Guide to starting a tech. company for first time entrepreneurs

1. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 1
Tim Dick
Make It Happen
(Confessions Of A Serial
Entrepreneur Turned VC)

2. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 2
• First date...
• IPO...
• Global trust standard (non-profit)
• Eight years too early - that recently exited!
• One “controversy”
• One turnaround
• $300 million raised
• $1.2 billion exit valuations
Serial Entrepreneur...
World
Pages

3. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 3
The Best Of Times...
• Living the dream
• Building a team you love to work with
• Building a culture with values that are important to you
• Doing things you never imagined...
• You love your company like a child - no matter what it does...

4. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 4
The Worst Of Times...
• Founders often have to finance their dreams
• Insanely great companies take insanely hard work...
• Having to fire people
• Not all companies make it =:-(
• The hottest fire forges the strongest steel

5. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 5
Living The Dream
• Find your passion - a belief that you are doing
something greater than just building a company or
making money
• Find ways to give back*
* Only OCD entrepreneurs found nonprofits...

6. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 6
Being CEO!
Company
(No Pressure...)
Competitors Customers
CEO
Board Of Directors
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Investors

7. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 7
Team (Those People You Will Be
Working With 6 x 18...)
• Value integrity above all else
• Hire only the best people (or go without until
you find „em)
• Working with friends can be tough (remember
the firing bit...)

8. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 8
Find Your Company Mantra...
• 5 words max.
• Tells the world (and most importantly your team)
• 1,000 songs in your pocket
• Ultimate Driving Machine
• Hawaii‟s Interisland Highway

9. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 9
Are You Game-Changing?
• Not “it‟s like X but better...”
• Break barriers!
• First online dating site
• First white & yellow pages
• First online trust & privacy standard
• First online advocacy engine
• Bring your car
• World‟s only 2G / 3G / 4G / XG cellular amplifier
• Will someone (not everyone...) love (REALLY LOVE) your
product?

10. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 10
Do One Thing... GREAT

11. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 11
Who Is Your Customer?
• Is it you?
• If it‟s not you...
• How do you know that your customers
• deeply
• passionately
• want your product so much
• (more than any of your competitors)
• they are willing to pay you more for it than it costs you to make

12. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 12
Balanced Development...
Second
First
Financing
Seed
Founder
Developers
CEO
Core Team
Full Team
Product
Market
Team
Production
First product
Patent(s)
Demonstration
Concept
RepeatBuys
PaidCustomers
Betasites
Potentialpartners
Size/Segments

13. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 13
Your Ecosystem (What‟s Outside
Your Habitrail)
• It‟s hard to see the picture from inside the frame
• Eugene Kleiner
• Build a GREAT board for “the voice of experience” and to help
open doors
• The right law firm...
• Will help you incorporate and develop governance
• Will help with contracts & financing
• File patents and copyrights
• (Got the message?)
• Get a real accountant or bookkeeper (really)
• EF Hawaii

14. Startup Capital Ventures ©2013 Page 14
Rules To Live By
• You can only lose your integrity once: never
compromise on finding the best partners, employees
& investors
• Build partnerships with all stakeholders
• Resist “CEO-itis”
• Have a life
• Never, Never, Never Give Up
• Winston Churchill (1941)

15. 15
The Difference Between Visionaries
And Dreamers...
...Visionaries Make It Happen
Timothy Dick
tdick@startupcv.com
Startup Capital Ventures ©2013