Startup: dal perchè al per come

Augusto Coppola

Lecce, 15.11.2013

In meno di due ore

My background

2

My first startup: reactions 3

boss specialists friends

4

My first startup: a success 4

5

What I mean by “success” 5

60x

6

What my investors told me 6

Dear smart guy!

7

My second startup: reactions 7

friends specialists investors

8

My second startup was a failure 8

9

What I mean by “failure” 9

0x

10

What my investors told me 10

@#*WTF@]+!!

11

Director at LVenture 11

LUISS ENLABS Accelerator

12

InnovAction Lab co-founder 12

More than 30 startups spawned in 3 years

Startup: un dubbio

14

Il panorama startup in Italia ieri

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Il panorama startup in Italia oggi

...

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Il dubbio

Le startup sono una moda

o una necessità?

Prime riflessioni

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Il 50% delle startup chiude in 5 anni

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Nessuno ci capisce nulla

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_Venture_Partners

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Conclusione

Ma allora è una moda?

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No!

La parola ai dati

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Una necessaria precisazione

Non esistono i fatti, ma solo le interpretazioni (F. Nietzsche)

G: Pensa, ogni volta che respiro muore un uomo! A: Hai provato a prendere qualcosa per l’alito?

(Gigi ed Andrea)

24

Scegliere un impiego

Il mondo dei pregiudizi, delle scelte facili è terminato

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Italia vs USA: un confronto

Dato USA Italia Ratio

PIL (miliardi di $) 14.704 2.172 6,77

Occupati (milioni e %) 141 (46%) 23 (38%) 6,13

PIL per lavoratore 104.000 94.000 1,10

Fonte: www.imf.org (23.08.2012)

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Dove viene creato lavoro in USA?

Fonte:http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/u-s-job-growth-driven-entirely-by-startups.aspx

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Quali posti di lavoro?

Azienda hc Ricavi ($bn) Mkv ($bn) Mkv/hc ($M) PIL x

Telecom 82.900 37,4 12,7 0,15 1,60

Fonte: http://finance.yahoo.com/ 06.07.2013

Oracle 115.000 37,2 144,4 1,26 12,11

Microsoft 94.000 76,01 285,7 3,04 29,23

Apple 72.800 169,1 391,8 5,38 51,73

Google 53.900 53,5 296,4 5,50 52,88

LinkedIn 3.800 1,11 21,0 5,52 53,07

Facebook 4.900 5,5 58,9 12,02 115,57

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Visione spicciola

Tutti abbiamo almeno una startup: noi stessi

Idea

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Business idea initial structure

Vision Mission

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No kidding, I’m perfectly seriuous

Our challenge is to assertively network economically sound methods of empowerment so that we may continually negotiate performance based infrastructures

(generated by Dilbert ‘s Mission Generator)

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The story of the lazy patent office clerk

A solution with no perspective goes nowhere

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Vision: why are we doing it?

Understanding trends to anticipate value

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Great visions: examples

Microsoft, 1975 A computer on each single office desk My first startup, 1997 New services will be enabled and provided by Internet My second startup, 2002 Money will not be the only currency

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Visions can be humble and still work

Real case, 2009 Japanese food will be a major trend in Italy

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Good vision 4 qualities

1. Short (and written in plain English)

2. Easy to understand (also if arguable)

3. Comes true quite rapidly (less than 5 years)

4. Persistent (it lasts for decades)

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A man with a vision: a sad story

What is the market pain you’re addressing?

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Mission: what we do? For whom?

Microsoft, 1975 Developing one easy to use operating system for any HW platform vendor

My first startup, 1997 Developing a billing system for Internet services delivered by Telco operators

My second startup, 2002 Developing a new Telco platform to price and charge any possible good by taking into account any possible combination of currencies

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Vision and mission keep you focused

Collect and organize data about pros and cons

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What market should we address?

