Oguz Serdar

How to get massive traction / usage to your product

Fri, 10 May 2013 07:27:54 -0400

How to get massive traction / usage to your product from Oguz Serdar

tawheed: The Startup Curve (courtesy of PG)

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 09:15:34 -0400

tawheed:

The Startup Curve (courtesy of PG)

Working midnights (including Saturdays) is the new work-life...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 21:53:06 -0400

Working midnights (including Saturdays) is the new work-life balance. #amsterdam #limk #rockstart (at Limk HQ)

"In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience..."

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:00:00 -0400

“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.”

- Harold Geneen

How I Met 75 Investors and Raised $650,000

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:28:49 -0400

aihui:

Love With Food graduated from 500 Startups accelerator program about a year ago and we raised $650,000 in June of 2012. It was 3 painful months of fundraising. If you think fundraising is a piece of cake just because we were a 500 alum, think again! When I first began fundraising, all I hear was discouragement. Most will tell me the food space is hard, being a solo founder makes it even harder. Fundraising is one of the most painful things I’ve done in my life. It’s physically exhausting and worst of all, it was mentally torturing. My mind started to play games with me, and every waking moment, I had to fight the thoughts of being a failure and was at the brink of giving up countless times. Not only I had to endure the heartaches of rejections, I had to defend myself against cynicism that I didn’t have an Ivy league education hence I wasn’t qualified to run a startup. There are many reasons not to fund Love With Food, but me not having a MIT/Stanford education is definitely not a legit and fair one. I remembered walking out of that meeting and said “Watch me BITCH, I’ll prove you wrong.” Prove her wrong, I did. In 3 months, I pitched to 75 investors and raised more money than we needed. People often ask me how I met 75 investors. Looking back, here are the 10 different things I did:

1) Wear your Company T-shirt

If you know me, you know that I’m always in my Love With Food t-shirt, jeans and a black blazer. In the usual fashion, I wore my Love With Food t-shirt to Women 2.0 conference last year. During lunch, this dude holler, “Hey, Love With Food. I read about your company. I’m intrigued. Tell me more!” It so happened that this dude is the partner at Blue Run Venture. After the conference, we met up again and he wrote me a check within a week.

2) Angel List

Be on Angel List. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have your company profile on Angel List. After we started to trend on Angel List, we had many inbound interest. In the end, 3 investors on Angel List invested and one of them eventually became our lead. If it wasn’t for Angel List, I wouldn’t have met these 3 investors!

Read More

No phone calls! #startupadvice (at Rockstart HQ)

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:22:58 -0400

No phone calls! #startupadvice (at Rockstart HQ)

"As you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows, it never comes out like it starts because you..."

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 11:15:03 -0400

“As you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows, it never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. You also find tremendous trade-offs that you have to make. There are certain things you cannot make electrons do, or plastic or glass or even factories or robots. Designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain – fitting them altogether in new and different ways to get what you want. Every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together.”

- Steve Jobs

gotemcoach: WORK ETHIC A story about Kobe Bryant, as told by a...

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 06:37:47 -0500

gotemcoach:

WORK ETHIC

A story about Kobe Bryant, as told by a professional trainer who worked with Bryant this past Summer, for the Olympics:

I’ve been a professional athletic trainer for about 16 years and have been able to work with a range of athletes from the high school to professional level. Right now I run in a clinic in Cincinnati and have most recently been training with some players on the Bengals.

I activated my reddit account just a moment ago and because I’ve been seeing the videos of Kobe’s most recent dunks and the comments you guys have had to share I decided I might as well chime in what I know about the man. And let me just state by saying that this story doesn’t touch on anything we don’t know about Kobe but rather that he simply is not human when he is working on his craft.

I was invited to Las Vegas this past Summer to help Team USA with their conditioning before they head off to London, and as we know they would eventually bring home the Gold (USA). I’ve had the opportunity to work with Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade in the past but this would be my first interaction with Kobe. We first met three days before the first scrimmage, on the day of the first practice, early July. It was a brief conversation where we talked about conditioning, where he would like to be by the end of the Summer, and we talked a little bit about the hustle of the Select Team. Then he got my number and I let him know that if he ever wanted some extra training he could hit me up any time.

