BIZBarcelona - Salón Emprendedor

Steve Blank at BIZBarcelona

Fugir de les receptes clàssiques. Jugar amb la psicologia inversa. Proposar esquemes senzills i solucions relativament fàcils de posar en pràctica. Steve Blank és gat vell en el món de les conferències i un autèntic expert en el món de les start-ups i l’emprenedoria. El San José Mercury News l’ha inclòs en el rànquing dels 10 personatges més influents de Silicon Valley, és professor a diverses universitats i autor de diversos llibres i un blog amb guies i eines per a les start-ups, un tipus d’empresa que necessita les seves pròpies regles, els seus propis models.

Potser per aquesta raó ha començat la seva exposició al BIZBarcelona llistant sis maneres de fracassar amb una start-up. La clau per fer-ho malament, segons l’expert, és pensar que sabem qui és el nostre client, que sabem quin producte necessita, que sabem quin problema ha de resoldre i que tot el que hem de fer és executar el pla que teníem pensat utilitzant les mateixes eines que faria servir una gran companyia. Error. “Una start-up no és una gran empresa en versió reduïda”, ha exclamat. Al contrari. “Una start-up és una organització temporal dissenyada per cercar un model de negoci replicable i escalable”, ha remarcat.

I com es dissenya aquest model de negoci? Blank ha proposat un esquema senzill basat en preguntes clau com ara el tipus de client al qual ens dirigim, la proposició de valor que li oferim, la manera com la hi fem arribar i en potenciem la demanda, la infraestructura que hi hem de posar al darrere, les activitats que hem de desenvolupar o els socis que hem de buscar. Tot ha d’encaixar com peces d’un puzzle i per aquesta raó és important “deixar de vendre, sortir de l’edifici on estiguem i escoltar per poder descobrir el nostre client i provar les nostres hipòtesis”. Perquè, “una start-up és una organització temporal que ha de trobar les seves pròpies eines”, ha repetit per acabar l’emprenedor que ha posat en marxa vuit empreses tecnològiques en 21 anys. I és que, com diu en un dels seus llibres, Not all who wander are lost (No tots els que vaguen s’han perdut).

Straight to the point. Jerry Engel asked the participants of the first round table of the day one idea about where Capital Risk is moving to.

David Berry, from Flagships Ventures, pointed out the need to focus on “where the next disruption comes from”. Garret Gruener, from Alta Partners, underlined that even if Venture Capital is getting “more ambitious”, “VC projects are taking longer to complete“. Some, more than 10 years. Randy Komisar, from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, enhanced that “Venture Capital is still about people” and he stressed that “to do great things you need to work with great entrepreneurs, who are efficient and focused“.

On the other hand, Phil Sanderson, from IDG Ventures, denied there is another tech emerging bubble, and he emphasized there is “a huge opportunity for investors and entrepreneurs in the gaming area“. “The revenues of Zynga [the company which has developped Farmville on Facebook] are very real”, he said.

Eventually, Joël Jean-Mairet, from YSIOS, and Jim Hornthal, from CMEA Capital, highlighted the opportunities in the cleantech and biotech sectors. In that sense, Hornthal underscored the need of “finding a needle in a haystack versus finding a haystack of needles.”

To close the round table, Engel asked the participants to tell the audience where to place their bets. The majority agree that cleantech and biotech are good shots, but Komisar insisted on that the most important thing is “finding what makes sense to you and follow your passions“.

It is not just the LinkedIN’s epic IPO. It is not that the business networking site saw its shares more than double as they debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on May to a bidding frenzy from investors. It is not just that. But some analysts consider it another clear sign of new technology craze, of a bubble similar to the one that burst at the turn of the millennium.

The alarm bell started to ring a few months ago. Even before the valuation of Zynga, the little company that created the game FarmVille, had soared, with new investors trying to get in at prices that value the company at between $7bn and $9bn. Since then, Twitter has been valued at $10bn and Facebook is said to be worth more than Ford. Eyebrows up. Statements of the anthropologist Sekai Fari, who was awarded a grant by Columbia University to study the startup community two years ago, have been quoted several times by media. “The idea that your idea could be the next big idea is very real. There’s a real air of excitement.” Could it all end in tears? “It always does.”, she said.