Large and quickly growing markets (CAGR > 10%)

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Jot down your initial business idea

1. What are the emerging trends we are noticing?

2. What does our product/service do?

3. Who will buy it?

4. Why will they buy it?

5. What is the forecasted size of our market?

6. How will our opportunity window last?

Jot down everything in less than 200 words and start pitching your targets

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Now the bad news

The world is plenty of good ideas (not to mention the silly ones)

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Turning ideas into profitable businesses

3. Team

2. Team

1. Team

To do it, you need 3 key elements

43

Team

44

The fundamental question 45

Can we do it?

How to recognize a great team? 46

Microsoft Corporation, 1978

Spotting the weak element in your team 47

You

The key quality of a great entrepreneur 48

Discipline Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability

(R.L. Smith)

Discipline is not a trait of character

The more I practice, the luckier I get (G. Player)

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Most critical discipline

Learning

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What do you know about your market?

Entrepreneurs live in world of surprises, they cannot afford the luxury of prejudices

Nothing

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Understanding your errors is critical

Fail fast and cheap (and move on)

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Second most critical discipline

Team Making

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Understanding forces behind people

And you still behave like a five-year-old child. People gather, scatter. They go left and right following their interests.

(Akira Kurosawa, Kagemusha)

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Keep bad learners out

Those who think they are the best part of the human race

Those who don’t know how to deal with “no!”

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Leaders on board since the beginning

The best decision is the right decision. The next best decision is the wrong decision. The worst decision is no decision.

(S. McNealy)

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Questions about your teammates

• Is every team member 100% committed?

• Do you have agreed roles and duties?

• What is each person going to do all day?

• Are you the right team to do it?

• How are you going to divide equity?

• Who is going to take a salary? How much?

• What if you run out of money?

• What if they are offered a job at Google?

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Unpleasant issues

Grey zones must be carefully discussed

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Questions about founders • Where are the founders from? What have they accomplished in

the past?

• What is their reputation? Whom do they know?

• Who else needs to be on the team? Are they prepared to recruit high-quality people?

• How realistic are they about the venture chances? How will they respond to adversity?

• Do they have the mettle to make the inevitable hard choices that have to be made?

• How committed are they to this venture? What are their motivations?

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Working in a team means also...

...be sure of what you know, but actively looking for different points of views to challenge your...

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...in other words...

... understanding that harsh criticism is a value for your startup

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Business and friendship

The startup making is not about making friends…

…but friendship is a by-product of well designed teams

A friendship based on business is better than a business based on friendship

(J. Rockefeller)

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Third most critical discipline

Market Focus

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Market

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What do you know about your market?

You don’t know what your market will be BUT you perfectly know what your market is

Everything

65

Market size estimation: TAM

Total Addressable Market

Available data and reports

Bottom up analysis

Revenue if you have a monopolistic control

Examples:

ice-creams in USA ($10bn)

Billing systems for telco

operators ($30bn)

66

Market size estimation: SAM

Serviceable Addressable

Market

TAM you can get with your current business model

Examples:

ice-creams in supermarkets ($6bn)

Billing systems for telco

operators with IP services ($15bn)

Business Model

67

Market size estimation: SoM

Share of Market

SAM part you can reach in the near

future

Examples:

ice-creams in supermarkets in NYC

($240M)

Billing systems for new European operators with IP

services ($6bn)

Business Plan

68

Investors and Errors

69

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A tale of 4 people, 2 flies and 1 bench 70

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Competitors: you have to perfectly know them

No excuses

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If you have a market, you have competitors

They are those who are eating your cake

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The King of stupid errors 73

Your ideal world:

• EBITDA/Revenue > 70% Real world:

• Amazon: 4.5%

• Wal Mart: 24.7%

• Pfizer: 29.2%

• AT&T: 30.6%

• Apple: 32.0%

• Google: 38.3%

• Microsoft: 42.9%

• Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry : 45.0%

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Alla natura umana manca la volontà di agire, più che la forza o il tempo

(Sallustio)

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About me:

www.facebook.com/augusto.coppola http://twitter.com/5anatre

Augusto Coppola

augusto.coppola@luissenlabs.com

www.luissenlabs.com

@enlabs

www.facebook.com/LuissEnlabs