Differences between running a startup in Sweden and a startup in Silicon Valley. Bonus: How Neo Technology (Neo4j) uses aspects of Scandinavian culture as a competitive advantage. Presented at the Nordic themed Monki Gräs in London, Jan of 2015.
Btw, we at Neo4j are hiring: http://neo4j.com/jobs/ :)
IP Due Diligence-What Investors Want To See | Quan Nguyen | Lunch & Learn UCICove
About UCI Applied Innovation:
UCI Applied Innovation is a dynamic, innovative central platform for the UCI campus, entrepreneurs, inventors, the business community and investors to collaborate and move UCI research from lab to market.
About the Cove @ UCI:
To accelerate collaboration by better connecting innovation partners in Orange County, UCI Applied Innovation created the Cove, a physical, state-of-the-art hub for entrepreneurs to gather and navigate the resources available both on and off campus. The Cove is headquarters for UCI Applied Innovation, as well as houses several ecosystem partners including incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, mentors and legal experts.
Follow us on social media:
Facebook: @UCICove
Twitter: @UCICove
Instagram: @UCICove
LinkedIn: @UCIAppliedInnovation
For more information:
cove@uci.edu
http://innovation.uci.edu/
Foreign Direct Investment 201. April 19 2018SelectChicago®
SelectChicago® presents FDI 201. Learn how money flows between the US and foreign investors. Learn how communities can help with site selection and Requests For Information.
IP Due Diligence-What Investors Want To See | Quan Nguyen | Lunch & Learn UCICove
About UCI Applied Innovation:
UCI Applied Innovation is a dynamic, innovative central platform for the UCI campus, entrepreneurs, inventors, the business community and investors to collaborate and move UCI research from lab to market.
About the Cove @ UCI:
To accelerate collaboration by better connecting innovation partners in Orange County, UCI Applied Innovation created the Cove, a physical, state-of-the-art hub for entrepreneurs to gather and navigate the resources available both on and off campus. The Cove is headquarters for UCI Applied Innovation, as well as houses several ecosystem partners including incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, mentors and legal experts.
Follow us on social media:
Facebook: @UCICove
Twitter: @UCICove
Instagram: @UCICove
LinkedIn: @UCIAppliedInnovation
For more information:
cove@uci.edu
http://innovation.uci.edu/
Foreign Direct Investment 201. April 19 2018SelectChicago®
SelectChicago® presents FDI 201. Learn how money flows between the US and foreign investors. Learn how communities can help with site selection and Requests For Information.
Explaining the reasons Mr Jagannadham Thunuguntla, equity head of SMC Capital said: "Large caps already have rallied substantially, so in the past few months funds have started flowing into the small and mid cap segments. In 2008 when the capital markets collapsed the major sufferers were small and mid caps compared with the large caps. After the market sentiments turned positive we are witnessing a lot of action in these stocks."
Bica Studios Game Design Document and the Importance of TestingBica Studios
This is the presentation made by Bica Studios at the Microsoft Game Dev Camp 2014 in Lisbon.
This document features the evolution of a Game Design Document and The Importance of Testing in the game development scene.
The shifting healthcare landscape shows providers are less interested in the retail/detail approach to sales. Instead, they are looking to industry partners to provide high-quality content that helps them solve problems, provides them with professional education and training, or offers them best-practice consulting.
Aqui podemos apreciar la importancia de la educacion bilingue y algunos estudios que se han hecho sobre la forma que se aprende el Ingles como segunda lengua
Venture Capital project, in the context of this course we explore venture capital as a social science. Meaning, that it consists of thought leaders, supporters, visionaries and far more than just money. Your assignment is to follow 3 venture capital firms that invest in a technology area you are interested. Within each venture firm, follow 1 portfolio company.
Think different, in Finance. An outsider's two cents on how could finance majors rethink their role and value in the rapidly changing AI era, with some FinTech case studies.
"Hiring Great Technologists in Six Easy Steps"
In this talk, we discuss:
- What it takes to hire and retain great engineers in New York area.
- Qualities you should look for in a technical co-founder.