Others are more prudent. The second edition of the quarterly PwC Valuation Index series states that “it is notoriously difficult to identify when you are in a bubble without the benefit of the hindsight”. The report also enhances it is worth differentiating between established technology companies and start-ups, as there is a different set of circumstances in place today compared to 2000. John Batelle, founder of the Industry Standard, is even more categorical about it. He says to be tired of “the easy comparisons to the dotcom bubble”. “They simply aren’t accurate”, he insists while he underlines that LinkedIN is a “real business”, which turned a profit of $15.4m on revenues of $243m in 2010.

Whether social media valuations are justified and it appears to be a social bubble is a difficult question to answer right now. Many entrepreneurs still think that the best course is to ignore the predictions, keep the foot on the gas pedal and build a strong business.

There were no ‘Likes’, no tweets, and no check-ins. But they manage to exchange letters and documents, thoughts and paper written status across national borders and language barriers. The Republic of Letters was the social network of the XVIII century. Well, kind of. It linked the finest thinkers and philosophers of the Enlightenment and treasured the intellectual correspondence of Locke, Newton or Voltaire, who wrote more than 18,000 letters.

A team of students and professors at Stanford and Oxford University have mapped thousands of those letters to learn at a glance what it once took a lifetime of study to comprehend. The project pulls data from the Electronic Enlightenment database, an archive of more than 55,000 documents exchanged between 6,400 correspondents. Dan Edelstein, an associate professor of French at Stanford, points out that what it is remarkable of this period is “how much information was circulating”. “They were able to create and to foster public opinion and critical thinking. (…) So there was a sort of freedom of information that was created thanks to these networks”, he enhances.

Numbers may seem much more impressive nowadays. Twitter connects thousands of ideas and has 200 million users worldwide. Facebook counts about 700 million users and manages more than 25 terabytes per day in logging data, which is the equivalent of about 1,000 times the volume of mail delivered daily by the U.S. Postal Service, according to Jeff Rothschild, the vicepresident of technology at the social network. Mark Zuckerberg may have nothing on the “philosophes” of the Enlightenment, but his network has turned into a sort of ‘Republic of Letters’ (and images and sounds), which has made usual a new way of sharing information, that increases the chances to create meeting points in order to find solutions to build a better society and advance knowledge.

BIZBarcelona, which combines the traditional Entrepreneurs’ Day and the innovation summit HiT Barcelona, will turn into one of these meeting points next 15-16th June. The event that discusses about internationalization, financing, enterprise creation and business growth will bring together the energy of more than 12,000 entrepreneurs who want to get the best of information exchange and networking to grow their business and improve our life.

HitBarcelona 2010: a huge success!

More than 2.000 attendees from more than 31 countries, more than 500 global investors, 1.000 companies, 500 policy makers, from universities and research parks; 17 keynotes and panel discussions on investment and innovation, 705 meetings between entrepreneurs and private equity funds, and a Global Entrepreneurship Competition (GEC) with the 23 best business plans in the world, which has been won by peerTransfer, an American startup that has developed an online platform for global payments with a 10 times lower cost than traditional ones.

The second edition of Hit Barcelona, an initiative of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, the Catalan Govern, the Barcelona City Council, the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and La Caixa, which is organised by Fira de Barcelona and the Pla Estratègic Metropolità de Barcelona, has been a huge success.

Numbers speak by themselves. The first ever Bizbarcelona, platform which includes HiT, recorded 12,000 visitors. And it has been thanks to all of you. Those who have been there and also those who have been following all the information about the event on this blog, Facebook and Twitter. So, thank you again.

Now, don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel. You will find a great bunch of interviews to the keynote speakers of the congress.

Richard Florida is convinced that “everybody has creativity”. The professor and head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management (University of Toronto, Canada) explains to HitBarcelona why he thinks Barcelona is a creative city.

Henrik Werdelin - Image from twitter.com/werdelin

He was among the 100 Most Creative People in Business selected by Fast Company in 2009, has been CCO of Joost.com and he currently works as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Index Ventures. Henrik Werdelin is passionate about innovation and has kindly answered HitBarcelona questions.

