VentureConnect 2010 on April 23, 4PM @ Microsoft NERD

20 university startups (including 2 from TLP Fellows) from VentureLab invite you to VentureConnect2010 on April 23, at 4:00 at Microsoft NERD

VentureConnect2010 is a showcase of university tech startups companies engaged in an intensive 2 week program to accelerate their ventures as part of VentureLab, produced by the National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance with support from Microsoft New England Research and Development Center.

The twenty teams in VentureLab will demonstrate “IGNITE-Style” their innovations and showcase how they’ve accelerated in the VentureLab program over the past 2 weeks. The ventures created by both graduate and undergraduate startups include such diverse areas including solar, security, software and emerging markets ventures.

VentureConnect2010 emerged as an student driven initiative from VentureLab when the student teams were each asked to create a $100 challenge to test entrepreneurial action and ambition.

VentureConnect2010 takes place at Microsoft NERD (http://microsoftcambridge.com/) One Memorial Drive in Cambridge from 4 PM - 6:45 PM on April 23rd. Light appetizers and refreshments will be served!

REGISTER HERE: http://ventureconnect2010.eventbrite.com/

This is a FREE event but please consider a modest donation which will be directed to the student ventures!


Professional Service Providers interested in displaying their organization, please sign up with your contact information so we can communicate directly.

Expected attendees are investors, attorneys, students, entrepreneurs, and press.

REGISTER HERE: http://ventureconnect2010.eventbrite.com/

CES 2010 Shows Best of Tech

If this year's CES was a blockbuster movie, its title would be CES 2010: The Rebound. This year's show featured both an increase in attendance, and from where I stood, a more diverse and advanced array of innovative products than ever before.

This was I believe my 7th CES show. I skipped last year, and I wasn't the only one. PC Magazine reported that attendance fell from 140,000 to 110,000 last year as corporate budgets tightened. This year was up to 120,000, a respectable improvement. In terms of products, I was impressed. There were some neat new gadgets, with refreshingly many from startups and small companies. In fact, a west coast based startup called Boxee won the prestigious Last Gadget Standing award for their internet video to TV appliance.

The booths were impressive. The big companies, like MSFT, Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic impressed as always, with up and comers like LG upping the ante. Yet for all the majors and their dazzling, hyped products, there were many less known competitors, particularly from Asia, competing in new product categories. I lost count of how many unknown netbook and e-readers I saw thrown into the ring with devices like the kindle. Overall, it was encouraging to see so much progress, innovation, and energy in this corner of tech.

Highlights of CES included:

• Keynote from Microsoft's Steve Ballmer. Microsoft also presented Windows 7 and their innovative now motion-sensing camera for the XBox called Nadal.

• 3D flat screen TV's - They were everywhere, along with new camcorders to support the format.

• Netbooks - mini laptops optimized for travel

• Smartbooks - Smaller netbooks with always-on internet connections.

• eReaders - Electronic readers like the Kindle, Nook, etc.

• Microprojectors like the Pico laser projector from Microvision

• The Powermat Wireless Recharging pad

Michael Mullins

TLP Boston 2010

Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made?

This December Fortune Small business story revisits the Nature vs Nurture debate within the context of entrepreneurship. Are entrepreneurs born with certain inherent traits, like risk taking ability and decision making skills? Researchers at Case Western and University of Cambridge think so, but that line of thinking bothers a lot of people, including several quoted in the article.

Of course, many business skills can be taught, and there may never be a clear answer on the Nature aspect. But it's interesting food for though. If you're interested in this subject, you can read the full article below, which contains quotes from folks at other institutions such as Babson, The Kauffman Foundation, and Kleiner Perkins, to name a few.

Excerpt:

"(Fortune Small Business) -- When Bill Gates's children become adults, they'll probably launch their own businesses.

And not just because of their father's example. Entrepreneurial tendencies -- including the ability to recognize business opportunities -- are heavily influenced by genetic factors, according to a study co-directed by Scott Shane, a professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve University.

Shane and his fellow researchers compared the entrepreneurial activity of 870 pairs of identical twins -- who share 100% of their genes -- and 857 pairs of same-sex fraternal twins -- who share 50% -- to see how much of entrepreneurial behavior is genetic and how much is environmental."

Click here to read the full article

Michael Mullins

TLP Boston 2010

Sales is not a dark art

For many entrepreneurs building an effective sales organization is often the hardest part of building a company. Many, especially technologists, consider sales to be a dark art that can only be practiced by a select few, and too often the prevailing view is that sales is nothing more than a lot of golf outings, handshakes, and expensive dinners. Be smooth and you're good at sales.

