slides from my talk at #TechWadi Forum (San Francisco, January 2017)

1. The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome;
her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!"
cries she with silent lips.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse
of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless,
tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
- Emma Lazarus
Nov 2, 1883
Stand for Something… or You Stand for Nothing.

2. @DaveMcClure
@500Startups http://500.co
TechWadi Forum - Jan 2017
Farming Unicorns
Building Startup &
Investor Ecosystems

3. Dave McClure
Founding Partner, 500 Startups
00’s & 10’s:
• VC: Founders Fund, Facebook fbFund, 500 Startups
• Angel: Mashery, Mint.com, SlideShare, Twilio, Wildfire, SendGrid
• Marketing: PayPal, Simply Hired, Mint.com, O’Reilly
80’s & 90’s:
• Entrepreneur: Aslan Computing (acq’d by Servinet/Panurgy)
• Developer: Windows / SQL DB consultant (Intel, MSFT)
• Engineer: Johns Hopkins‘88, BS Eng / Applied Math

4. • What is 500?
– $300M global seed fund + startup accelerator
– 150 people / 25 languages / 20 countries
– 1600+ Companies / 3000+ Founders / 200+ Mentors
– Investment, Accelerator, Distro, Marketing, Events, Education
– Community + Content + Conferences
• 1600+ Co’s / 60+ Countries
– Twilio (NYSE: TWLO)
– Credit Karma
– Grab (aka GrabTaxi)
– Wildfire (acq GOOG, $350M)
– MakerBot (acq SSYS, $400M)
– Viki (acq Rakuten, $200M)
– Behance (acq Adobe, $150M)
– Simple (acq BBVA, $117M)
– Sunrise (acq MSFT, $100M)
– Unifonic
– uTurn
– Kharabeesh
– Fetchr
– Wuzzuf
500 Startups
Global Seed Fund & Startup Accelerator

5. 500 Startups: MENA Portfolio

6. Dinosaurs vs. Cockroaches
LEAN Startup: Simpler, Faster, Cheaper, Smarter
1996
”Big, Fat, Dinosaur Startup”
• Sun Servers
• Oracle DB
• Exodus Hosting
• 12-24mo dev cycle
• 6-18mo sales cycle
• <100M people online
• $1-2M seed round
• $3-5M Series A
• Sand Hill Road crawl
2016
”Lean, Little, Cockroach Startup”
• AWS, Google, PayPal, FB, TW
• Cloud + Open Source SW
• Lean Startup / Startup Wknd
• 3-90d dev cycle
• SaaS / online sales
• >3B people online
• <$100K incub + <$1M seed
• $1-3M Series A
• Angel List global visibility

7. Platforms:
Search, Social, Mobile,
Video, Messaging

8. Data from ~600 companies from 500 Startups Funds I + II (2010 - 2013 cohorts)
$1-10M
Q: How Many Startups to Get 1 Unicorn?
Unicorns 50:1 | Centaurs 20:1

9. 99 VC Problems
But a Batch Ain’t 1
9http://bit.ly/99VCProblems

10. Chances of spotting
unicorn = ~1%/

11. If portfolio size = 15
companies/

12. / If portfolio size = 30
companies

13. / If portfolio size = 100
companies

14. Football
West Coast
Offense
Baseball
MoneyBall
Basketball
3 point
revolution
Venture Capital
500 Startups
“Lots of little bets”
500 Strategy: MoneyBall for Startups
Re-inventing a 50-year old sport

15. 500 Strategy: Lots of Little Bets*
1) make lots of little
bets on early-stage
startups when they’re
just getting started
3) wait 5-10 years for returns:
-10-20% small exits @1-5X ($5-25M+)
-5-10% larger exits @5-20X ($25-250M+)
-1-2% unicorns @20-50X+ ($250M-1B+)
*See Peter Sims book: “Little Bets”
2) over the next five years,
double-down on top 20-30%
~500 co’s @ $100K 1st checks
100+ co’s @ $200-500K
2nd/3rd checks
(hope for a few big exits @
$100M-$1B+)
(assume high failure rate ~50-80%)

16. Startup Risk Reduction
Concept
Early
Customer
Usage
Scalable
Customer
Acquisition
[about to be]
Profitable
Unit
Economics
Scalable
Profitable
Business
Functional
Prototype
PRODUCT
MARKET
REVENUE
Exit?
When 500
Likes to
Invest

17. The Lean Investor
Make lots of little bets:
• Start with many small “experiments”
• Filter out failures + small wins
• Double-down on stuff that looks like it’s working
• Incubation: $0-100K (“Build & Validate Product”)
• Seed: $100K-$1M (“Test & Grow Marketing Channels””)
• Venture: $1M-$10M (“Maximize Growth & Revenue”)

