Puerto Rico Venture Forum 2010 Raw Notes
The following are my raw, unedited notes taken on my iPad during yesterday's 11th Puerto Rico Venture Forum. Please disregard any misspellings, I will do my best to type up a post later with my thoughts.
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Large entrepreneurial sector but a small ecosystem according to Tom Farb.
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Large entrepreneurial sector but a small ecosystem according to Tom Farb.
Our ecosystem is beyond the island. Even when our local ecosystem is small, the ecosystem doesn't end at our shores.
No excuses due to our island.
Lame excuses:
the government didn't gie mr money or i couldn't get a grant.
How about finding some customers?
There aren't enough tax incentives.
Taxachussets is tax hell.
There aren't any angel groups.
But there were only 10 angel groups in continental us 15 years ago.
There isn't angel money
Then improve your business plan and your presentation
Nobody wants my service locally
Then get on an airplane.
The ecosystem isn't good
Then get on an airplane.
Gist:
Don't use excuses about puerto rico. There is an ecosystem around us.
Importance of ecosystem
Acceleration and quality
We are missing
Products with ip production
Enough service providers with the right expertise and focus
Done it before researchers and entrepreneurs
Other states have 20 times to 100 times patents even with less resources and people. We need intellectual property creation.
Capital
Angel and institutional and debt lacking
Capital allocated correctly
Capital with expertise attached to help build companies
We don't have a lot of done it before entrepreneurs
We have a wave of future investors and advisors
We do have a lack of capital.
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Bob Davila
Finalists.
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Marcos Polanco
Clearshore
500 billion in contracts with federal gov given out each year. Clear shore identifies which contracts can be won and doubles own on them and gets these contracts to local companies
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Deeplogic Labs
No idea.
Fraud detection for medical systems
Bad prez. Too much text, bad pronunciation, overuse of mcsecerts, they even would have played a video
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FamilyClick
Concern of security over the Internet.
Gives back the day to day contact for families livingy can apart.
They can share experiences
Their strategy is to use viral marketing! To get expats attention.
They want 500,000to finish building their product. 90k is for salary and only 10k for ab testing. Why not use these to discover your market first?
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NeoMusic
Online royalty free stock music delivery to mobile devices
Their competitive advantage is.... Cost. And they will make a better product! Dreams are made of this! We are multicultural!
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SuperKids Foods
Amy Lang
We make kid pleasing goods made from fresh real whole ingredients zero chrmicsls and each nite contains real fruits and veggies
Five year dream projections.
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John butler
Professor of management and sociology
Director of ic2 institute
Entrepreneurship and small business
Univ of texas at Austin
Ati
Austin technology incubator
Potential industries
Aerospace
Biological
Nano sciences
Marine science
Renewable energy sectors
Creative industries
Puerto rico university research
Puerto rico business incubation
Incubator task list
Recruit team of advisors
Recruit an incubator director
establish a company selection/exit processes
Establish physical facilities
Recruit network of service providers
Develop web site
Recruit tenant companies
Academia in Puerto Rico is anti entrepreneurial.
We need early winners. To show it can be done and give back to the community.
Find students that come out of universities and are good entrepreneurs and play them up as heroes. Name things after them. We need early wins to use as an example and teach students they can be entrepreneurs.
Universities can even license their technologies.
Write up heroes of the local startup community.
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Jason Wilk, whiteyboard and ycombinstor
Manuel Rosso
Founder and CEO food on the table
teaming with the correct investors panel
What got you to start your businesses?
Jason: I started because I never wanted a cubicle job. Wanted my own startup. Began early in college.
Manuel: 20 years working for others but always wanted to be my own boss
Investors?
Jason: capital is the best you can get from investors. Any strategic investor is not as useful as it seems it should, but having money to keep team alive and let you focus is better than having to focus on revenue generation to stay alive. But investors are also good for introductions.
Comfort level to survive. angel funded
Manuel: I did an a round. Different but I agree. You ate usually not profitable the first day but being able to survive... Network is also good they provide perspective out of your company. Our investors meet dozens of companies a week and can bring other perspectives because you are so into your own business.
Idea or why did they back you?
Jason: less idea, more me as a person because the idea can change. I really wanted to get them in as investors, I met mark Cuban two years ago and took me that long to get him to invest. Y combinator helps as a stamp of approval but ideas change and the team is the focus.
Manuel: my path started as me becoming an entrepreneur in residence. Spent a year at Austin ventures getting enough money to feed my family but purely working on research and evaluating my idea until we found something I really wanted to do and they were excited about. The yet in me as an individual.
Differences between pitching and presenting an angel vs venture accel:
Jason: Pitching to ycomb is like a competition as opposed to going after a specific angel group. At ycombinator its a competition with a demo and proof of a good team. But an angel needs a working product.
My first venture I had no help with. Had to find my own encounter and paid out of my pocket. We launched on tech crunch.
Manuel: We had funding from day one. When I sat withaustin ventures i saw many pitches to the VCs and could observe what worked and what didn't. I could see what they valued, individual vs idea. Saw right and wrong and integrated that into my plans.
You do not go and pitch your idea over a 45 minute presentation and done. You go through a process where you pitch and hone your idea. You need the feedback of pitching over a few weeks before you go cold to pitch vc
Jason: with Paul Graham they give you a stamp of approval that you've been focused on this product for three months. He will help you with crafting your pitch and ui and pitching to angel investors and what you need to get your bare product to market.
They make it so much easy to understand the process of starting a company for a first time entrepreneur.
Manuel:
Expectations are very high. They would like 5x to 10x returns. Gives us a very clear objective that we are not here to build a small business. We are building a venture backed company that needs to give back huge value to investors. It gives us focus.
Jason: with angel you need to be aware that while vc expect massive returns, angels if they can get a product at can be sold within 6-18 months, if they only sell for X it won't make them money.
You need to figure out what kind of returns you want before you decide which kind of investments you need.
Failure? How do you feel about it
Manuel: Honest failure. Did you follow good strategic practices?
Failure is celebrated because you took the risk. It's ok.
Jason: I just took a small salary and if i fail iknow i didnt misuse the money.
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Evolution in the puerto rico financial ecosystem
James Connor acreccent financials
Angel l Perez rock solid
Eugenio Torres. Ferraiuoli Torres marchand & Elvira psc
Esteban colon brain consulting
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Louis goldfish
Proposes a puerto rico venture mentoring service. Based on the belief that a fledgling business is far more likely to thrive when an entrepreneur eith an idea can draw on the advice and guidance of s group of mentor eith proven skills
Not five years, not business plans, but businesses that make money and a five week plan. Practical not theoretical
Rules for mentors
Advice for benefit of entrepreneurs and venture
Increase trust. Not advisors with personal agenda that provide services or want to invest
Mentors in teams. Multiple perspectives.
Large and diverse group of mentors
Prvms will not assign mentors. Business chooses them.
Teams present and mentors offer themselves but business chooses them
Overpriced kayaks
17 other universities have built their own mentoring venture based on mit model.
MIT Venture Mentoring Service
