Silicon Valley’s Eggs & Bacon !_________________________________

!@phenriettak!

piahenrietta.com

© Pia Henrietta Kekäläinen 2014

“I wish funds would do this for their founders.”

1) Constant presence!

Having people on the ground helps immensely

Does not help to be there for two weeks

Building presence, connections and facilitating needs

Competence in all issues

!

2) Knowing people at hand !

Pointing to the right people / services

Knowing the good immigration lawyers in the US

Success rate, how many cases

Bad one will do more harm

If you can’t get a visa, don’t apply for one’

Tax system complicated:

YC uses Indinero for bookkeeping & taxes

3) Research up front!

Helping founders take care of bureaucratic BS

“Standard” procedures help founders know they are not missing anything

Letters for visas, where to look for anything

e.g.

Which bank to use (Silicon Valley Bank)

C-corp Delaware, investors preference

Do these papers, 10M shares.. (Clerky for convertible notes, board docs etc)

Lawyers, Lawgives, StartX, in-house lawyer?

4) Network! !

Helping founders make the crucial first hires

Understanding US value system is different

Going through the cycle a few times gives speed

Knowing good people

Understanding a fit

!

5) Introductions!!

Introducing the right people

Others will not intro you if you are not ready

Investors even more picky about time

To be precise you need to know the persons interests

1st impression crucial

Culture

–Ben Horowitz

“We wanted to respect the fact that in the bacon and egg breakfast of a startup, we were with the chicken and the entrepreneur was the

pig: we were involved, but she was committed.“

Cool ideas!_________________

Ideas to do anywhere !

Sharing knowledge as talent is limited!

Engineering leadership, community summit, CEO summit !

Common themes, best practises, examples “how we built kick ass customer support”!

Behind closed doors allows people to whine - esp CEO job quite lonely!

Linking people to alike roles from other startups but a few years ahead!

Reminding everyone of all the people they can straight off reach out to

- Mårten Mickos, CEO, Eucalyptus

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Startups! !_________________

Some friendly advice

– Paul Graham, YC

“First time entrepreneurs “pitch”. The ones who know what they are doing let the product speak

for itself - and can easily and shortly explain what they do.”

Be a good person and for God’s sake, don’t sell

Only contact people for a good reason and with few, specific asks !

Forget about saying you’re arriving in one month - Next week is good!

Teach something new in exchange, don’t just ask

Contact alike people with same task / background / country / interest /situation, even competitors!

It’s a small place so don’t underestimate people or their network

Visit or go to a conference the first time, next time things will be easier

European companies are not very popular, but everyone came from somewhere

It’s tough, get friends don’t look for an instant benefit from someone you just met - good relationships are for years!

http://steveblank.com/2013/08/12/how-to-get-meetings-with-people-too-busy-to-see-you/

3 sentence emails!_________________

Be polite and kind

Start with who you are and what you do

Speak clearly and practice!

Don’t pitch unless you’re asked to !

Business cards, demo, (video & pitch deck for conferences)

Read up front about the VC’s, their funds, their blogs

Follow-ups are done very soon after the meeting. Like 1hr later. !

Timeliness is respecting. Time is the most valuable resource. You don’t want to waste it. They will not respect you.

Don’t ask people for something that is totally out of their interest or field

20 minute meetings!___________________

Have a clear way of stating what you do.

Read press and follow people in the area and scene to keep updated of what’s going on.

Hacker News, Stanford e-corner, Techcrunch, Inc, GigaOm, Singularityhub..

Great VC blogs and other resources https://kippt.com/henrietta/us-venture-cap-funding !

Don’t bug people. Don’t write long emails. Don’t waste people’s time. But get to know cool people. Entrepreneurs are all out there to change something.

Identify the people who are important for you to meet. Then search your networks: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc, who could have a contact. Likely you’ll find a second or third contact who you could ask for an intro.

Seek for events to go to. Especially conferences are a great way to get to know the scene, and connect with people. (GigaOM events, your own line events, eg. for developers: Distill sf..) Meetups are generally harder: some are ok, some crap.

Also: http://www.paulgraham.com/seesv.html

http://bootstraplabs.com/ is an accelerator for foreign tech in SV

Homework!________________

C R A I G S L I S TAll you need in SF.

-Elon Musk, founder, SpaceX, Tesla, Paypal

“Seek negative feedback and build the best service that’s out there.”

More resources www.piahenrietta.com !

twitter.com/phenriettak