Barcelona, September 2016
From corporate research to start-up:
chronicles from an ongoing journey
Luca Marchesotti
World-class research team
Computer Vision and Machine Learning
The Beginning of our Journey
Grenoble
Dublin
Dublin, Ireland, a great
place to start-up
What you need to start..
FIVE 

LESSONS
Courtesy	of	
Learned so far
FIVE 

LESSONS
Learned so far
1. What?
2.Why? 4.Where?
5.Who?
3.How?
Courtesy	of	
FIVE 

LESSONS
Learned so far
FIVE 

LESSONS
Learned so far
1. What?
2.Why? 4.Where?
5.Who?
3.How?
Courtesy	of	
FIVE 

LESSONS
Learned so far
What ?
..as a researcher a thought that a
startup is one thing…
Start-up = Technology
$$$
$$$
$$$
Technology
Technology
$$$
$$$
$$$
Not	really	…
A start-up is an
experiment
Sales
Marketing
Team
Finance
Technology
Product
a complex experiment involving..
☺
Fast
Inexpensive
☺
Disruptive
☺
Startups as experiments are..
97%
97% ..fail ☹
https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/startup-failure-post-mortem/
The Dream
The Reality
“..you are a startup
as long as you
haven't discovered
traction”
Sean O’Sullivan,
SOS Ventures
What are B2B
startups selling?
Image credit: Cai Guo-Qiang “Sky Ladder” Made of Fireworks
B2B startups sell
PROMOTIONS
Why?
WHY
WHY
WHY
with startup XYZ:
• we will make the world a better place
• we will change how people do thing_zyx globally
• we will disrupt banks
WHY
Popular B***sh*t motivations
Alex Krizhevsky, 

ECCV12
Florence
Announcing double digit improvement
on automatic large scale image
classification 

Using deep learning
WHY
Photos shared DAILY on social
networks
100M
2,000M
WHY
x20
Photos shared DAILY on social
networks
100M
2,000M
A new trend is
changing the way
people
communicate 

globally
WHY
“Beautifeye will
help people
selecting
beautiful pictures “
WHY
WHY
"People don't buy a drill
because they want a drill,
they buy a drill because
they need a hole."
WHY
The sad story: you
have a technology in
search of a problem?
WHY
1. Is the problem a REAL problem?
2. Are people prepared to pay to get that problem solved?
3. Can you solve the problem?
WHY
Question worth answering before you even start
WHY
Eliminating online fraud through real-time identity verification
WHY
$44M
Pat Pheelan
Serial Entrepreneur
WHY
How?
Discovering	needs	(and	opportunities)
How do
create so
much value?
HOW
Discovering	needs	(and	opportunities)
How do
create so
much value?
HOW
Discovering	needs	(and	opportunities)
You need a
VISION
HOW
HOW
Steve	Blank
HOW
Steve	Blank	
HOW
HOW
Alan Clayton
SOS Ventures
HOW
HOW
HOW
HOW
HOW
Andy Crawford
Founder Hellfire,
ex-Diageo, P&G
A canvas to qualify
startup ideas
HOW
STEP 1 : project your ideas
Important	to	fix	?	
BIG
SMALL
NOT	IMPORTANT	 IMPORTANT
Addressable		
Market?	
Finding Beautiful
images
classify images of
cracked oil
pipelines
HOW
1.MARKET CONSTRAINT: you are not solving a real
problem, or the problem is not big enough
2.CATEGORY CONSTRAINT: customers are not ready
to buy, “I want to see how it goes with some other ppl, It
is not top priority”
3.EXECUTION CONSTRAINT: you are not able to capture
the opportunity with product sales or other, I cannot
service the customer
4.FINANCE CONSTRAINT: I dont have enough money
to solve the problem
Richard Bryce
CEO Rockall
HOW
STEP 2: stress test the idea
HOW
HOW
STEP 3: plan ahead
Where?
#startinireland
It is all about the
ecosystem..
Dublin early
2005
Dublin 2010
Dublin 2012
Incubato
rs
Courtesy	of
Angel
investors
Courtesy	of
Venture
Capitalists
Courtesy	of
Govt.
Institutions
Govt.
Institutions
https://www.bullethq.com/ireland-index.html
Who?
“All life is a series of
problems which we
must try and solve.
The first one and the
next and the next,
until at last we die”
we
#Downton Abbey
Want to help ppl
Pragmatic
Honest
Laser focused
Hard worker
…did the experiment work?
WE WANT
YOU!
@lucamarchesotti
https://ie.linkedin.com/in/lumarche
luca.marchesotti
luca@beautifeye.co
luca.marchesotti
kalumaiche
lmarches
How to
measure
difficult stu
https://steveblank.com/
Measure 

EVERYTHING
From Corporate Research to Startup

From Corporate Research to Startup