So when I recently attended a Sales 101 BootCamp held by the MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) it was great to learn that sales is not a dark art. In fact, sales is more science than art when practiced properly. For those who are not familiar with VMS, it is MIT's program that allows those in the MIT community who have ideas they want to turn into businesses to connect with mentors who've successfully built and run businesses - my company Assured Labor has participated in this program since our founding. As its title implies, the Bootcamp was an intense short session focused on giving entrepreneurs the basic vocabulary necessary to be conversant in sales speak, the tools to start selling to customers, and a basic framework for building a successful sales organization. Seeing as sales are the lifeblood of any successful business the learnings from this session are relevant to all startups regardless of industry.

The session featured three speakers, Kent Summers, Marc Corbacho, and Al Stefan - bringing their perspectives on sales as CEO, sales VP, and sales rep respectively. Kent covered the basics of sales from terminology to providing an understanding of how to approach it. Marc provided his perspective as a manager and how to build a successful sales organization, and finally Al provided his perspective as a sales rep and how they work with the other parts of an organization to maximize their effectiveness.

So what did I learn exactly? Quite a bit in fact, but here are my key takeaways -

Your first customer is extremely important:

Aside from the obvious fact that a first customer means a company's first revenues, a first customer also is important for future sales, and thus should be chosen with care. Specifically that customer should be recognizable within your target market (more on this in a second), and can be referenced when needed. Why are these aspects important? Having a recognizable name as your first customer gives you and your young startup credibility with other customers, and having a customer whom you can reference gives other potential customers someone to talk to when they have questions.

Understand your target market, and buyer profile:

All too often startups pursue a "boil the ocean" strategy that involves talking to every potential customer regardless of their profile. The problem with this approach is that it often dilutes the value proposition of your product or service because you are trying to be everything to everyone - or as the old saying goes "the jack of all trades, the master of none". Being focused however provides your customers with a clear understanding of who you are, and how your product can help them because all of your messaging will most likely pertain to them.

Build a repeatable sales methodology:

This goes back to my comment earlier about sales being a dark art. Too often the assumption is that there is no specific formula to sales, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Yes sales is about building trusted relationships, but to get to that point your sales organization needs to follow a methodology that gets them in front of the right people who are most likely buy whatever product or service you are offering. This involves building what is often known as the sales funnel - a step by step process by which a sales organization can quickly identify and engage the best customer prospects.

Talk about the customer problem, not your product:

Customers like to be catered to, and don't want to hear about what your product does. They want to talk about the problems they are facing and when you frame your product as a solution to their problem you are more likely to be successful in your sales efforts.

Establish a sales culture in your organization:

All too often sales and product development do not collaborate or communicate. The problem with this is that it leads to what I like to call organizational split personality disorder. You have product development working on features they think are cool regardless of whether they are relevant to an end user, and you have sales selling features that will get a customer to actually open their wallet even if those features have no relevance to the product that actually exists. However, when an organization promotes a sales culture it changes the whole dynamic of the organization to one that focuses on building a real product that solves a real world need.

I learned much much more at this bootcamp, but even if I hadn't having these takeaways that I've shared with all of you gave me a great sense of what it really takes to start building an organization that not only builds great products but sells them too!

Creating a compelling investor pitch (Boston's 1st day-long workshop)

Raising money is always a daunting task for most entrepreneurs. Further, the entrepreneurial view that investors, primarily the venture capitalists (VCs), are people sitting in ivory towers compounds this anxiety during an investor meeting. The first step towards making that initial meeting with an investor a success is to create a compelling value proposition via an effective pitch.

Although I have completed my MBA from Cornell, co-founded a healthcare startup and am currently the CEO of Dragonfly, I still remember the unnerving experience of doing my first pitch to a general partner of a renowned VC firm in the Boston area. However, having gone through various VC meetings myself, I have learned a lot about the right ways of pitching to investors. Thanks to Mark Haddad, Partner, Foley Hoag, I had the opportunity to attend TLP’s “pitch deck workshop” on October 24 at the spectacular Foley Hoag's Emerging Enterprise Center in Waltham, MA. From my previous experiences, I believe that the workshop was a great introduction for budding entrepreneurs to understand the basics of how to create a perfect pitch using simple yet efficient tools. The stellar speakers who were invited to share their experiences were very generous to talk to the current TLP fellows about how to create a successful investor pitch in order to convert their ideas into real businesses.

The morning session of the workshop began with an exhaustive VC pitch by Authors Globe CEO and a 2008 TLP Fellow, Antonio Faillace. The pitch gave the current TLP fellows great insights into how to do a comprehensive pitch. This was followed by a panel discussion consisting of Nilanjana Bhowmik, Partner, Longworth Venture Partners and Jim Matheson, General Partner, Flagship Ventures, and led by the very deft and capable Vishy Venugopalan, TLP Fellow 2010. Both Nilanjana and Jim shared their experiences of good and bad pitch practices with the fellows. Serial entrepreneur, and ex-CEO of Netezza Jit Saxena kicked off the afternoon session with his sensational and motivating story of his journey from being an employee of Data General to founding two companies and taking them both to successful IPOs. After the great tips provided by leading VCs and entrepreneurs, the fellows were ready to do some hands-on training in order to convert their ideas into real businesses. Anupendra Sharma led the working session of creating a great investor pitch during which time fellows worked on their respective slide decks. All in all it was a very informative and exhaustive workshop that provided the wherewithal to the budding entrepreneurial fellows for taking the first step towards creating successful companies.