- Does it make sense to outsource?
- As well as other topics raised by the audience.
Afterwards, we will continue with networking among the group's members.
Please feel free to write your questions ahead of time in the comments section.
Innovation and Collaboration in Job Shop ManufacturingBi-Link
This is an abridged version of the presentation given by Ray Ziganto, President of Bi-Link at AME Jacksonville 2014. The presentation discusses Bi-Link's journey and pivot points in support of innovation at the company.
Turning Products into Companies – Case – Actuality SystemsMichael Skok
Through this case example, Actuality Systems Founder Gregg Favalora offers helpful insight into the path Actuality took from product design, to its acquisition by Optics for Hire in 2009 - and the ultimate patent sale (and exit) in 2011. Offering an insider’s view of building and commercializing 3D display products, Gregg offers his thoughts on some powerful lessons he learned as he grew his company.
Explaining the reasons Mr Jagannadham Thunuguntla, equity head of SMC Capital said: "Large caps already have rallied substantially, so in the past few months funds have started flowing into the small and mid cap segments. In 2008 when the capital markets collapsed the major sufferers were small and mid caps compared with the large caps. After the market sentiments turned positive we are witnessing a lot of action in these stocks."
Bica Studios Game Design Document and the Importance of TestingBica Studios
This is the presentation made by Bica Studios at the Microsoft Game Dev Camp 2014 in Lisbon.
This document features the evolution of a Game Design Document and The Importance of Testing in the game development scene.
The shifting healthcare landscape shows providers are less interested in the retail/detail approach to sales. Instead, they are looking to industry partners to provide high-quality content that helps them solve problems, provides them with professional education and training, or offers them best-practice consulting.
Aqui podemos apreciar la importancia de la educacion bilingue y algunos estudios que se han hecho sobre la forma que se aprende el Ingles como segunda lengua
Venture Capital project, in the context of this course we explore venture capital as a social science. Meaning, that it consists of thought leaders, supporters, visionaries and far more than just money. Your assignment is to follow 3 venture capital firms that invest in a technology area you are interested. Within each venture firm, follow 1 portfolio company.
Think different, in Finance. An outsider's two cents on how could finance majors rethink their role and value in the rapidly changing AI era, with some FinTech case studies.
"Hiring Great Technologists in Six Easy Steps"
In this talk, we discuss:
- What it takes to hire and retain great engineers in New York area.
- Qualities you should look for in a technical co-founder.
- Does it make sense to outsource?
- As well as other topics raised by the audience.
Afterwards, we will continue with networking among the group's members.
Please feel free to write your questions ahead of time in the comments section.
Innovation and Collaboration in Job Shop ManufacturingBi-Link
This is an abridged version of the presentation given by Ray Ziganto, President of Bi-Link at AME Jacksonville 2014. The presentation discusses Bi-Link's journey and pivot points in support of innovation at the company.
Turning Products into Companies – Case – Actuality SystemsMichael Skok
Through this case example, Actuality Systems Founder Gregg Favalora offers helpful insight into the path Actuality took from product design, to its acquisition by Optics for Hire in 2009 - and the ultimate patent sale (and exit) in 2011. Offering an insider’s view of building and commercializing 3D display products, Gregg offers his thoughts on some powerful lessons he learned as he grew his company.
Leadership of Open Innovation by Paul Sloane★ Tony Karrer
Paul Sloane is a well-known author and speaker on open innovation. In this session, Paul will takes through the breadth of what open innovation can be for organizations and the value it can bring. Of course, innovation where other parties are involved means a different leadership approach. Paul takes us through keys to effective leadership when open innovation is part of our innovation strategy.
In this session, you will learn:
What is Open Innovation and why is it important for your business?
Who is using Open Innovation?
What are the main difficulties and impediments to OI and how can we overcome them?
What is crowdsourcing and how can we use it?
Special Thanks to these talented creative and technical artists: Jeff Chandler, Jamie Appellaniz, Susan Lee, Joe Case, Chris Berger, Shelli Place, Michael Shann, Jay Grinrod, Randy Piveral, and Steve Carroll. I work with the best.
