The document provides an overview of a startup workshop titled "Startup Secrets" that discusses various topics relevant to starting a new business venture. The workshop covers developing a roadmap for success, building a compelling value proposition, hiring talent, funding strategies, and determining if one has the right mindset and skills to be an entrepreneur. It emphasizes that starting a company takes dedication, humility, and the ability to adapt to unexpected challenges. The goal is to solve large problems, not just focus on creating a very valuable company, to build something that endures over the long run.

1. Startup Secrets:
Have You Got What It
Takes?
7.1.19

2. Confidential & Proprietary @underscorevc
Startup Secrets
Workshops
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1. What’s Your Roadmap to Success?
2. Building a Compelling Value Proposition
3. Turning Products into Companies
4. Culture, Mission and Vision
5. Hiring A+ Talent
6. Game-Changing Business Models
7. Go to Market Strategies
8. Getting Behind the Perfect Investor Pitch
9. Funding Strategies to go the Distance
10. Have You Got What It Takes?
11. Mastering Mutual Mentorship

3. Confidential & Proprietary @underscorevc
Vision
(Market)
Startup
Roadmap
Enduring
Company
Value
Proposition
People
Team
Execution
Cultural Consistency
The
Founder
It Starts
With YOU
Where Does This All Fit?
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● Technology platform is here
● Lower cost barriers
● Faster time to launch
● More accelerators and mentors
● Better ability to test product market fit
Does it mean you should just jump in and
startup?
Context
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What does success look like to you?
● Lifestyle?
● Fame?
● Power?
● Money?
● Other?
A
Question
for You
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● Most entrepreneurs want to get rich AND run the
show
● Tough to have both money AND power…
○ To make a lot of money on a venture means getting
financial resources to capitalize on opportunities in front
of you. Tradeoff is loss of control.
○ To remain in charge you need to retain equity. This
means fewer financial resources to fuel your venture.
● If you don’t figure out which matters more to you,
you’ll wind up being neither rich nor king
Founder’s Dilemmas: Rich vs. King
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● “I want to change the world.”
○ Pressure
○ Sacrifice (not if you’re passionate)
○ Money “Rent and Ramen”
● Uncertainty
○ years to outcome: 7 to 10 yrs.
○ ~ thousands: 1 funding
○ ~ 1 in 10 breakouts
■ (Anecdotal: only 45 “Unicorns” in the past decade)
Reality of What’s Involved
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The Path
to
Success
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What will yours be?
Pivots?
Ideation
Repeatability?
Predictability?
Scalability?
Validation?
Profitability?
Funding?
Creation
The Roadmap to Success
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What will yours be?
Expect the unexpected!
Pivots?
Ideation
Repeatability?
Predictability?
Scalability?
Validation?
Profitability?
Funding?
CreationOutlier
customers
Business Model
Reworking
Funding
Mirage
Iterations
The unexpected:
“near death”
experience
Team
Upgrades
Growth vs.
Leverage?
Re-creation
Startup
Euphoria
The Roadmap to Success
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What will yours be?
Expect the unexpected!
Longer, harder, maybe even bigger...
Pivots?
Ideation
Repeatability?
Predictability?
Scalability?
Validation?
Profitability?
Funding?
CreationOutlier
customers
Business Model
Reworking
Funding
Mirage
Iterations
The unexpected:
“near death”
experience
Team
Upgrades
Growth vs.
Leverage?
Re-creation
Startup
Euphoria
The Roadmap to Success
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BREAK
-through
-out
Get Used
to the
UN-game
UNexplored
UNdefinedUNexpected
UNcertainty
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Playing
the UN-
game
● My 5 watchwords: REALITY, CLARITY, HUMILITY, CREDIBILITY, CERTAINTY
○ Reality
■ Confront it head on, shine a spotlight on it to get…
○ Clarity
■ Do everything you can to get people to fully understand the situation,
problem, opportunity
○ Humility
■ Show humility with customers, partners, employees, investors, media, etc.
first by listening before jumping to conclusions / answers
○ Credibility
■ Establish what have you learned and then move on fast to …
■ Build credibility by delivering improvements before promising anything
○ Certainty
■ Confirm it’s turning things around from the outside in – check with
customers etc.
■ Expect it to be fleeting if you’re growing fast!
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But Founders Are Often
UNconventional
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Genius?
Thomas Edison
In our opinion: being right isn’t
always as important as being
practical, or enabling others
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Genius?
Thomas Edison was right...
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Why Are
You
Doing
This?
● Inspired?
○ Change the world
● Meeting a need?
○ Personal or market?
● Addressing a pain point?
○ Scratching an itch?
○ Healing a wound?
○ Positively motivated?
■ Or just to prove someone wrong?
● Fun or Fundamental?
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Unconventional
Founders
Are usually:
FUN AND FUNdamentally
driven
The combination of BOTH fuels them
for the UN-game
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What would you choose to do
if today was your last day of work?

