http://www.examiner.com/article/tech-startup-vocabulary-101-for-real Growth hacking is when you leverage existing platforms to gain critical mass (see critical mass). This method entails figuring out a way to grow your startup with little to no money quickly. Think AirBnB and how they leveraged Craigslist to get an influx of millions of users until they were sent a cease-and-desist letter. You can't stop the bomb though, once they gained critical mass, they were happy to cease and desist since they already grew exponentially. Critical mass is the moment that your startup reaches a tipping point where you potentially cannot even afford your servers or you have reached a number of users that is driving your company a lot of revenue or a lot of investors. For a new tech startup this could mean reaching 10 million users in just one year or less. Acqui-hire is when a large player in your space (Facebook, Google, eBay, Match.com, etc.) buys your company because of the talent it has. They mostly go after engineers, developers, growth hackers. Then they use that talent to beef up their own products while usually leaving the product they purchased from you in the dust. Failure is simply a learning experience, every time you fail in a start up, you learn many lessons that you use for the next one, not to be repeated. As in anything in life, failure is not an option, so learn from your mistakes, and you will be successful. When you pivot your startup, it is normally because you found a vertical, or horizontal, that makes more sense for your business model. Or it simply means that what you intended your product to be is not what your users are using it for. So you pivot to a new idea, to ensure the company’s’ success. For example, say your tech startup is text messaging for pets. After a few weeks you find out that pets can't really text on the phone. But somehow they're able to access the camera with their paw, and they like taking Selfies. Well then you pivot to a dog Selfie app. SaaS stands for Software as a Service: think Salesforce, or cloud based services. Really anything that provides a service that you would normally have to install a bulky program for. Then you are limited to use that program on the computer that you installed it on. Whereas SaaS you can access from any computer or device and it is linked/synced throughout all the platforms. When you hear the term pre-money valuation, it means how much is your company worth before you get money from investors. Yes, this number tends to be challenging to come up with, but if you do the research on your market, and look at valuations for other companies, how much technology you've built, how many users you have, any IP that you own, patents, and other types of variables, you can come up with a fairly accurate pre-money valuation. A post money valuation is what you are worth after receiving an investment. For example, if your pre-money valuation is $500,000 (a common amount) and you receive $100,000 in funding for 10%, your post money valuation will then be $1.1 million. An exit is when you successfully reached critical mass, built a product people love, received investments (usually), and a larger company in your market purchased you for a large amount of money. For example, Instagram exited for $1 billion when Facebook acquired them. Same goes for when they bought WhatsApp for $19 billion, which was a huge exit. Typically, when founders exit in a big way, they build more products since now they have exit potential and credibility backing them. Of course there is always the possibility of being acquired before you even launch. Twitter bought Vine before they launched, and Google buys companies pre-launch all the time (see Acqui-hire). I've been a serial entrepreneur since 1988. When I was in eighth grade, I sold accessories and music that I purchased in Europe to my classmates in Philadelphia. I created a comic book that I sold to classmates in ninth grade. I became a DJ in high school and started an event hosting company in college that made me a decent income (more than the job I got out of college at a software company). In 2003 I started my own tech consulting company. In 2004 I wrote and published a sci-fi fantasy novel, as well as a publication that could save FedEx billions of dollars a year. I opened my own eBay brick-and-mortar franchise that I invented (Stuff Sold) in 2005 (3 stores). In 2009 I wrote, produced, and directed a feature length film that won audience choice award at a film festival in 2010 that is being currently distributed worldwide. And for the past four years I've been building and launching tech startups, whereas I'm in the middle of raising a seed round for my current tech startup. That’s what a serial entrepreneur is. A Seed Round is usually the first institutional round typically from angel investors (wealthy individuals