Startup Tips Nov20 2008 P1

Startup Tips for Entrepreneurs Part I James Vuong VP, Investment & Technology IDG Ventures, Vietnam [email_address]

“ Entrepreneurship is about those who dare to dream the dreams and are hungry and foolish enough to try and make their dreams come true”

So you want to do a startup…

Are you sure?

Crucial Questions to answer for Yourself and Your Investors?

What’s Your Value Proposition? Aspirin Vitamin Candy

What Problem are You Solving? Or What Need are You Addressing?

How Well Can You Solve That Problem? Can You Delight Your Customers?

How Large is Your TAM (Total Addressable Market)? How Many of Those Customers Do You Have?

What is Your Viable Business Model? Example: For web companies, it’s not just about growing traffic and users! Are Your Customer Willing to Pay You? Can You Monetize?

What’s Your Sustainable Competitive Advantage?

Being the first mover, agile, and fast are necessary to survive, but…. Not sufficient to succeed!

How Do You Erect Barrier-to-Entry?

Ideas are …

Idea is just a multiplier X Execution is everything! NO EXECUTION = $1 WEAK EXECUTION = $1000 SO-SO EXECUTION = $10,000 GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000 GREAT EXECUTION = $1M BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10M AWFUL IDEA = -1 WEAK IDEA = 1 SO-SO IDEA = 5 GOOD IDEA = 10 GREAT IDEA = 15 BRILLIANT IDEA = 20

The Team is Most Important! Why Is Your Team the Best to Execute This Idea?

Brain and Technology is Not Enough

Missionary vs. Mercenary

Trustworthiness

Transparency

“ Where most entrepreneurs fail is on the things they don’t know they don’t know.” – VinodKhosla

The Big Bad Unknown

A Complete Team of the A Players The Village People - Y.M.C.A.

Can You Solve One Problem Really Really Well? Focus, focus, focus!

“ Entrepreneurship is about those who dare to dream the dreams and are hungry and foolish enough to try and make their dreams come true” Go make your dreams come true!

“ Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!” - Steve Jobs