UCSD AKPsi Presentation

1. Entrepreneurship Joey Shurtleff Co-Founder - Veechi Corp.

2. Entrepreneurship What Do You What to Know? A Bit About Me A Bit About Veechi How Startups Really Work Why You? The Downside The Upside Ten Things You Must Know About Your Business Three Things I Would Have Done The Same Three Things I Would Have Done Differently My Advice Any Questions?

3. What do you want to know?

4. A Bit About Me Stanford (Social) Class of ’09 – Studied Economics and Mathematical and Computational Sciences Worked for Overstock.com and Aggregate Knowledge, doing analytics, “science”, and development Overstock – large retail site Aggregate Knowledge – plug-and-play “discovery” engine turned ad-optimizer I’m passionate about Startups (duh) Statistics/Machine Learning Poker

5. A Bit About Veechi Started working on “ ReviewU ” in Summer ’07 with Abraham Shafi Founded company in March ’08 Recruited veteran CEO, Peter Levy, in June ‘08 Abe and I stopped out of college in June ’08 Veechi Classes launched October ’08 Series A raised December ’09 Job Genius launched March ’10 Exciting products coming soon!

6. How Startups Really Work

7. How You Think It Works How It Really Works

8. How You Think It Works How It Really Works You have an awesome idea

9. How You Think It Works How It Really Works You have an awesome idea You have a good idea that grows and evolves based on what you learn, from advisors, investors, and the market

10. How You Think It Works How It Really Works You have an awesome idea You have a good idea that grows and evolves based on what you learn, from advisors, investors, and the market You get money from some rich guy who falls in love with the idea and wants to help you

11. How You Think It Works How It Really Works You have an awesome idea You have a good idea that grows and evolves based on what you learn, from advisors, investors, and the market You get money from some rich guy who falls in love with the idea and wants to help you Unles s you already have great connections (and even if you do), your first money will probably come from yourself, and friends and family. It will probably take you way longer than you think to get any money whatsoever.

12. How You Think It Works How It Really Works You have an awesome idea You have a good idea that grows and evolves based on what you learn, from advisors, investors, and the market You get money from some rich guy who falls in love with the idea and wants to help you Unles s you already have great connections (and even if you do), your first money will probably come from yourself, and friends and family. It will probably take you way longer than you think to get any money whatsoever. You build a great product , people start using it, and it “goes viral”

13. How You Think It Works How It Really Works You have an awesome idea You have a good idea that grows and evolves based on what you learn, from advisors, investors, and the market You get money from some rich guy who falls in love with the idea and wants to help you Unles s you already have great connections (and even if you do), your first money will probably come from yourself, and friends and family. It will probably take you way longer than you think to get any money whatsoever. You build a great product , people start using it, and it “goes viral” You build a great product, and work like hell to market it. You do whatever it takes to get people in the door.

14. How You Think It Works How It Really Works You have an awesome idea You have a good idea that grows and evolves based on what you learn, from advisors, investors, and the market You get money from some rich guy who falls in love with the idea and wants to help you Unles s you already have great connections (and even if you do), your first money will probably come from yourself, and friends and family. It will probably take you way longer than you think to get any money whatsoever. You build a great product , people start using it, and it “goes viral” You build a great product, and work like hell to market it. You do whatever it takes to get people in the door. You build a great business in a few years, sell it or go public, and get rich.

15. How You Think It Works How It Really Works You have an awesome idea You have a good idea that grows and evolves based on what you learn, from advisors, investors, and the market You get money from some rich guy who falls in love with the idea and wants to help you Unles s you already have great connections (and even if you do), your first money will probably come from yourself, and friends and family. It will probably take you way longer than you think to get any money whatsoever. You build a great product , people start using it, and it “goes viral” You build a great product, and work like hell to market it. You do whatever it takes to get people in the door. You build a great business in a few years, sell it or go public, and get rich. You hope you get enough traction to raise a Series A, then hope you use that money well enough to raise a Series B, then maybe a Series C. If you’re lucky enough to get this far (< 10% of companies will), this could still take many years.

