Analysts believe that 2017 will be better than the previous year. Well, that’s some good news. We are optimistic its boom time again for startups. But at the same time, a little preparedness and good advice goes a long way for startups.Here's advice from influencers and thought leaders at Web Summit Lisbon for your startup success.

1. tart
Do better in 2017:
Startup Guide.
An interview with thought leaders at Web Summit Lisbon by Pepipost

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Do better in 2017: Startup Guide
Contents.
Contents.......................................................................................................................................... 2
Foreword......................................................................................................................................... 3
Influencer Profiles........................................................................................................................... 4
Expert Speak. .................................................................................................................................. 7
Our Company Profile..................................................................................................................... 17

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Do better in 2017: Startup Guide
Foreword.
Mega conferences such as the Web Summit bring lot of value and insights to entrepreneurs and
infuse growth to their companies. The Web Summit held in Lisbon in Fall 2016 witnessed 53,056
tech CEOs, founders, startups, investors and political leaders from across the world. It provided
the perfect opportunity for startups to receive constructive feedback and gain valuable learnings
from leaders in the space.
Is disruption an overrated term? What are the mistakes startups seem to be making
time and again? What do venture capitalists look for in a startups?
These are questions almost every startup has in their minds. So we went to people who know
better than anyone – influencers and thought leaders with solid experience in their field to pass
their wisdom forward and help startups learn from their experiences.
Reading this e-book won’t just leave motivated and inspired, you will leave equipped to
accelerate your startup in 2017.
Dibya Sahoo,
Co-founder, Pepipost

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Do better in 2017: Startup Guide
Influencer Profiles.

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Do better in 2017: Startup Guide
Dave Williams,
Founder & CEO At eBallers
Dave is one of Atlanta’s leading entrepreneurs recognized for his
expertise in online media, social media advertising and search engine
marketing. He is an active mentor, advisor and investor in the tech
startup scene with a perfect track record of success. A serial
entrepreneur, his companies have been consistently recognized as a
Fastest Growing Company, Healthiest Company, Best Places to Work,
and Best Workplaces for Commuters Awards. Dave has been
awarded Atlanta Small Business Person of the year, Atlanta
Marketing & Technology Lifetime Achievement Award and has been
featured in Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg TV and Adage
Brian Breslin,
Project Executive At IDA Ireland
The biggest tech companies – Google, Oracle, LinkedIn, Facebook
and Twitter have their international headquarters at Ireland. Strong
venture capital presence and incredible talent make Ireland the
perfect destination for tech companies to set up shop here, not to
mention tax opportunities. Brian is part of the IDA Ireland, a leading
global development agency that partners with multinational
companies to add value across their global operations using Ireland
as a business hub. Brian works for Growth Markets and guides clients
in growing their international footprint.
Simon Berger,
Founder Of IM2 Group
Simon is Founder of IM2 Group, who are world renowned exhibition
and conference organisers with an enviable reputation on a global
scale. Simon founded the company 22 years ago, and his experience
in the events space is recognised around the world. Simon recently
co-founded an exciting, disruptive expo called Millennial 2020, the
first expo of its kind that brings together the world’s biggest brands
and most exciting startups to uncover the future of millennial-driven
business, marketing & entrepreneurship.

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Do better in 2017: Startup Guide
Tommy Otzen,
CEO & Co-founder Of KUBO Robot
One of the hot topics at this year's Web Summit was artificial
intelligence. Kubo Robot, a robot designed to teach young children
programming, was announced as the winner of the prestigious Alpha
Startup Award at the Web Summit 2016 and won top prize of
€100,000 in VC funding from Portugal Ventures. They also won at the
Pepipost #ThatsMyPitch Web Summit contest. Tommy Otzen is the
CEO & Co-founder of Kubo Robot and the brain behind this product.
Anshuman Mihir,
Founder & CEO MyTaxiIndia
India is home to the third largest number of technology driven
startups in the world beaten only by the US and UK in terms of the
number of ventures. One such promising startup from India is
MyTaxiIndia, a car rental and leasing portal that seeks to do what
Uber has opted out of – cater to intra-city cab booking market.
MyTaxiIndia was crowned the winner of PITCH competition 2016 at
RISE Conference (Web Summit), Hong Kong. Anshuman Mihir is the
Founder & CEO of this car rental startup.

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Do better in 2017: Startup Guide
Expert Speak.

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What is the most interesting/ promising sector
where globally VC investment is expected to
flow?
Artificial intelligence to automate monotonous tasks.
What are the five most important things you look
for in a startup?
1. Experience
2. Alignment
3. Focus
4. Tenacity
5. Strong culture
Dave
Founder & CEO At eBallers

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Do better in 2017: Startup Guide
Apart from the tax benefit, what is the key
reason that makes Ireland an ideal location for
startups to set up shop?
Talent, talent and more talent. That is why companies come here. Ireland gives them the best
platform in the world to scale from!
What are the key things startups must do to run
a successful offshore business?
I think the key thing is to build the right partnerships. The best companies rarely go for it alone,
whether they advertise that fact or not. When you set up an office in a new market the success
of that can be greatly help with the right strategic partners. At IDA Ireland we place huge
importance on creating these channels for companies coming to Ireland. This is why most of our
clients end up growing to a scale far beyond what they originally planned.
Brian
Project Executive At IDA Ireland

