Possibly the most popular part of the Founder Conference this year was the live pitch feedback, a workshop run by Adeo Ressi. We actually extended its allocated time by 20 minutes because it was so popular. The rules are simple: you give your best elevator pitch, in less than 1 minute, as if you were [...]
I’m posting the videos of the Founder Conference here on my blog until we revamp the Founder Conference website… By the way, if you want to be the first one to know about the next Founder Conference, there is a sign-up form on the right. Here is my favorite excerpt of the panel on getting [...]
Steve Jobs. Guy Kawasaki. Paul Graham. They draw crowds every time they speak at a conference. When I put together the Founder Conference (August 17th in Silicon Valley, in case you haven’t heard yet), securing a line-up of great speakers was very important. I am trying to help as many aspiring entrepreneurs build the best startups possible. [...]
My startup needed to raise $500K to expand our marketing efforts and get the word out. Raising the money was quite easy: I issued some new shares and listed them on StartupIPOs.com. It’s a marketplace for accredited investors. Startups that need funding list their offerings, and people buy their shares. The price is set by [...]
Being an entrepreneur is quite popular these days, in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Everyone thinks they have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. As part of my work with the Founder Institute in Paris, figuring out who will build a great startup is a big topic. Your resume can tell. I know, it sounds [...]
Last Thursday I attended Stanford Design EXPE, where a dozen teams of students present the result of their 9 months of innovative work in relation with a corporate sponsor. The twist is that all projects must build a hardware prototype (I guess because it’s linked to the Mechanical Engineering department). For me, it was a [...]
There are lots of myths and dreams attached to starting a company. Will you be the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg? Will you negotiate million dollars rounds of financing with cool VCs? This is what starting a company really means: e-mailing 100 strangers a day, every day. For the foreseeable future. That’s it. Of [...]
I was on the Paris subway, returning from one of the first sessions of the Founder Institute there. Sitting next to me was one of the founders. Something was bothering him. He finally asked: “why do you put so much emphasis on market size? The team, and surely other aspects must be equally important to [...]
Yesterday was the third Co-Founders MeetUp of Silicon Valley, which set a new attendance record of 120 people. 12 startups pitched their idea with the goal to attract co-founders. The quality of the ideas was very high. Another thing I liked is that this MeetUp truly opens my mind: it’s like a giant idea brainstorming [...]
If I am to believe this blog post, HelpAReporter, a web site that helps journalists connect with sources, has sent a threatening legal letter to a free competitor called PRManna: From the blog post summary: I stole his idea (bullshit, his service was a mailing list when I built PRManna, and there are tons of [...]
