Pin the investor in the corner
One of the main problems of any startup is the lack of expertise and experience of its creators. These two things are often necessary for a prototype to become a complete product or service that can be developed by attracting investment. Sometimes even a few minutes devoted to a project by a competent mentor or investor can determine its success. The problem for young entrepreneurs is only where to find a platform for constructive communication with industry professionals.
Every year up to 500 new start-ups appear on the Ukrainian market. However, it comes to the stage of full implementation, no more than 10% of cases. This state of affairs can be explained by the fact that the development of a start-up culture in Ukraine, and in the CIS as a whole, is still in its infancy stage. As well as the dampness of many projects and teams. In addition, the strategic problem of the market is the lack of a venture capital culture. In our countries, the majority of wealthy people, unfortunately, do not occur to engage in investing in innovative business.
What should young online entrepreneurs do in this situation? Count on the fact that it will be possible to light up your project in front of foreign angels or venture investors. For this, for example, you can go to the States. But this, of course, is not an option for everyone - because of its cost. Not to mention that the effectiveness of a trip to the Valley can also be zero, if the team does not have enough personal contacts. Of course, you can get advice or even find seed investments online, for example, at several specialized sites for investors and startups. But this option also works far from always.
In practice, almost the only chance for an entrepreneur to get high-quality feedback from an experienced and professional mentor or investor is to tweak his project in an informal setting. This, in the first place, is possible at specialized conferences. In Ukraine and in the CIS as a whole, venture funds, investors, incubators and accelerators are quite actively involved in their organization. Thanks to this, the visits of world-scale venture capital investment gurus to give lectures and conduct master classes are no longer perceived as something unique. The problem is that, despite its frequent visits, top speakers are not becoming more accessible to newcomers to the industry. As a rule, at these start-up conferences, most investor stars confine themselves to speaking on common panels and hold private meetings with themselves detailed, and then disappear behind the scenes. Or access to them is blocked by protection (sometimes it happens!). Therefore, even active entrepreneurs who wish to sell their idea directly to investors, it is often simply impossible to get access to the “star body”.
')
But even a five-minute conversation with people of this level for any entrepreneur is a chance to significantly upgrade your project. So, the founder and CEO of a startup 1NewTrack.com. Aladdin Righteous and Happy considers one of the key recommendations for the development of his project to the guru of startups Bob Dorf . Her serial entrepreneur voiced during a master class that he conducted for Ukrainian entrepreneurs as part of the acceleration program of the Happy Farm business incubator . The essence of the advice is that the investor needs to propose a project, looking at which it is immediately obvious that “you invest a dollar, and you get two”. Dorf said that in the US, startups are testing future profitability before even how to write at least one line of code. Then Aladdin worked on the concept of online promotion of musicians. “After the master class, I made a test web page with a description of the services and tariffs for them for independent musicians, although the service did not work yet. Bought an advertisement for $ 20 dollars and began to observe. "Orders" came in at $ 1,800 dollars. So I received confirmation that the model is working and very profitable. After that, I could present my project not just as my dreams of earning, but a ready-made plan with specific proven figures. After that, he won a $ 10,000 grant from CRDF Global for product development, ”the entrepreneur recalls. According to him, the mentor's advice allowed him to avoid the standard mistakes of start-up business newbies, in which a lot of money is invested in a long-term product development, and after launch it turns out that nobody needs it.
The founder and CEO of the Kartoon Art project, Alexander Shalakhin, recalls that after talking with top manager, mentor and branding guru John Gower, the project decided to change the concept. “Before we met with John, we walked in the direction of the comic book platform. Looking at our prototype, he said that he sees application for digital publishers, including his company, in the project. Then we decided to take this new course and saw a whole range of new opportunities. At the moment we are doing an editor for animation for the iPad, which digital publishers can use, simplifying and cheapening the process of creating animation, cartoon, ”says Alexander Shalakhin.
Well, of course, the most relevant for many entrepreneurs is an opportunity to convince investors to invest money in a project. Practice shows that to do it in a limited period of time is quite realistic. So, Ugift project CEO Andrei Zhivolovich recalls that his partner, Ken Leaver, introduced him to the venture capital investor Semen Dukach. “We talked for 20 minutes, and he decided to invest in us,” says Andrey Zhivolovich.
It is the opportunity to lively communicate with top investors, mentors, representatives of the largest IT companies and creators of startups, will become one of the main features of the Startup AddVenture conference , which will be held in Kiev on December 4-5. It will be possible to interact closely with them within the framework of six interactive workshops - mobile, pitching, growth hacking, design, gaming, fintech. Each of them is a rare opportunity in a short time to get expert assessment from gurus in their industry, expand the network of contacts, and check potential members of the team and partners right on the spot. Supervise the work of the workshops will be real industry stars. In particular, Dave McClure , founder and managing partner of 500Startups, one of the largest start-up accelerators in the USA, and investor of more than 500 companies, founder of the world's largest networked incubator The Founder Institute, creator startups worth $ 2 billion. As well as well-known venture investors who have invested in hundreds of startups around the world Alexander Galitsky (Almaz Capital) , Igor Ryabenky (Altair Capital) , Maxim Gurwitz (Eleven Accelerator Venture Fund) , Marcin Heyka (Intel Capital), Than Sertoglu (Earlybird Venture Capital ).
In addition to communication within the framework of workshops, the stars of the event will be able to tweak their project at a closed VIP meeting with Dave McClure and other distinguished guests of the conference. It is on it that participants will get the maximum time and opportunity to fully communicate with the stars. Projects that rent a demo table at start-up expo will receive an invitation to the event.