The night before the first scrimmage I remember I was just watched “Casablanca” for the first time and it was about 3:30 AM. I lay in bed, slowly fading away when I hear my cell ring. It was Kobe. I nervously picked up.

“Hey, uhh Rob, I hope I’m not disturbing anything right?”

“Uhh no, what’s up Kob?”

“Just wondering if you could just help me out with some conditioning work, that’s all.”

I checked my clock. 4:15 AM.

“Yeah sure, I’ll see you in the facility in a bit.”

It took me about twenty minutes to get my gear and out of the hotel. When I arrived and opened the room to the main practice floor I saw Kobe. Alone. He was drenched in sweat as if he had just taken a swim. It wasn’t even 5AM.

We did some conditioning work for the next hour and fifteen minutes. Then we entered the weight room, where he would do a multitude of strength training exercises for the next 45 minutes. After that we parted ways and he went back to the practice floor to shoot. I went back to the hotel and crashed. Wow.

I was expected to be at the floor again at about 11 AM. I woke up feeling sleepy, drowsy, and almost pretty much every side effect of sleep deprivation. Thanks, Kobe. I had a bagel and headed to the practice facility.

This next part I remember very vividly. All the Team USA players were there, feeling good for the first scrimmage. LeBron was talking to Carmelo if I remember correctly and Coach Krzyzewski was trying to explain something to Kevin Durant. On the right side of the practice facility was Kobe by himself shooting jumpers. And this is how our next conversation went — I went over to him, patted him on the back and said, “Good work this morning.”

“Huh?”

“Like, the conditioning. Good work.”

“Oh. Yeah, thanks Rob. I really appreciate it.”

“So when did you finish?”

“Finish what?”

“Getting your shots up. What time did you leave the facility?”

“Oh just now. I wanted 800 makes so yeah, just now.”

My jaw dropped. Mother of holy God. It was then that I realized that there’s no surprise to why he’s been as effective as he was last season. Every story about his dedication, every quote that he’s said about hard work all came together and hit me like a train. It’s no surprise to me now that he’s dunking on players ten years younger than him and it wasn’t a surprise to me earlier this year when he led the league in scoring.

Thanks for reading and allowing me to share you my Kobe Bryant story. If anyone has any questions I can clarify. Sorry if the story was at all hard to follow as this is my first time on reddit.

Rob.

#GotEmCoach

Be Vulnerable

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 22:10:49 -0500

Be Vulnerable:

We are told that leaders must be strong. They must be confident. They must be unflinching. They must hide their fear. They must never blink. They cannot be soft in any way.

Bullshit (…)

When I arrive early to a Networking Mixer...

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 22:09:04 -0500

whilstinsf:

Hilarious!

This was of the most fun interviews I’ve ever done.

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 21:56:12 -0500

This was of the most fun interviews I’ve ever done.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I..."

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:15:53 -0500

“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.”

- Frank Herbert

What the startup visa should really look like

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 11:02:23 -0500

What the startup visa should really look like

"‎You don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say ‘I’m going to build the..."

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 17:11:19 -0500

“‎You don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say ‘I’m going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that’s ever been built.’ You don’t start there. You say, ‘I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall.”

- Will Smith

Sh*t 500 Founders Say

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:19:20 -0400

Sh*t 500 Founders Say

How I imagine Pinterest works

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 23:43:14 -0400

whilstinsf:

christine's brain: Why Startups Need Marketing

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:53:22 -0400

christine's brain: Why Startups Need Marketing:

christinetsai:

At yesterday’s Startup School, Pinterest co-founder and CEO Ben Silbermann talked about how the secret behind Pinterest’s growth was marketing, not engineering. In the early days at only 3,000 users, they started holding local meetups w/ Pinterest users (largely women) and engaging…

"Leadership is responsibility. There comes a point when one must make a decision. Are YOU willing to..."

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 03:17:58 -0400

“

Leadership is responsibility.