- You have a degree in Journalism. What do you think about the current situation of the media industry? Are paywalls a solution?

Journalism is changing quite dramatically: from the democratisation of news sourcing via Twitter and YouTube, through the trend towards being quick rather than being right, to the sheer volume of content sources. However, I think the media industry’s properties are just being extended.

You have always had bad populist reporters – now you just have more of them; but you have also always had passionate analytical storytellers, and now you can find them more easily. When it comes to monetisation, I think the solutions are many and depend of the nature of the content: from classic advertising for content that is easy to get everywhere else, to getting personal social currency and making money via consultancy for blogs, to doing paywalls for great reporting or insight analysis.

- How do you generate innovation?

First of all, forget about quarterly off-site brainstorms. It’s not about thinking differently; it’s about getting your staff to act differently. You create innovation by thinking a bit like an architect, social-engineer the daily workplace, so your staff is rewarded for behaviour that is proven to provide more innovation. These are things like taking risks, sharing ideas, mingling with colleagues from different fields and so on. You then become what Miller and Wedell from IESE Business School call an ‘Innovation Architect’. So, in my view, you generate innovation by building it into the structure of the workplace.

Another alternative is to align your company strategy with structures that can support innovation. That can be via a good acquisition strategy, or you can work with innovation companies like Prehype.

- Do you think an event like HitBarcelona can help entrepreneurs to achieve their goals?

Entrepreneurs always benefit for learning from best practices and other founders’ experience. I find that many entrepreneurs have made mistakes that could easily have been avoided by reading some books, getting some advice from mentors or taking inspiration from successful companies. HitBarcelona has managed to attract a good number of high-end VCs, tech companies and founders – so I am sure that there will be plenty of tips of the trade that entrepreneurs can benefit from. Beside, one goal that entrepreneurs should have is to meet interesting people and enjoy being their own boss. So, with that goal in mind, I am sure a trip to Barcelona will be good for them.

Daniel Goh

He states that he is “constantly amazed by human resilience shown by small entrepreneurs in the face of incredible odds”. And that is why he aims to tell their stories. Daniel Goh is the founder and editor of Young Upstarts, a small business and web/consumer technology blog that champions new ideas, innovative marketing and entrepreneurship. He has kindly answered HitBarcelona questions.

- In your blog, Youngupstarts, you give your views on “entrepreneurship, innovation and the online space”. How can entrepreneurs make the most of the online space to boost innovation?

It used to be that entrepreneurs needed to rely on very traditional tools and methods - which can be slow, cumbersome and expensive - in order to get the basics of business done. Think of areas like market research, publicity and awareness, or even simple things like looking for the right talents to hire.

For example, an entrepreneur can now use a service in the online space such as SurveyMonkey.com to do basic market research, employ social network sites and tools like Facebook and Twitter to spread word of your products and services, or a platform like LinkedIn to find the right hires for a fledgling company. The idea is to leverage such available tools so that you can get your product or service out to market quickly, effectively and cheaply. The digital space provides entrepreneurs with limitless opportunities. One of the reasons why Young Upstarts regularly features some of the latest online services and digital tools is to help entrepreneurs understand such potential usefulness to their businesses.

- The medium is more than ever the message in the Social Networks era?

Actually I would disagree - I’d say that the medium and the message has always been equally important. Any business, and especially entrepreneurs, need to understand the importance of the various mediums, or platforms, that is most effective in reaching out to their audiences. It is also equally important, however, for them to pitch exactly the right message, at the right time, through such mediums. Many times, businesses tend to get distracted by the “shiny object syndrome” - for example, just because everybody rushes to using Facebook to engage consumers doesn’t mean that your most ardent customers are most active on that platform.

- You also claim to be a “voice of a new generation”. What are the main characteristics of the current entrepreneurial minds? Is there any difference when compared with older generations?