who usually invest $100k to $500k). Usually when you are raising your Seed Round you’ve already gone through what's called a Friends and Family Round (just what it sounds like). The Seed stage is typically less than $500,000 but sometimes goes all the way up to $1 million. Next in line is the Series A round where you typically approach VCs (venture capitalists) for anywhere between $1 million and $5 million…and sometimes more. Scalability is whether or not your business can handle the influx of millions of users, whether your software is capable, your server infrastructure is capable, or if you can meet the demand of the widgets you are trying to sell with the manufacturing process that you currently have. So maybe today you can create 100 units of your new Smart Toilet, but can you make 100,000 tomorrow? Another example is if your new mobile app has 10,000 users on it, and receives funding, can it handle 10 million users in a few months? Investors like a company that is scalable. Agile development typically means that it is fast to change, adaptable, and that you are continuously improving your product. When something is agile, it is light on its feet, meaning you can move fast with effective results. A very popular term is lean methodology. If anyone has ever read the book by Eric Ries “The Lean Startup”, you'll realize that running a business of any type, is really like running a laboratory. You have to constantly run micro experiments, learn fast, and fail fast. The more you can do with little to no money, and the more results you can analyze the better. Then use those data you gather to help make your decisions properly. Iteration is the process that the founders of a tech startup use to continuously change and improve their product. As an example, you come up with a new idea for a drone rental service, and you test out your new app with the rental service to 100 beta testers. Then using the feedback from these 100 users, you iterate your app and platform to what they think works best. Then you show them the product again, get their feedback, and change it (iterate) again. Repeat this process over and over (iteration), until you have a platform that everyone is happy with. Then you can gain critical mass and close a Series A round! Keywords: Customer, User, Bubble, Recession, Failure, Better Place, Pivot Bill Gross - The single biggest reason Startups succeed (TED talk) 00:00:25.063 --> 00:00:27.212 I believe that the startup organization 00:00:27.212 --> 00:00:30.970 is one of the greatest forms to make the world a better place. --- 00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:45.799 But if the startup organization is so great, 00:00:45.799 --> 00:00:47.281 why do so many fail? --- 00:01:59.864 --> 00:02:02.140 So much about a team's execution 00:02:02.140 --> 00:02:05.900 is its ability to adapt to getting punched in the face by the customer. 00:02:05.900 --> 00:02:07.588 The customer is the true reality. --- 00:04:42.020 --> 00:04:45.299 That company came out right during the height of the recession 00:04:45.299 --> 00:04:47.117 when people really needed extra money, 00:04:47.117 --> 00:04:48.931 and that maybe helped people overcome 00:04:48.931 --> 00:04:51.777 their objection to renting out their own home to a stranger. --- 00:04:57.174 --> 00:04:58.656 But the timing was so perfect 00:04:58.656 --> 00:05:00.805 for their need to get drivers into the system. 00:05:00.805 --> 00:05:03.927 Drivers were looking for extra money; it was very, very important. Lecture 3 - Before the Startup (Paul Graham) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii1jcLg-eIQ 00:03:53.468 --> 00:03:55.551 So sorta, what YC is, 00:03:55.551 --> 00:03:59.833 is like business ski instructors, except for 00:03:59.833 --> 00:04:03.693 going up the slopes instead of down them. --- 00:12:29.340 --> 00:12:33.870 And all users care about is whether your software 00:12:33.870 --> 00:12:35.390 does what they want, right? 00:12:35.390 --> 00:12:36.610 They're like sharks. 00:12:36.610 --> 00:12:39.180 Sharks are, like, too stupid to fool. 00:12:39.180 --> 00:12:41.330 You can't, like, wave a red flag at a shark and fool it, 00:12:41.330 --> 00:12:43.507 it's like, meat or no meat. --- 00:14:34.130 --> 00:14:36.470 Startups are all consuming. 00:14:36.470 --> 00:14:39.620 If you start a start up, it will take over your life 00:14:39.620 --> 00:14:41.600 to a degree that you cannot imagine. --- Startup is the New Black https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJWMvgnmh8g 00:14:06.959 --> 00:14:08.339 - You really have to have the mindset 00:14:08.339 --> 00:14:12.579 that it's not a failure, 00:14:12.579 --> 00:14:14.299 it's an opportunity to learn. --- 00:14:26.139 --> 00:14:29.518 it's not a failure, actually that's a success 00:14:29.518 --> 00:14:31.658 because knowing when to stop is an art 00:14:31.658 --> 00:14:34.498 and takes quite a lot of intelligence 00:14:34.498 --> 00:14:36.018 knowing when to quit something. 