There comes a point when one must make a decision. Are YOU willing to do what it takes to push the right buttons to elevate those around you? If the answer is YES, are you willing to push the right buttons even if it means being perceived as the villain? Here’s where the true responsibility of being a leader lies. Sometimes you must prioritize the success of the team ahead of how your own image is perceived. The ability to elevate those around you is more than simply sharing the ball or making teammates feel a certain level of comfort. It’s pushing them to find their inner beast, even if they end up resenting you for it at the time.

I’d rather be perceived as a winner than a good teammate. I wish they both went hand in hand all the time but that’s just not reality. I have nothing in common with lazy people who blame others for their lack of success. Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.

This is my way. It might not be right for YOU but all I can do is share my thoughts. It’s on YOU to figure out which leadership style suits you best.

”

- Kobe Bryant

The lure of Chilecon Valley

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:17:54 -0400

The lure of Chilecon Valley:

As America shuts out immigrant entrepreneurs, Chile welcomes them

ONE by one they came to the stage and pitched their ideas to the crowd. There was the founder of Kwelia.com, which makes software that helps landlords mint more money from their properties. There was the co-founder of Chef Surfing, an online service for people looking to hire chefs, and for culinary wizards keen to tout their skills. And the creator of Kedzoh, which has an app that lets firms send short training videos to workers via their mobile phones or tablet computers.

These and other start-ups, some sporting fashionably weird names such as Chu Shu, Wallwisher and IguanaBee, won rapturous applause from the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in the audience. To your correspondent, who is based in Silicon Valley, it all felt very familiar. Yet this scene took place in Chile, a nation better known for copper-mining and cheap wine than for innovation.

Many countries have sought to create their own versions of Silicon Valley. Nearly all have failed. Yet Chile’s attempt is interesting because it exploits the original Silicon Valley’s weak spot—America’s awful immigration system. When the home of free enterprise turns away entrepreneurs, Chile welcomes them.

“Start-Up Chile” is the brainchild of Nicolas Shea, a Chilean businessman who had a brief stint in government. The programme selects promising young firms and gives their founders the equivalent of $40,000 and a year’s visa to come and work on their ideas in Chile. Since 2010, when Start-Up Chile started, some 500 companies and almost 900 entrepreneurs from a total of 37 countries have taken part. Start-Up Chile has doled out money to Chileans, too (see chart).

Mr Shea says he was inspired by his experience in America, where he studied at Stanford University, a wellspring of high-tech start-ups. “I saw smart people being kicked out of the United States because they couldn’t get visas to stay,” he says. “And I thought: why not bring some of them to Chile?”

Like several other countries, including Brazil and Mexico, Chile wants to establish itself as the entrepreneurial hub of Latin America. It has launched government-funded seed-capital programmes to back local start-ups and made it easier to set up a new company swiftly. Via Start-Up Chile it has also been importing foreign entrepreneurs, in the hope that they will inspire homegrown ones.

Getting handy in the Andes

The programme has been a big hit with foreigners, which is hardly surprising: they get to build their businesses with Chilean taxpayers’ pesos without having to give up any equity. Many rave about their time in the country, where they can write software code while sipping Pisco Sours (a favourite local tipple) and swapping tips with their peers. “The vibe is very Californian here,” says John Njoku, an American who is the founder of Kwelia.

Companies have used their cash for all manner of purposes. TOHL, a start-up that produces flexible piping that can be deployed from helicopters to distribute water in difficult-to-reach areas or disaster zones, says it has spent the money on things such as testing its new system with a Chilean mining company and acquiring a patent.

Start-Up Chile aims to have backed 1,000 fledgling firms by the end of next year, at a cost of $40m. It has already sired some successes such as CruiseWise, an online cruise-booking service, that have gone on to raise capital from other sources. However, it should really be judged by the two yardsticks Chile’s government set for it. Has it raised Chile’s profile abroad as a hub for enterprise? And has it inspired Chileans to start their own businesses?

