Fantastic presentation from Greg McAdoo, Partner at Sequoia Capital, at Startup School ‘08 on what he looks at in evaluating startup companies for investment. Reinforces what a lot of entrepreneurs (and some VCs) forget about, the importance of market. It’s the first thing he talks about after introducing his “surfer” analogy. Too many people get caught up in the product, and lose sight of the fact that there’s has to be enough people to sell it to at that right time. This is especialy true here in Europe, where VC teams tend to have a heavier mix of engineers and scientists. Trees tend to have more attention paid to them than forests. 

Assisti há pouco uma palestra (vídeo online) sobre avaliação de empresas, num evento dos EUA chamado Startup Scholl, que deve ter sido ótimo.

O palestrante, Greg McAdoo, da Sequoia Capital, apresenta alguns tópicos muito interessantes.

Alguns pontos que marquei:

• O mercado é uma onda. Escolha uma onda grande, pois você é o surfista. Apenas com ondas boas você poderá mostrar que um bom surfista. Sem ondas não há surfistas. O surfista pode surfar, pode escolher como entrar, como sair. Mas nunca conseguirá mudar uma onda. O mesmo acontece com empreendedores.
• Tenha um produto que resolva um problema, se possível grande. Se você não resolve um problema, não vai gerar valor, não terá clientes.
• Tenha uma oferta atrativa. Seu produto precisa soar bem nos ouvidos do seu mercado alvo. Tem que fazer sentido, tem que aguçar a curiosidade. Há muito ruído, e você não terá uma verba absurda para publicidade.
• A mensagem faz a diferença. Para clientes, parceiros, fornecedores, financiadores, etc.
• Você não tem tempo para enrolar. Tenha um mantra, um mini-slogan, 3 ou 4 palavras que resumem sua geração de valor.
• Acumule vantagens. Construa parcerias, relacionamentos, cria uma rede, tenha design, seja simples, acumule conhecimento do seu ramo, construa processos. Em pouco tempo suas vantagens iniciais não serão mais suficientes, é preciso arrumar mais cartas.

A palestra bem lembrou alguns pontos do ótimo post sobre como montar uma empresa, do Eduardo Carvalho, que me mandou o link da palestra.

On 19th April 2008 at the Kresge Auditorium, Stanford University, 11 of the key players in tech entrepreneurship shared their wisdom on startups at the 4th annual Startup School conference. Andy and I had the pleasure of attending along with 500 other aspiring hackers and entrepreneurs from around the world.

We arrived on the Friday afternoon and after a party at Y Combinator in Mountain View where we met many of the YC alumni, including Trevor Blackwell’s robots, we stayed at Snaptalent HQ along with Kev Edwards and Jon Markwell from the Brighton entrepreneur scene.

There’s already been some good coverage of Startup School 2008 by TechCrunch, Wired and Kontsevoy so rather than go into too much detail, I’m going to share the key messages that have stuck most firmly in my mind since the day:

1. David Lawee – VP, Corporate Development, Google

My 2 Cents on Entrepreneurship

“Hurry up! Speed is the greatest source of competitive advantage of a startup.”

2. Sam Altman – Founder & CEO, Loopt

How to raise money

“Taking VC does not leave the sell-for-£20M-in-a-year option open.”

3. Jack Sheridan – Chairman, Business Law, Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati

SO, YOU WANT TO START A COMPANY?…

“The average time from a company founding to a liquidity event (i.e. merger, acquisition, public listing) is 7 years.”

4. Paul Graham – Founder, Viaweb; Partner, Y Combinator

Make something people want

“Being good works. If a startup is benevolent, they keep working even when they feel doomed. Being benevolent:

1. Improves morale
2. Makes other people want to help you
3. Makes decisions easier”

Paul Graham at Startup School 2008 on Omnisio

5. Greg McAdoo – Partner, Sequoia Capital

MAVS

“Disruptive opportunities are ones where there are structural reasons big companies can’t compete with you.”

6. David Heinemeier Hansson – Founder, 37 Signals

The secret to making money online

“This isn’t the movie industry – you don’t need to dominate the box office!
e.g. with 2000 customers paying $40/month, you’re nearly making ~$1M/year.
Why not go for the 1:10 chance of a million dollar company instead of a 1:10,000 chance of a billion dollar company?”

7. Paul Buchheit – Creator, Gmail; Founder, FriendFeed

Listening

Limited life experience + overgeneralisation = advice

=> Listen -> Decode -> Interpret -> Understand

8. Jeff Bezos – Founder, Amazon

Amazon Web Services

On AWS: “Amazon will be like a book store which sells cocaine out of the back door.”
The point being that mature businesses need to keep innovating in order to remain competitive.

Jeff Bezos at Startup School 2008 on Omnisio

9. Michael Arrington – Founder, TechCrunch

How to get press for your startup

“We only want to write the stories you don’t want written.”

10. Mark Andreesen – Founder, Netscape, Opsware & Ning

Q & A with Jessica Livingston

“To minimise the risk of timing, keep burn low to give as much runway as possible to maximise the chance of the market maturing sufficiently.”

11. Peter Norvig – Director of Research, Google

SUMMARY OF ADVICE

“Running a startup is like guiding a missile: move fast, build in positive feedback, iterate and repeat.”

Jessica Livingston did a fantastic job of organising the day, and echoing the words of many other attendees:

“That’s the best conference I’ve ever been to and it didn’t even cost a cent!”

[Update: The best SuS video is on Omnisio! check it out!]

Here is a collection of some remarkable quotes from the YC startup school:

“Stop using the internet.” – Paul Graham, Partner, Y Combinator; Founder, Viaweb
[Paul said this jokingly, while trying to setup his special 280 north presentation. And asked the bloggers to quit hogging the bandwidth.]

“Don’t just not be evil. Be good!” – Paul Graham, Partner, Y Combinator; Founder, Viaweb
[I think I have found my company's moto: "Be Good!"]

“Cisco systems networks networks.” – Greg McAdoo, Partner, Sequoia Capital
[One-sentence Pitch for Cisco]

“A great entrepreneur does not fall off his board…” – Greg McAdoo, Partner, Sequoia Capital
[Wow, commentary to an impressive surfing video]

“1. Great Application; 2. ??? Price; 3. Profit!” – David Heinemeier Hansson, Creator of Rails; Partner, 37Signals

“Finding a good cause is incredibly hard and time-consuming” – Craig Newmark
[From David's Presentation]

“Listen -> Decode -> Interpret -> Understand” – Paul Buchheit, Founder, FriendFeed; Creator, Gmail

“Limited Life Experiences + Overgeneralization = Advice” – Paul Buchheit, Founder, FriendFeed; Creator, Gmail

“If someone says: ‘That’s impossible;’ You should understand it as: ‘According to my very limited experience and narrow understanding of reality, that’s very unlikely.’ ” – Paul Buchheit, Founder, FriendFeed; Creator, Gmail

“We only want to write stories that you don’t want written – use that to your advantage” – Mike Arrington, Founder, TechCrunch