00:14:36.018 --> 00:14:38.098 - Yeah, the fail fast strategy is really just a way 00:14:38.098 --> 00:14:41.118 of saying you need to have validated learning --- 00:15:50.778 --> 00:15:52.918 And at this critical stage in our growth, --- 00:17:47.778 --> 00:17:49.798 It's always hard to use the "F" word and say, 00:17:49.798 --> 00:17:51.398 oh, I failed at something. 00:17:51.398 --> 00:17:54.138 And I think that whenever you make a pivot, 00:17:54.138 --> 00:17:55.998 you're essentially saying, well, this thing failed. 00:17:55.998 --> 00:17:59.718 But, at the same time, when you think about failing quickly, 00:17:59.718 --> 00:18:03.498 and kind of the entire motto of the startup community 00:18:03.498 --> 00:18:08.183 right now is fail quickly, because you just learn so much, 00:18:08.183 --> 00:18:10.258 and can move fast. --- 00:19:40.033 --> 00:19:42.018 Don't copy, don't steal, --- 00:20:17.998 --> 00:20:22.147 - There's a lot of advice that a new entrepreneur can use. 00:20:22.147 --> 00:20:25.298 The practical advice would be to point them towards 00:20:25.298 --> 00:20:30.298 the lean startup resources, put them on the right track, 00:20:30.298 --> 00:20:32.179 do things like failing fast 00:20:32.179 --> 00:20:35.938 and understand concepts of validated learning. --- 00:20:47.118 --> 00:20:51.978 number one, make sure that you believe in yourself 00:20:51.978 --> 00:20:55.298 and that you have the confidence in your own abilities 00:20:55.298 --> 00:20:57.558 and in your ideas so that you can 00:20:57.558 --> 00:20:59.858 actually see it through to the end; 00:20:59.858 --> 00:21:01.998 and then, perhaps more importantly, 00:21:01.998 --> 00:21:04.178 is make sure there's someone in your life 00:21:04.178 --> 00:21:08.278 who believes in you more than you believe in yourself. 00:21:08.278 --> 00:21:09.958 So in my case, it's my wife, 00:21:09.958 --> 00:21:11.379 but it doesn't have to be a wife. --- 00:21:27.458 --> 00:21:29.918 I think a lot of people fail. 00:21:29.918 --> 00:21:32.998 I think a lot of people fail or they give up 00:21:32.998 --> 00:21:35.059 before they get to the destination Marc Andreessen on Big Breakthrough Ideas and Courageous Entrepreneurs 00:00:08.591 --> 00:00:13.790 Many of us, are aspiring entrepreneurs, so we'd really quite like to be like you. 00:00:13.790 --> 00:00:17.168 And, many others, would also like to pitch to you. --- 00:00:55.040 --> 00:00:57.787 You mentioned last month at the Goldman-Sachs 00:00:57.787 --> 00:01:00.710 conference, that tech was not in a bubble. 00:01:00.710 --> 00:01:03.620 Rather, it was in a mature deployment phase. --- 00:02:00.410 --> 00:02:04.615 I think that, people are much more highly sensitized to bubbles after a bubble. 00:02:04.615 --> 00:02:09.360 If you could be sensitized to them before a bubble, you could make a lot more money. --- 00:12:28.790 --> 00:12:33.277 And you've built up a, a very disruptive model within the venture capital industry 00:12:33.277 --> 00:12:35.362 where you provide a lot of value-added 00:12:35.362 --> 00:12:39.440 services including hiring and marketing, to portfolio companies. --- 00:20:03.670 --> 00:20:06.178 You know, there's there's one of my partners 00:20:06.178 --> 00:20:08.110 quotes, he quotes Nietsche a lot on these, he 00:20:08.110 --> 00:20:10.665 says it's, it's will to power, it's, it's 00:20:10.665 --> 00:20:12.890 you know, it's people who simply will not stop. Brussels start ups Talentsquare - Energy is key (monologue) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IJSLH8PjKs 0:20 Energy is key. Besides your experience, beside your competences, 0:25 beside your expertise, you need more than that to drive those expertises to the top level. 0:45 Energy is communicative. 0:47 IQ and intelligence is not communicative. Managing First Impressions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwF189mAsb8 The Importance of Knowing Yourself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azP_sevlJdo Feedback as a Source for Growth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GmGe7fADHc Understanding Innovation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zafvaVYHQYQ less useful for now..... BetterStreet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhuPXshHG1g 1:52 they know they need this game solution in the future to be performed to be 1:57 transparent 1:58 to be efficient so that they would probably be embraced 2:02 scan solution maybe the tomorrow but certainly in the in two years 2:07 chrome I'm pretty sure solutions that but as we will be OpenRBF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1fdJpKFHn0 1:45 make your health system in your country more efficient and transparent and visit