18. Investment Stage #1:
Product Validation + Customer Usage
• Structure
– 1-3 founders
– $0-$100K investment
– Incubator environment: multiple peers, mentors/advisors
• Test Functional Prototype / “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP):
– Prototype->Alpha, ~3-6 months
– Develop Minimal Critical Feature Set => Get to “It Works! Someone Uses It.”
– Improve Design & Usability, Setup Conversion Metrics
– Test Small-Scale Customer Adoption (10-1000 users)
• Demonstrate Concept, Reduce Product Risk, Test Functional Use
• Develop Metrics & Filter for Possible Future Investment

19. Investment Stage #2:
Market Validation + Revenue Testing
• Structure
– 2-10 person team
– $100K-$1M investment
– Syndicate of Angel Investors / Small VC Funds
• Improve Product, Expand Customers, Test Revenue:
– Alpha->Beta, ~6-12 months
– Scale Customer Adoption => “Many People Use It, & They Pay.”
– Test Marketing Campaigns, Customer Acquisition Channels + Cost
– Test Revenue Generation, Find Profitable Customer Segments
• Prove Solution/Benefit, Assess Market Size
• Test Channel Cost, Revenue Opportunity
• Determine Org Structure, Key Hires

20. Investment Stage #3:
Revenue Validation + Growth
• Structure
– 5-25 person team
– $1M-$10M investment
– Seed & Venture Investors
• Make Money (or Go Big), Get to Sustainability:
– Beta->Production, 12-24 months
– Revenue / Growth => “We Can Make (a lot of) Money!”
– Mktg Plan => Predictable Channels / Campaigns + Budget
– Scalability & Infrastructure, Customer Service & Operations
– Connect with Distribution Partners, Expand Growth
• Prove/Expand Market, Operationalize Business
• Future Milestones: Profitable/Sustainable, Exit Options

21. Critical Ecosystem Factors
• Optimism & Belief (“Silicon Valley”)
• Mentorship + Education (Knowledge)
• Universities + Companies (People)
• Capital, Legal, Finance (Infrastructure)
• Engineering + Design / UX (Product)
• Platforms + Distribution (Customers)
• Online Payments (Monetization)
• IPO / M&A Market (Exits)

22. Investor Ecosystem
Angels &
Accelerators
($0-10M)
“Seed” Funds
($10-100M)
“Traditional” VC Funds
($100-500M)
“Unicorn” VC Funds
(>$500M)
Incubation
0-$100K
Seed
$100K-$1M
Series A/B
$1-10M
Series B/C
$10-100M
Bootstrap, KickStarter,
AngelList, Crowdfunding

23. Building Startup Ecosystems

24. Investor Ecosystem
Funding, Liquidity, Exits
• Bootstrap, FFF, Crowdfunding (0-$100K)
• Angel Investors (0-$100K)
• Accelerators (0-$100K)
• Seed funds ($100K-$1M)
• Series A/B ($2-10M)
• Later Stage Funds ($20M+)
• M&A / Secondary Markets
• IPOs

25. A) Invite VCs to Dinner?
B) Give VCs some Arabic Coffee?
C) Take VCs for a Ride on a Camel?
Q: How to Bring 500 VC Funds
to Emerging Markets?
Umm, NO.

26. Q: How many VC funds do we
need to build an ecosystem?
• USA: ~800 VC funds; 2.5 per 1M ppl
• China: ~700 VC funds; 0.5 per 1M ppl
• MENA: ~30 funds; 0.1 per 1M ppl
NOT EVEN CLOSE!

27. A Brief History of
US Venture Capital
• first VC funds: ARDC, JH Whitney (1946)
• SBICs / Small Business Investment Act (US, 1958)
• Shockley -> “Traitorous Eight” -> Fairchild (1958) -> Intel (1968)
• Sutter Hill (1964), Venrock (1969), Kleiner, Sequoia (1972)
• ERISA laws + “prudent man rule” (1974, 1978)
• Pension Funds in VCs: $39M (1977) -> $570M (1978) -> $4B (1989)
• Tech Explosion: 80’s, 90’s, 00’s
• Microsoft (1975), Apple (1976), Oracle (1977), Sun (1982), Cisco
(1984), Amazon (1994), eBay (1995), Yahoo (1995), Google (1998),
PayPal (1998), LinkedIn (2002), Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006)

28. What’s Most Critical?
• You DON’T need to be in Silicon Valley, but…
• Silicon Valley Needs to be in YOU.