Judged against the first of these yardsticks, the programme has undoubtedly been a success. Its current executive director, Horacio Melo, and his colleagues regularly criss-cross the globe holding meetings to encourage entrepreneurs to come to “Chilecon Valley”, as the start-up hub has inevitably been dubbed. Start-ups from some 60 countries applied for the latest round of grants. Chile’s experiment has spurred interest elsewhere: Brazil is planning to launch a similar programme to attract foreign talent to its shores later this year. “The public-relations part of Start-Up Chile has been much more successful than even we dreamed,” gushes Juan Andrés Fontaine, a former economy minister who gave a green light to Mr Shea’s idea.

Gauging the programme’s impact on Chile’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is somewhat trickier, but it appears to have had a positive effect. In return for the cash they receive, foreigners are expected to share their know-how by, for instance, coaching local entrepreneurs and speaking at events. Between 2010 and September 2012, Start-Up Chile participants held almost 380 meetings and took part in more than 1,000 workshops and conferences.

Pablo Longueira, Chile’s current economy minister, reckons that Start-Up Chile has helped to drive broader changes, such as a big increase over the past couple of years in the number of Chilean firms applying to other seed-capital funds run by the government, as well as a rise in the number of universities that teach students about enterprise. (The Catholic University of Chile, for instance, plans to open an innovation centre to enable academics and entrepreneurs to work side by side.) Mr Longueira also notes that Start-Up Chile has provided plenty of material for Chilean newspapers, which now devote far more space than before to entrepreneurs and their doings.

Mixing Pisco Sours, and ideas

Since Start-Up Chile opened its coffers to locals, it has inspired plenty of them to try to turn their wacky ideas into businesses. Almost 40% of the most recent round of applications were from Chilean firms. Chileans who have been backed by Start-Up Chile say they have benefited from rubbing shoulders with foreign peers. “A Brazilian on the programme did all of our web development,” says Nicolas Martelanz, the boss of Motion Displays, a Chilean start-up whose software helps retailers boost revenues by putting more information at salespeople’s fingertips. Other Chileans who have taken part rave about the contacts they have made thanks to Start-Up Chile.

Not everything is cool in Chile, however. Local entrepreneurs—and foreign ones who might consider staying on after their time on the Start-Up project—face tough challenges. There are not enough private venture capitalists to support young firms with money and advice. Nor do Chile’s universities spawn start-ups nearly as fast as America’s do. Many ambitious start-ups in Chilecon Valley hope to graduate some day to Silicon Valley.

Another barrier to creating a vibrant start-up culture is Chile’s harsh bankruptcy regime, which makes it hard for those who fail to start afresh. Also, the economy is dominated by a few vast business empires and an extremely conservative bureaucracy. Ironically, this is threatening to stifle a peer-to-peer lending business that Mr Shea, Start-Up Chile’s founding father, recently launched (see box).

There are some signs that things could change for the better. For instance, a bill that will dramatically improve Chile’s bankruptcy regime is wending its way through the legislative process. Mr Longueira is optimistic that it will pass by the end of the year. But Chile will still find it tough to match Brazil, which boasts a massive domestic market and a more developed venture-capital industry. Brazil’s bureaucracy may be worse than Chile’s, but its economy is more entrepreneurial and ten times bigger.

Hernan Cheyre, the boss of CORFO, a government body that oversees Start-Up Chile and other initiatives to support entrepreneurs, argues that while Brazil will inevitably be seen as the China of Latin America given its size, Chile can become the region’s Singapore, which has prospered by welcoming foreign talent and providing businesses with a stable, well-regulated base for their operations throughout Asia.

Singapore, however, has a long track record. Start-Up Chile is only two years old, and it is closely identified with the current centre-right government, which may be turfed out at the polls next year. A new government could axe it.

Whichever party wins, José Miguel Musalem of Aurus, a Chilean venture-capital firm, says he hopes that Start-Up Chile survives. It has already delivered one hefty benefit, he says: “Chileans have seen what smart graduates of Stanford and other leading universities can do, and said to themselves: ‘Hey, I could do that too’.” If Start-Up Chile spurs locals to think big, that would be no small achievement.

the coding zone #tumblr http://instagr.am/p/QTU3C2vZ_M/

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 21:37:36 -0400

the coding zone #tumblr http://instagr.am/p/QTU3C2vZ_M/