Here are my five key takeaways from the workshop:

Three key aspects of a memorable pitch: Content, Theatrics, and Interaction during dialogue

Always have a complete pitch ready even if you don’t know answers to all aspects of the business. Start off the pitch by introducing the team and what each team member brings to the company. Further, it is imperative to state the problem you are trying to solve along with some quantitative data and your solution with the benefits it offers up front. This will allow the investor to wrap his/her mind around your idea right away without second-guessing. Next, show the investor that you understand the market and what is the selling opportunity for your offering. Most technologists get too wrapped up with the product and the expenses for the company. Try to understand the market opportunity and hence the potential revenues that it can afford.

Although you don’t need to know the ins and outs of all the possible business models, a fair understanding of them demonstrates to the investors that you truly understand your industry. One of the biggest mistakes most entrepreneurs make is not being aware of and acknowledging their competition. There are three primary competitors that an entrepreneur needs to be aware of: other startups, big companies and status quo of customers. To wrap up, show some basic P&L and cash flow projections, but don’t forget to speak about the underlying assumptions for them.

During the pitch it is important to portray good team dynamics. It not only affects the pitch performance, but also shows the investors that the team works well together. When the investors ask questions, the CEO should do one of the following three things: answer it correctly, point to the right person if he/she doesn’t know the answer or if no one knows the right answer acknowledge it and respond that they will either get that answer or hire a person with appropriate expertise. This might seem common sense, but never argue in front of the investor about who should have known the answer to a question. Finally, practice, practice, and practice with the entire team that will attend the investor meeting. Make sure there are no glitches before going in for the real thing.

Remember, the pitch is a company interview with the management team having a lot of control over the aspects of what the company wants to present.

Recipe for a successful startup: people, product, customers

It’s extremely important for an entrepreneur to know oneself. A successful entrepreneur falls in one of these two categories – they either have a great track record or a lot of passion for what they want to do. Secondly, they know and fully understand why they are doing what they want to accomplish. Know your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses. Once you are aware of this you need to form a world-class team. If you can get a luminary in the industry on board, that tells a lot about the power of your offering. If you realize that you cannot lead a team as a CEO, attract a great CEO. Surround yourself with extremely smart people so that they will make the company successful. Finally, talk to your customers and understand their pain points. This will allow you to offer what your customers need rather than what you think they need.

Why raise money from institutional investors?

Although bootstrapping is a great way to get a startup off the ground, it is usually more time consuming than raising money from institutional investors. Additionally, the expertise and network that an institutional investor will bring to the table can be an invaluable asset for the company. Therefore, it is important that the entrepreneur is aware of the time vs. opportunity cost for getting a startup, especially a product company, operational. The probability of an institutional investor backed company beating a bootstrapping company to market is pretty high.

Be passionate not religious.

Being an entrepreneur is not easy. Not only do you need to believe in yourself and your idea, but keep plugging along in spite of all the rejections you might face on your journey to create a successful company. However, while doing so, be wary of not becoming too attached to your ideas. Therefore, keep doing what you want to do, but constantly question yourself if it is still the right thing to do. In other words, looking external to the company, sell yourself and your idea but looking internally, constantly challenge and question yourself while believing in your offering so as to not waiver from your vision.

Benefits of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship affords you the chance to impact not only the marketplace but also people’s lives through technological innovations. Founding companies gives you the ability to make an immediate positive impact on the economy by creating new jobs in the local community and hence benefiting the society.

This workshop barely scratched the surface of what's a difficult process, so Anupendra has agreed to work one-on-one with those Fellows raising money to refine their pitches. Thanks a lot Anupendra! Now that the TLP Boston fellows are armed with the investor pitch creation toolkit, I look forward to seeing some superior pitches in the coming months.

How Sharing Has Become Big Business (Jay Meattle 2010 Fellow)

Current TLP Fellow and founder of Shareaholic, Jay Meattle, was mentioned in a piece in 'NYT's business section today. The article, titled Share the Moment and Spread the Wealth, describes how sharing Internet links has become a big business.

It has been quite the red letter week for Jay's startup, Shareaholic, which makes a popular Firefox plugin that enables Web surfers to share items they come across with many popular services like Facebook, Twitter and Digg. The plucky Firefox plugin has been downloaded over a million times to date. Earlier this week, Shareaholic closed a small round of angel funding from several people in the startup scene in Boston.

Congratulations Jay, and keep up the great work!