For this question, I’ll borrow from one of the most authoritative figures on this subject, author Donna Fenn of the book Upstarts! In her book, she interviews more than 150 young entrepreneurs from across the United States and highlights how their mindsets differ greatly from previous generations. For example, she highlights the collaborative spirit of young entrepreneurs and their willingness to work with one another. They also tend to be more adaptive towards new technologies, and have a willingness to take risks. For anybody trying to understand this generation and how they approach business, this is one book I highly recommend.

- Do you think an event like HitBarcelona can help entrepreneurs to achieve their goals?

I definitely think platforms such as HitBarcelona are critical in helping the entrepreneurial ecosystem in any country to flourish. One of the problems facing young entrepreneurs is that they can tend to work in a silo. That’s unhealthy and myopic. Participation in events like HitBarcelona gets them to interact with one another as well as other stakeholders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem such as the media, investors and government agencies. Opportunities like this to network and trade ideas with one another are priceless.

Matt Bartus

He has spent nearly his entire legal carreer helping startups. It it just something he enjoys doing. Matt Bartus is a veteran startup lawyer in Silicon Valley. He has advised companies like Wordpress Foundation, Technorati or Solera Networks, and has also represented many leading VC firms over the years. He has kindly answered to HitBarcelona questions:

- You have chosen to spend your legal career helping startups. Why?

Fundamentally, you have to be interested in what you’re doing to really enjoy it, and in my heart I love all new technologies. It’s really exciting to become a part of the team, to become an essential advisor and to watch the progress of the companies at a very nascent stage. As a lawyer, when you work with larger companies you tend to work with in-house legal counsel and are in much more of a service provider role. There is nothing wrong with that, but it’s a very different experience from having a direct line to the CEO of your various clients.

- You say the way a law firm work with startups is fundamentally different than with large companies. In what sense?

Lawyers that work with startups have to deliver effective legal services that make sense from a business and cost perspective. From a cost perspective, startups have cash flow issues that larger companies don’t have (or have to a lesser extent), and it’s important to be able to distinguish what actually needs to be done. On the business side, the “soft skills” really matter. For example, knowing what terms a startup is likely to get in a licensing agreement (as opposed to what Apple or Microsoft might be able to get), and advising management effectively. Finally, law firms that work extensively with startups have “off the shelf” forms for many common things, reducing the need to spend valuable cash drafting some form documents.

- What are the main issues startups have to deal with in the current economic downturn?

Things appear to be turning around in our space, and funding activity has increased substantially. Young companies have challenges establishing themselves as legitimate companies so they can sell their product. Selling into the enterprise is still challenging. On the flip side, one of the challenges I have been hearing a lot about lately is the difficulty in hiring talented employees, especially on the engineering side. This is a great sign that hiring activity is picking up.

- What do you think events like HitBarcelona can offer to wannabe entrepreneurs?

Anything that advances the startup ecosystem and reduces the amount of friction it takes to start a company is a great thing for our industry. The amount of information that people can obtain both online and from networking within the various startup ecosystems has grown exponentially. Your event and others will ensure that the best and brightest talent will have the necessary information to make a decision about joining or starting a company.

HitBarcelona: Shake your ideas, Shake your business

Just three days left. HitBarcelona is almost there. Experts coincide it is a tremendous opportunity to share entrepreneurial experiences and a great forum for the engine of innovation. Roy Rodenstein states “the diversity of attendees and topics is its main strength”. Jason Cohen enhances that “sharing ideas and real knowledge from the field has no substitute”.

David Goldenberg underlines that “an event like HitBarcelona allows us to surface and take a good look around at all the cool ideas out there and how people are turning them into reality”, and Lance Weatherby stresses that “HitBarcelona seems like a great opportunity to network with a strong program to boot.”

Over the course of two days, the show will be bringing together business leaders, innovators, investors and entrepreneurs to share ideas, drive forward projects and redefine the keys to success in the business world.  Moreover, the top 23 business plans in the world will be competing in a Global Entrepreneurship Competition not only for the financing offered by the prizes but also for the opportunity to present them to the investors attending the show.

Just check the event guide and register if you don’t have done it already. Then, you can schedule your meetings with other attendees through our web. Are you ready to shake your ideas and your business? Be Hit’10!