Learn more information and register for participation on the Startup AddVenture website www.venturesummit.eu
Every year up to 500 new start-ups appear on the Ukrainian market. However, it comes to the stage of full implementation, no more than 10% of cases. This state of affairs can be explained by the fact that the development of a start-up culture in Ukraine, and in the CIS as a whole, is still in its infancy stage. As well as the dampness of many projects and teams. In addition, the strategic problem of the market is the lack of a venture capital culture. In our countries, the majority of wealthy people, unfortunately, do not occur to engage in investing in innovative business.
What should young online entrepreneurs do in this situation? Count on the fact that it will be possible to light up your project in front of foreign angels or venture investors. For this, for example, you can go to the States. But this, of course, is not an option for everyone - because of its cost. Not to mention that the effectiveness of a trip to the Valley can also be zero, if the team does not have enough personal contacts. Of course, you can get advice or even find seed investments online, for example, at several specialized sites for investors and startups. But this option also works far from always.
In practice, almost the only chance for an entrepreneur to get high-quality feedback from an experienced and professional mentor or investor is to tweak his project in an informal setting. This, in the first place, is possible at specialized conferences. In Ukraine and in the CIS as a whole, venture funds, investors, incubators and accelerators are quite actively involved in their organization. Thanks to this, the visits of world-scale venture capital investment gurus to give lectures and conduct master classes are no longer perceived as something unique. The problem is that, despite its frequent visits, top speakers are not becoming more accessible to newcomers to the industry. As a rule, at these start-up conferences, most investor stars confine themselves to speaking on common panels and hold private meetings with themselves detailed, and then disappear behind the scenes. Or access to them is blocked by protection (sometimes it happens!). Therefore, even active entrepreneurs who wish to sell their idea directly to investors, it is often simply impossible to get access to the “star body”.
')
But even a five-minute conversation with people of this level for any entrepreneur is a chance to significantly upgrade your project. So, the founder and CEO of a startup 1NewTrack.com. Aladdin Righteous and Happy considers one of the key recommendations for the development of his project to the guru of startups Bob Dorf . Her serial entrepreneur voiced during a master class that he conducted for Ukrainian entrepreneurs as part of the acceleration program of the Happy Farm business incubator . The essence of the advice is that the investor needs to propose a project, looking at which it is immediately obvious that “you invest a dollar, and you get two”. Dorf said that in the US, startups are testing future profitability before even how to write at least one line of code. Then Aladdin worked on the concept of online promotion of musicians. “After the master class, I made a test web page with a description of the services and tariffs for them for independent musicians, although the service did not work yet. Bought an advertisement for $ 20 dollars and began to observe. "Orders" came in at $ 1,800 dollars. So I received confirmation that the model is working and very profitable. After that, I could present my project not just as my dreams of earning, but a ready-made plan with specific proven figures. After that, he won a $ 10,000 grant from CRDF Global for product development, ”the entrepreneur recalls. According to him, the mentor's advice allowed him to avoid the standard mistakes of start-up business newbies, in which a lot of money is invested in a long-term product development, and after launch it turns out that nobody needs it.
The founder and CEO of the Kartoon Art project, Alexander Shalakhin, recalls that after talking with top manager, mentor and branding guru John Gower, the project decided to change the concept. “Before we met with John, we walked in the direction of the comic book platform. Looking at our prototype, he said that he sees application for digital publishers, including his company, in the project. Then we decided to take this new course and saw a whole range of new opportunities. At the moment we are doing an editor for animation for the iPad, which digital publishers can use, simplifying and cheapening the process of creating animation, cartoon, ”says Alexander Shalakhin.
Well, of course, the most relevant for many entrepreneurs is an opportunity to convince investors to invest money in a project. Practice shows that to do it in a limited period of time is quite realistic. So, Ugift project CEO Andrei Zhivolovich recalls that his partner, Ken Leaver, introduced him to the venture capital investor Semen Dukach. “We talked for 20 minutes, and he decided to invest in us,” says Andrey Zhivolovich.
It is the opportunity to lively communicate with top investors, mentors, representatives of the largest IT companies and creators of startups, will become one of the main features of the Startup AddVenture conference , which will be held in Kiev on December 4-5. It will be possible to interact closely with them within the framework of six interactive workshops - mobile, pitching, growth hacking, design, gaming, fintech. Each of them is a rare opportunity in a short time to get expert assessment from gurus in their industry, expand the network of contacts, and check potential members of the team and partners right on the spot. Supervise the work of the workshops will be real industry stars. In particular, Dave McClure , founder and managing partner of 500Startups, one of the largest start-up accelerators in the USA, and investor of more than 500 companies, founder of the world's largest networked incubator The Founder Institute, creator startups worth $ 2 billion. As well as well-known venture investors who have invested in hundreds of startups around the world Alexander Galitsky (Almaz Capital) , Igor Ryabenky (Altair Capital) , Maxim Gurwitz (Eleven Accelerator Venture Fund) , Marcin Heyka (Intel Capital), Than Sertoglu (Earlybird Venture Capital ).
In addition to communication within the framework of workshops, the stars of the event will be able to tweak their project at a closed VIP meeting with Dave McClure and other distinguished guests of the conference. It is on it that participants will get the maximum time and opportunity to fully communicate with the stars. Projects that rent a demo table at start-up expo will receive an invitation to the event.
Learn more information and register for participation on the Startup AddVenture website www.venturesummit.eu
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/199398/
All Articles