Startupfest 2016: MARTY WEINER (Reddit) - How toStartupfest
How to Handle Explosive Startup Growth (and only slightly lose your sanity) -
I've been with Pinterest since the early work-out-of-an-apartment days and am now CTO at Reddit. There's been a feeeew cultural and technological challenges we've had to conquer in the process of building companies from a few employees to 600+ and from a few thousand users to tens of millions. In this talk, I share several important inflection points as a company scales starting from day -100, and talk about the cultural and technological pieces you should have in place. For instance, at what point do you bring in technologies like logging, map reduce, etc? How about SOA? How do you fix trust issues in the team? How do you balance making some engineers managers versus others? Come with questions! If this is your first rodeo, I hope to make it a lot easier.
Are you looking for funding? Would you like to learn more about how to attract and convince potential investors? Then you should definitely mark the date monday the 23rd of June at 09:00 am in your calendar. Come listen to MESH's very own Erling Løken Andersen talk about raising money at MESH in Tordenskiolds gate 3.
Erling has previously raised around 10m NOK from various investors in Oslo and Silicon Valley. He also sold Biip.no for 75m NOK in 2008.
Erling will give a presentation on how to find, approach and convince investors that your project is worth his/her time and money, giving you guidelines on how to build and present a solid pitch deck. You'll also learn the do's and dont's of an investor presentation - and the basics of accelerators and incubators.
Technopreneurship and the Early Stage Ecosystem in China in 2013Chris Evdemon
20 slides about everything you should know on the state of the Chinese internet, the start-up community and resources available to entrepreneurs in China in 2013.
An Overview of the Emerging Graph Landscape (Oct 2013)Emil Eifrem
Recent years have seen an explosion of technologies for managing, processing and analyzing graphs, ranging from community projects like Apache Giraph, to vendor led products such as Neo4j and spin outs from established companies like Twitter’s FlockDB. The sheer number of technologies makes it difficult to keep track of these tools and what sets them apart, even for those of us who are active in the space!
But all graph technologies are not created equal. This session will provide a high level framework for making sense of the emerging graph landscape. It will describe the three dominant graph data models today, define top level categories like graph compute engines (Graphlab, Giraph, Pegasus, YarcData, etc) and graph databases (Neo4j, FlockDB, OrientDB, etc) and discuss common characteristics and important properties of each category.
Startups in Sweden vs Startups in Silicon ValleyEmil Eifrem
Differences between running a startup in Sweden and a startup in Silicon Valley. Presented at Stanford's "European Entrepreneurship & Innovation" (http://www.europeanentrepreneursatstanford.com) in Jan of 2012.
A NOSQL Overview And The Benefits Of Graph Databases (nosql east 2009)Emil Eifrem
Presentation given at nosql east 2009 in Atlanta. Introduces the NOSQL space by offering a framework for categorization and discusses the benefits of graph databases. Oh, and also includes some tongue-in-cheek party poopers about sucky things in the NOSQL space.
A presentation of the Neo4j graph database given at QCon SF 2008. It describes why relational databases are increasingly unfit for many applications today and why graphs may be a good fit. It also covers the fundamentals of how to program with Neo4j.
7. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
Reflections on
running a startup in
Sweden vs The Valley
*My* perspective
8. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
“On a per capita basis, Stockholm is the
second most prolific tech hub globally,
with 6.3 billion-dollar companies per million
people (compared to the Valley with 6.9)”
http://www.zdnet.com/article/stockholm-is-the-most-prolific-billion-dollar-startup-hub-behind-silicon-valley/
10. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
… and this
“Tax burden as percentage of
GDP”
(OECD 2010)
11. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
My Observations (thus far)
• Let’s compare Sweden and the valley along six five
axes:
• Skill set
• Funding
• Government & Policy
• Culture
• Market
• NGO (Nitty-Gritty Operations!)
• Warning: Bring huge grain of salt. All of these are
just subjective reflections and heavily (enterprise)
software biased.
12. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
Skillset - Hackers
• Very high average skill
• High and early internet
penetration
• Predated by early PC
penetration (“home PC
reform”)
• Probably among the best in the
world when it comes to mobile
(because unlike in the valley,
mobile phones actually work)
• Employee affinity is higher <—
compounding effect of this is
huge!
Swedland The Valley
• The best in the valley are
the best in the world
• Deep technology mainly
based on experience
from leading tech
companies like
Facebook, Google, etc
• But combined with a
general savviness about
running a startup
• Most sophisticated and
influential early adopters in
the world
13. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
Skillset - Mentors
• Very few
• Most (but not all!)
suck, because if they
didn’t they already
moved to London or
the Valley
• There’s a strong
positive first derivative
here — huge diff vs a
few years ago
Swedland The Valley
• Most experienced and
clueful in the world. (x)
• Most willing to share in
the world. (y)
• x * y = leaps and
bounds ahead of
anyone else in the world
• Don’t think anyone
will catch up for
several decades
14. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
Government & Policy
• Some immature legislation,
e.g. around stock options
• Strong labor laws
• “Quick to hire, never fire”
• But legislation / policy don’t
really move the needle in
either direction in my
experience:
• Taxes don’t really matter
• Setting up a company is
equally easy
Swedland The Valley
• I guess very pro-
business?
• In reality just
seems pro lawyer
to me
15. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
Culture
• Less quarter capitalism
than the valley and more
long-term sustainability
• OTOH, less “shooting
for the stars”
• Supposed challenges
that haven’t been a
problem (for me):
• Cultural fear of failure
• Lack of fellow
entrepreneurs
Swedland The Valley
• Echo chamber
rocks for staying
on the leadin’
bleedin’ edge
• Everyone’s as
clued in about
startups as you
are
16. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
Market
• Small domestic market
• Swedish is only
spoken in Sweden
(and some 5% of
Finland)
• Companies have to go
outside of Sweden for
scale
• For good and for
bad
Swedland The Valley
• Harmonized, US
domestic market,
strongest
economy in the
world
• High influence
consumers, trend
setters
17. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
“Nitty-Gritty Operations”
• Trust makes a lot of
things easier
• Invoices are kinda
cool
• The social fabric in
Sweden is very
powerful
• Parental leave,
medical benefits,
daycare, etc
Swedland The Valley
• Guilty until proven
otherwise (and
probably a little bit
longer)
• Service providers
galore
• But everything in the
valley is less friction
and more liquid
18. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
So why again?
• Why does Sweden have a
disproportionate (to its population)
amount of “global” startups?
• Some ideas:
• Small domestic market — has to go
outside
• High PC penetration -> Internet penetration
-> Working Mobile technology
• Good English
• Reaaaally cold winters?
19. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
From
The
N
eo
C
ulture
D
eck
How we use (aspects of)
Scandinavian culture
as a competitive advantage
20. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
Cultural Identity
I frequently say that I want to create an American
company with a Swedish soul. What does that mean?
21. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
<oooh! movie time!>
http://youtu.be/SX1rQdUl8-M?t=59s
22. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
We value good consensus(tm) and
intellectually honest discussions
• There’s Good Consensus(tm) and Bad Consensus(tm)
• Bad Consensus
• Analysis paralysis /
Dragged out discussions /
Deadlocks
• Countered by clear decision-
making authority and
narrowly defined groups
• Good Consensus
• Buy in from all parties who will execute on a particular task
• Leads to alignment and more efficient execution
• Enables one of the strongest forces on earth: intrinsic
motivation
23. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
We value good consensus(tm) and
intellectually honest discussions
facts + logic
judged on merit, not origin
24. Neo Technology, Inc Confidential
We value good consensus(tm) and
intellectually honest discussions
• Furthermore, we invite and expect Neo employees
to challenge decisions-in-the-making.
• It is NOT ok to sit
back and watch Neo
go in a direction you
believe is wrong.
Speak up!
• But we balance that
by disagreeing and
then committing:
once a decision has been made, it doesn’t matter
if we agreed or disagreed. Then we execute.