This is the deck of my lecture about software startups at the Delft University of Technology.

1. Robbert van Geldrop| CTO & Founder
ICT Lecture – YES!Delft Students| May 2, 2013
The messy truth of doing a startup
Starting a company is easy, building a
business is hard
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2. 2013: On our way to world domination
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3.  We’re always looking for smart students:
• Internships
• Bachelor and Master Thesis project
• Part-time jobs
• Full-time jobs
 Developers, sales reps, marketing executives…
 http://www.backupagent.com/company/careers
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! Promotion alert ! – we’re hiring – thank you!

4. 4
1999 – 2004: Student and freelance developer
I’m gonna build a software
company
If only I had a laptop

5. We were the ‘crazy software company’, because:
• We had no experience
• We stacked people and interns by the dozen
• We didn’t lock ourselves in a room building the next ‘high tech,
green, patent-pending, perfect product’
• We got an investment (or ‘some beer money’)
Back in 2005 it was not very common in Delft to start a software
company
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2005: Both BackupAgent and YES!Delft we born

6. Thanks to the cloud, starting a software company is easy
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2013: ‘Crazy’ is the new normal

7. 7
Lean Startup – Silicon Valley’s secret sauce

8. What you need to be successful:
A good idea Strong vision
Developers Coding skills
Some money Traction
More money Perseverance
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The hard part

9. You also need to be passionate about your
customers and the problem you’re trying to solve
AND
Since starting a company is now easy, you’ll have
many competitors
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The hard part – abundant competition

10.  A stable, competent, ambitious team is very rare
 Dismissing weak team members is challenging
 Hiring the right people is ‘impossible’
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The hard part - team

11.  I was a student just like any other; with coding skills
 We ‘followed’ the Silicon Valley blue print
 Today, it’s cheap and easy to run a software startup
 The chance of success doesn’t increase, because there are many
success factors which you don’t control
 The only way to beat competition is by not wasting time and
focusing on the customer problem you’re solving
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In summary

12. Contact
Follow us
www.backupagent.com
sales@backupagent.com
Tel: +31 88 700 8000
@BackupAgent
facebook.com/BackupAgent
youtube.com/user/backupagent
linkedin.com/company/backupagent-bv
Questions?
Thank you for listening
I’m also an EIR at YES!Delft
Robbert van Geldrop
robbert@backupagent.com
@rvangeldrop