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How can startups use events and conferences to
grow their business?
Go to events where they can meet customers directly – Millennial20-20 is the best example of
this!
What are the 3 tips for startups to boost social
media engagement at events and conferences?
1. Be prepared with a full/daily social media strategy before arriving at the event
2. Schedule posts in advance and
3. Work with the Organisers’ PR & Comms team to schedule interviews, joint posts &
distribution.
Simon
Founder Of IM2 Group

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Tell us about one of the overwhelming challenges
you faced when setting up your startup and how
you overcame it.
KUBO started as a researched based project during our master-study at the University of
Southern Denmark. Very early in the process, we received a grant from the Danish government,
which we wanted to spend on a whole new set of prototypes. The grant was around 3500€. We
found a company in Lithuania that could help us build our prototypes. Long story short, the
company did not deliver as promised and we ended up losing our only two existing prototypes
of our product and the 3500€. That was a huge disappointment, but also a critical lesson on how
to out-source your production. To fix the problem, we had work day and night to build our
prototypes from scratch, since we already had booked test session in local schools in Denmark.
What’s the biggest risk that you’ve ever taken
and how did it turn?
At the moment we have invested almost all our time and resources in our upcoming
crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in January. As a team, we believe this is the right way for
us to bring our solution (KUBO Robot) to the market. If our intuition is wrong, we would have to
work hard to come up with a plan B in a very short time. To answer how it turned out, you would
have to ask me that same question in February, but I’m confident that it will be a definite answer.
Tommy
CEO & Co-founder Of KUBO Robot Ireland

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Tell us about one of the overwhelming challenges
you faced when setting up your startup and how
you overcame it
The journey of an entrepreneur is always challenging. I too faced many challenges in
my entrepreneur journey so far likewise finding co-founders / team, convincing investors,
execution of idea on real ground. But one of the biggest challenge was & is that “how to delight
and keep your customers with your company?" We have successfully found the mantra to give
the best experience to our customer for retention and we keep improving on this by improving
our product interface, service and after sales experience.
What’s the biggest risk that you’ve ever taken
and how did it turn out?
The biggest risk I took was when I started implementing the idea of MyTaxiIndia, I simply quit my
high salary job and started this company with my own savings. This came up as a direct hit on
pocket and when only I was confident on my doings. But this paid off, within few months
MyTaxiIndia became a bootstrapping company and in the next year we got seed and angle
funding from Singapore and Japan.
Anshuman
Founder & CEO MyTaxiIndia

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Main disruptions
happening in the
startup marketplace.

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Anshuman, MyTaxiIndia
Startup market place is
changing its priorities - Earlier
the focus was on GMV, number
of visitors and app downloads.
But now Investors
and companies are
focusing more on
actual business that
means - actual revenue and
profitability. It was speculated
that 2016 is not good a year for
investment but companies who
are focusing on bottom line are
getting cheque from investors.
According to me I find this is
one major disruptions in
startup market place till date.
Brian, IDA Ireland
Convergence seems to be the most important
theme within the tech industry at the moment. The
way adopting new technology and forming cross
over partnerships is fascinating. The health sector
and financial services sector are primed for major
disruption on the back of convergence. Exciting
times for the tech world! The world of IoT has
created a platform to make all companies
technology companies of sorts. It’s hard to
imagine what industry sectors won’t be
‘connected’ in the coming years!
Simon, IM2 Group
Startups are completely transforming the way
business is consumed and activated in all and
every area of business – out is not just about
technology innovation but disruption in
every department in every sector.
It is not a revolution it is an evolution; and
those that fail to adapt to the new
environment and consumer will join the
other failed brands/retailers/businesses that
already little the landscape!
Dave, eBallers
Startups from all over the world
competing against
each other with very
low startup costs. And,
employees have much greater
flexibility in work time and place
than ever before.
Tommy, KUBO Robot
In a broad sense, AI and chat agents seem to be very popular at
websummit. It is going to be fascinating to see how this
domain will develop and change the landscape
of online customer service and other customer oriented fields.

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Startup mistakes
entrepreneurs are
making time and
again.

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Brian, IDA Ireland
This is a difficult question to
answer. A lot of people would
argue that it is mistakes that
make entrepreneurs
successful in the end. I guess
to try and answer your
question though, the
biggest mistake I
see people making is
forgetting they are
building a business.
Ideas are great but it’s the
execution of that idea that
really counts. If you can’t
execute, you won’t succeed.
Anshuman, MyTaxiIndia
I find many entrepreneurs focusing on customer
acquisition without knowing why
their customer acquisition cost is not
dropping even if they are enhancing
their marketing budget plans and burn
rate. Customer acquisition holds importance but
with burn rate they should also improve their
product performance, customer experience and
delight to move ahead to the top or to remain on
top in the market.
Tommy, KUBO Robot
I believe that we always should strive to lower
the number of errors that we make. That
being said, I also believe that mistakes are
the fuel of wisdom for any
entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are risk-
takers that rather take a change and make an
error than wait for the full report to arrive.
Simon, IM2 Group
Looking for funding
as opposed to
looking for paying
customers
Dave, eBallers
1. Unwillingness to be flexible in the startup's path
2. Getting too caught up in their own ego and
lose perspective on themselves and the company
3. Spending capital too quickly

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both burgeoning startups and industry bigwigs.
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