20. Confidential & Proprietary @underscorevc
● When do you think is the right time to become an
entrepreneur?
■ Right out of school, college?
■ After you’ve got some real work experience?
■ After you’ve been in a startup?
■ If you’ve worked your way up a corporation?
■ Whenever?!
● Is it age related?
Timing
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Age of U.S. Tech Entrepreneurs at Time of FundingThe Age-
Old
Argument:
Youth vs.
Experience
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● Youth
○ Ignorance is bliss
■ Unaware = unlimited
● Open mind = open to possibilities
○ less to lose
● Experience
○ Confidence
■ Stronger networks
● Deeper pockets
○ also more to lose
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The Age-
Old
Argument:
Youth vs.
Experience

23. Confidential & Proprietary @underscorevc
● Cultivate, Curate your network
● Attract, Select, Grow people
● Find mentors
● The number one relationship:
○ Your potential customer
Networks and
Relationships
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● Customer intimacy
○ Vital in product development, support, etc.
Shoe
Leather
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25. Career path
...so how do I gain that experience?

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PeopleSoft
Outcome Founder(s) Relevant Prior
Experience
David Duffield
Aneel Bhusri
$9.5B
Yahoo,
Infoseek
Michael Baum,
Rob Das,
Erik Swan
$3B
PayPal,
Socialnet.com
Reid Hoffman$7.8B
Odeo,
Audioblog,
Pyra Labs,
Blogger
Jack Dorsey,
Evan Williams,
Biz Stone,
Noah Glass
$31.6B
Career
Paths for
Founders
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● You’ve been incredibly successful at Global
Enterprises
○ Does that set you up for success as an entrepreneur?
■ In our opinion…NO!
● If you want startup experience
○ Go and work in… A STARTUP!
■ Find a mentor within the startup
Big
Company
vs.
Startup
Experience
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● 10,000 Hours
○ 3 hours a day for a decade
● Deep ExpertiseOutliers
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Deep Expertise
On The Job
A Tale of
Two
Cities
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Ideation Confirmation Creation Validation Repeatability Scalability Profitability Predictability
One size fits all?
Stages
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Ideation Confirmation Creation Validation Repeatability Scalability Profitability Predictability
Increasing VALUE
DecreasingRISK
Stages
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Innovator
Entrepreneur
Builder
Operator
Enabler

32. Confidential & Proprietary @underscorevc
● VCs, investors, advisor
○ Invest some of their time
○ Some of their money
○ Part of their portfolio
● You invest
○ Your life
○ Your reputation
○ And there is only ONE of you to invest
● It takes
○ Dedication
○ Focus
YOU Are
Your
Biggest
Investor
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33. Confidential & Proprietary @underscorevc
● Don’t set out to create a billion-dollar company
● Set out to solve a multi-billion-dollar problem
● MINDFUL of what it takes to build an enduring
company
Innovation and
Entrepreneurship
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34. Startup Secrets:
Have You Got What It
Takes?
7.1.19