Presentation @ Silicon Vikings Riga Meetup , Riga, April 15, 2015

2. Rihards Gailums
Twitter: @RihardsGailums
rihards.gailums@rhtu.edu.lv

4. Silicon Valley isn’t a town, a neighborhood,
or a zip code.
It’s a concept. Ecosystem.
The epicenter for the most revolutionary
advances in technology.

7. Pro/Cons for Valley
‐Largest access to tech mentors, capital,
tech enterprises;
‐Largest homogeneous market [US];
‐Insanely expensive;
‐Spend your time (burn money) EFFECTIVELY

8. Goals of visiting Valley
‐Business Tourism;
‐Just Listen and Learn;
‐Pitch and Learn / Funding;

10. WELCOME to San Francisco!
You are an entrepreneur now!

27. ‐ Azure Capital Partners - 2100 Sand Hill Road
‐ Greylock Partners - 2250 Sand Hill Road
‐ Highland Capital Partners - 2420 Sand Hill Road
‐ Benchmark Capital - 2480 Sand Hill Road
‐ The Blackstone Group - 2494 Sand Hill Road
‐ U.S. Venture Partners - 2735 Sand Hill Road
‐ Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers - 2750 Sand Hill Road
‐ Andreessen Horowitz - 2875 Sand Hill Road
‐ Charles River Ventures - 2882 Sand Hill Road
‐ Draper Fisher Jurvetson - 2882 Sand Hill Road
‐ Battery Ventures - 2884 Sand Hill Road
‐ Redpoint Ventures - 3000 Sand Hill Road
‐ Sequoia Capital - 3000 Sand Hill Road

28. Latvian Tech Ecosystem in
Silicon Valley

38. How to connect to Valley
‐Meetups;
‐Silicon Vikings, GABA, SVForum events;
‐Industry or Vendor conferences;
‐Co-working communities (Hacker dojo);
‐Invitations only events (from network)

39. How to connect to Valley
Make yourself a BRAND
You should be recognized

40. Nvidia Early Stage Challange

41. IN partnership

43. ACCELERATUM

47. HOMEWORK

48. Vocabulary and comprehension
MVP, minimal viable product, Iteration, Guerrilla Marketing,
Growth hacker, Conversion funnel;
Acquisition, activation, retention, upsell, cross-sell;
Burning rate, Funding runway, Pivot;
UI/UX design,Wireframe, Front-end, back-end;
Pitch, Elevator pitch;
IPO,VC, SAAS, NDA;
Term sheet, Scalable, scalability;
LEAN, Lean startup, Bootstrap, Agile;
Exit, Exit strategy.

49. Prerequisites
Ready to answer following questions:
‐ Opportunity.Why now?
‐ Problem. Problem definition you are trying to solve.Who cares?
‐ Solution.Why you? What is your special sauce? What is your
competition and why you are better? Do you offer pain killer or
vitamin?
‐ Market (who, where do you fit, dynamics). Product market fit.
Who are your customer?
‐ Product and business development plan. Scalability plan.
‐ Go to market strategy.Who and why should buy?

50. Art of Pitching
‐ Be prepared for different length: Elevator, 2 min, 5 min, 7 min, 20 min
(Q&A);
‐ 10/20/30 Rule (10 slides, 20 min, 30pt font);
‐ «So What?» Answer Little man on shoulder;
‐ White on Black;
‐ Shut Up,Take Notes, Summarize and Follow Up;
‐ Rewrite from scratch