16. Why You?

17. You Think Big Big markets Big problems Big solutions Big ideas Big bucks

18. You Like Excitement and Risk 9 out of 10 startups fail Nothing ever comes easy

19. You Think You’re Special Why hasn’t someone else done what you want to do? It’s hard!

20. The Downside

21. It’s Hard! The devil is in the details Expect to fail a lot more than you succeed Blood, sweat, and tears

22. It’s Stressful You are the reason why your company will succeed or fail Expect late nights, sacrifices, and frustration

23. It’s Risky Can you live for 1-2 years with no paycheck? What will your friends and family think if things aren’t going well? Go big or go home

24. The Upside

25. You Learn a Lot Drinking from a firehose You do things that no big company would ever let you do Succeed or fail, you’ll have an experience and a skill-set that few others have

26. You Could Make a Lot of Money “Live like others won’t, so that you can live like others can’t”

27. It’s Fun IF: You like hard work You like stress You like risk

28. Ten Things You Must Know About Your Business

29. Know Your Market Q: What’s the need, what’s the market with the need, and how do I let the market know that I’m solving the need? Know market size, demographics, early adopters Learn from competitors, similar past efforts, market research

30. Know Your Competition Q: Who else is solving the same problem and why is my solution better? Know your competitors, what they do well, and your competitive advantage over them Know any similar businesses that failed, and what you will do to overcome the obstacles they faced

31. Know Your Strengths Q: Why is this the right team to solve this problem? Put each person on your team in the best role for him/her Know why each team member’s unique abilities and experience makes him/her the best for his/her role

32. Know Your Revenue Model Q: How are we going to make money, when are we going to make money, and how much money can we make? Know how you plan to make money, how much money you plan to make, when and how Use spreadsheets and graphs to model revenue and costs – do research, make reasonable assumptions, and be precise!

33. Know Your Timeline Q: How quickly can we expect success? Have a precise strategy for creating, marketing, and iterating your product Set clear benchmarks that you can be held accountable for

34. Have Strong Advisors Q: Who can help us? Recruit advisors whose experience and expertise will enable your business to excel Leverage the wisdom of those you know: formal advisors, friends, family, etc.

35. Know Your Expenditures Q: What’s the minimum amount of money we need to get this off the ground? Know how much money you are asking for Know exactly what it will be spent on, and why

36. Know Your Contingency Plans Q: What can, and probably will, go wrong? Know your company’s greatest potential pitfalls, and how you will address these hurdles Take these plans into account when evaluating revenue and expenditures

37. Know Your Growth Strategy Q: How do we become the next big thing? Know how you will expand your business, address market expansion and scalability Know your exit strategies – acquisition (by who?) or IPO (when?)

38. Know Your Audience Q: How do I get my audience to put down their iPhones and Blackberrys ? Research the backgrounds of the people you are presenting to Cater your presentation to the knowledge and familiarity of your audience

39. Three Things I Would Have Done The Same

40. Just Do It http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZKZSiCmXLQ “You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it, Anton. I never saved anything for the swim back.” – Vincent in Gattaca

41. Just Do It If you’re passionate about an idea or about entrepreneurship, start working on something now Trial by fire, learn by doing, don’t be afraid to fail

42. Talk to Everyone Ideas are worthless Ask questions, get feedback, iterate and refine until you have a great vision or you realize that you need start over Network, network, network

43. Pivot Common problems: Right product/technology, wrong market Great product, no money Great team, wrong product

44. Pivot The solution: Pivot Leverage what you’ve already done and learned to do something else

45. Three Things I Would Have Done Differently

46. MVP MVP => Minimum Viable Product Build the simplest product that will allow you to test your hypotheses Test and iterate until you’ve got something awesome THEN scale Features are worthless Take the number of features you think you need and cut that list in half

47. Revenue on Day 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7YaVVpK1G4&feature=player_embedded “I knew I needed revenues right f*** ing now… I did every horrible thing in the book to just get revenues right away… We did anything possible to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business… Control your destiny… I control my company today.” – Mark Pincus , CEO - Zynga

48. Revenue on Day 1 Without Revenue Company valued arbitrarily You ask investors for meetings You’re desperate to raise funds to stay alive With Revenue Company valued based on real metrics that you control VCs want to talk to you You don’t need investor money, and that makes you much more attractive to investors

49. It’s a Grind Be ready to live with little to no income for 1-2 years Be ready to invest most of your energy and emotional bandwidth “Don’t get too high from the highs, or too low from the lows.” Your startup is your baby, and no one else cares if it succeeds or fails

50. My Advice

51. Find a Great Partner You want to work with someone who: Shares your vision, your excitement, and your work ethic You get along with really well Can do all the stuff that you can’t do

52. Get Started Now You’re young, you’re naïve, and you’re full of energy – there’s no better time to get going So, start brainstorming What’s a problem that needs to be solved? Whose problem is it? (What’s the market?) How do you solve that problem, and how do you make money doing it? What’s the minimum viable product to address 1) and 2)? Why am I the right person to solve this problem? Keep brainstorming until you have an idea with great answers to all four questions MAKE IT HAPPEN!

53. Have Fun! Always remember that, while you’re working on the next big thing, everyone else is stuck doing something less interesting , with less impact , and less potential for great rewards. It’s a long and wild ride, so don’t forget to smell the roses, see the sights, and have fun!

54. Any Questions?