can from them.

17. The New Recipe 6. Now that you have a product, some potential customers, and a vision, Draw up a business plan. Enroll in the Activate program (or equivalent) if you need help.

18. The New Recipe 7. Find a co-founder , and build a team around you of clever enthusiastic and hard-working people. Some grey hair a bonus.

19. The New Recipe 8. Build and work your own networks to find experienced people (eg professionals) who might be able to help you.

20. The New Recipe 9. Build a Minimum Viable Product – keep it really simple , no frills.

21. The New Recipe 10. Get out of the building and talk more to your prospective customers. Ask them directly what would make them want to buy your product. Refer http://steveblank.com/

22. The New Recipe 11. Iterate your product and business as quickly as you can to meet customer expectations as measured by their behaviour . Refer http://startuplessonslearned.com/

23. The New Recipe 12. Map out and exploit all of your available resources. Max out your credit card, work extra hours at your day job, and do whatever it takes show that you can get to cash-flow positive.

24. The New Recipe 13. Talk to Angel Investors early. Ask them directly what would make them want to invest; see if they know anyone with experience in your subject area, and get to know them really well.

25. The New Recipe 14. SELL SELL SELL and LEARN LEARN LEARN

26. The New Recipe 15. Keep adapting to everything you learn.

27. The New Recipe 16. Go back and talk to your Angel Investor friends again who already know you well . Secure investment .

28. The New Recipe 17. Scale .

29. The New Recipe 18. Refine your business so it's a must-have acquisition for a large multinational .

30. The New Recipe 19. Sell your business for a big premium .

31. The New Recipe 20. Repeat .

33. Your customers => Organic cash flow

34. Friends, Family, Fools

35. The Gummint

36. Banks

37. Angels

38. VC / Private Equity

40. An experienced team (success, failure)

41. A sexy idea

42. A globally scalable business model

43. Market validation

44. Sales capability

45. Barriers to competition

46. Hygiene

48. Reputation

49. Familiarity with your space

50. Networks

51. Ability to add value

52. Personality match

53. What is your idea worth? By itself, an idea is worthless

54. What is a company worth? Economically, it's only worth what someone will pay for it. Financially, it's only worth a multiple of the free cash flow it can generate, less a risk factor. Emotionally, it may be worth a lot more than either, causing its worth to become a lot less than either.

56. Some will become lifestyle businesses

57. 1 in 10 will be really successful

58. Summary It's really hard work, could take 10 years, and even then most start-ups fail. But with a world-beating idea combined with passion, energy, commitment and the right team and resources, you can change the world.