Posts from Start Up

Last October, I skyped into an entrepreneur meetup in Milan and talked for 30 minutes. This was arranged by AVC community member David Semeria.

The main topics were building a tech community outside of the main startup hubs, raising angel and venture capital in a market where there isn't much of that, and the differences between US and european investors.

When I watched this video this morning, the audio and video were out of sync which made it hard for me to watch. I ended up listening more than watching. I hope you all don't have that same problem.

One mistake I see startups make a lot is getting too focused on what is going on around them. They spend too much time trying to figure out what their competitors are going to do. They watch the next hot startup with jealousy and it reminds them of when they were that "shiny new thing" and they want that back.

The reality of startups is that there is so much opportunity out there that if you just focus on what is in front of you, your company will do fine. But focusing on what is in front of you means not focusing on what is going on around you. You need to put blinders on and execute. Do not let what is going on around you whipsaw your strategy and your team.

I am not suggesting that you should put your head in the sand. It is critical to know what is going on in your market. But it is equally critical to have a strategy that makes sense in the context of what is going on and execute it with purpose and pace. If you spend too much time looking over your shoulder, you will not execute well. I've seen it again and again.

So don't let all the news of the day slow you down. Don't let your competitors press releases and launch parties get inside your head. Plan, build, ship, and scale. Assess. Repeat again and again. Win.

Next Wednesday, October 6th, I am spending the day in Toronto. I've been meaning to get up to Toronto to check out the startup scene for a while. Toronto is an hour's flight from NYC and has a lot of interesting startup activity.

I am going to spend the morning meeting with a bunch of startups and entrepreneurs and then from noon to 3pm, I will attend an event called Demo Camp at the Scotiabank Theatre.

I will give a talk, take questions, and then a few companies will demo and then I'll provide feedback on them.

I'm looking forward to meeting all of you AVC readers in Toronto on Wednesday.

I want to let everyone know about an opportunity to showcase your startup at Web 2.0 Expo in NYC in late September. On Sept 29th in the late afternoon/early evening, the Web 2.0 conference will have 30 startups demo their products/services to the attendees and a number of investors.

The way this will work is each startup will be given a demo table. And the Web 2.0 attendees and investors will move from table to table. Each demo will last about five minutes long. So if you are participating, you'll give about ten demos in less than an hour.

At the end of the hour, Tim O'Reilly and I will each pick our favorite startup. And the audience will pick one. And then those three startups will each be invited up to the stage for a conversation with Tim and me.

It sounds like a fun format and I am looking forward to it. Tim has one of my favorite minds in the web/tech space so I am particularly excited to be doing this with him. If you want to participate, you need to apply by August 2nd. The details are here.

This is aimed at young startups that are in need of attention, not startups that are well known and heavily funded already.