Uplifting article

Well, a bit uplifting if you are in the mobile messaging app business (TechCrunch).

Take-aways from the AGBC Exchange

The Munich chapter of the American German Business Club once or twice a year has a Saturday morning event where there are various seminars held on different themes.

And this year it started with us, The Crazy Chicken and I, giving a three minute talk about our business's product.

Our approach was to start by telling (true) stories where businesses would have benefited from using our product - "if only there was an app for that".

Then The Crazy Chicken interrupted me and reminded me that I have been working on the app and carried on with a couple of more slides.

It seemed to go down well (I was congratulated by the president).

Then the seminars started. The most relevant one was also the most excellent, not least as it was run by a former professor who has worked in startup here and in Silicon Valley and has been involved in getting funding. We will be contacting him soon as he was happy to talk to us about the business and give feedback.

Here are the take-aways from the event:

• Customers should love the product and cannot do without it
• You need a revenue model, perhaps copy an existing one (as that should work) and know that a subscription model has advantages. Also the revenue stream should have low friction so it is trivial to understand and submit payments
• listen to customers and potential customers
• It's bad to not look closely enough at existing customer behaviour.
• Also bad not to be watching the competition and emerging trends
• Fund raisers should see a clear path to revenue

To summarise:

have a clear revenue model and product fit.

Takeaways from the Entrepreneurs Night - Silicon Valley Style Pitch Event

It was a toss-up between going and doing more app stuff but I decided to go.

Just before leaving for the event I had, in any case, fixed a major problem I had spent several days working on (and on which a real developer would have spent an hour on).

It was worth attending. As Axel Schultz, the organiser, said, it was the best pitch event so far, even against San Francisco and Berlin.

Here are my takeaway:

• should have a significant number of businesses who have been canvassed, preferably before writing code, but in the double figures
• "obsession makes a good entrepreneur"
• consider equity-based crowd funding where you actually get a 100 or so experienced investors who can help you. This becomes part of the value added investor thinking which also includes "smart money" 
• Axel like the idea of two people developing a business to actual traction
• Munich will probably take over from Berlin in terms of startup activity in two or three years
• For startups speed beats perfection

Not fantastic

When I go to the shops on the underground, tram or whatever, I am still working by reading startup and tech blogs on my mobile (now a bit easier with the iPhone 6s Plus).

And of course TechCrunch combines startup and technology subjects so is often read by me.

Seems we are reaching a point of inflection in the startup world according to this and this

Long one

Been working on the app since 0830 this morning (more like 0805).

I made no progress before lunch. And afterwards I only made progress by working on something else (I use Trello to keep track of app issues - like I'm a little one-man-band-of-Agile-hipsters).

So, I did make some progress today but there is a lot to do.

I  also found the inspiration for a five minute summary of what the company is doing for a business event on Saturday.

Hopefully have more steam tomorrow.

(And yes I know an 11 hour day is no biggie for startups but most of what I'm doing is totally new to me and therefore rather tiring).

dun dun ... dun

An SaaS provider wanted our D-U-N-S number (yes, that is how it is written).

But we are a baby-business (no, we don't sell babies, we are just small) and it could take two weeks to get one, apparently.

Except it turns out that Dun & Bradstreet have already assigned one to us.

More business progress

Having bought a box of paperclips on Friday (and securing strong interest from one business) yesterday I purchased an iPhone.

Although we already had access to one I thought it was time to get our own and settled on an iPhone 6s Plus for two reasons:

- although appery.io will "compile" for iOS pretty easily I think that as we go operational (at least in beta) I need to always have one on hand in case there are problems
- the larger screen of the Plus will be better when we demonstrate it


Also, we gained the serious interest of a business as another beta participant.

Significant business progress

Today I bought some paper clips.

Damn right it's a big deal. Even though we talk about the paper-less world (think about that the next time you go to the toilet) sometimes you need, in business, paper.

And that means paper clips.

So, today I bought a box.

Not just any paperclips but an assortment of coloured paper clips.

Clearly we are a serious business.

Also, we visited a potential customer, showed the solution and asked if they were interested in participating in the business beta test:  absolutely.

Take-aways from the Fintech panel

This evening I went to a German American Business Association meeting where there were two panels holding discussions around Fintech.

I attended one focussing on regulation.

It's actually been a while since I worked within the Finance world.

Anyhoo my takeaway was:

• Berlin used to be the only place for startups in Germany but now Munich is catching up (we're not in Fintech but it is good to know. Also, I am not totally sure what was said because it was said in Foreign).
• As a culture Germans tend to go for reference-able products and services. It's also a "me-too" attitude and I read of one entrepreneur who was told that he would only get investment if his idea was a copy of something in Silicon Valley. All this, however, is now changing.
• Something else about something that we will keep within our business and will sort out pretty damn quick.

Despite there being a lot of people it was a great networking opportunity.

To read and to watch

Last night finished reading Venture Deals: Be Smarter than your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist.

A really good book but I will have to read it again. A few times.

It certainly opened my eyes to the complexities around getting a deal.

This morning I watched a video from one on the authors Venture Capital Crash Course with Jason Mendelson. This needs to be watched a few times as well.

This was found from the Ask A VC blog. There are lots of great VC blogs. You know, some people think the internet is for a communicating post-nuclear holocaust. Some think it is for Singaporean women to post pictures of their teddy bears. Some people think it is to show the, um, more fun aspects of human behaviours - when naked. But actually it is for VCs to write about their views and activities. So I am starting a blog roll, initially as a label (tag).

Friday

Posting this a day late ...

had a great meeting with the head of a local American German Business Club. We are getting so close to getting beta testers.

This morning I rearranged my schedule for next week so I can go to a business club meeting. The meeting's topic isn't really associated with us but it was suggested and it will be a good networking opportunity.

A blur

This evening I briefed someone who is basically an associate - he is not employed by us but wants to develop his mobile app dev skills, for which we will get some developed mobile apps.

Explaining the current set up was very tiring.

Also very tiring was everything else, before and after as we are getting prepared for a major (ish) presentation tomorrow.

Investors' seminar

Yesterday I went to an "Investment 101 Part 1 - Post Accelerator - A Three Part Series", a two hour meetup event whose guest was Kevin Czok (who totally deserves this name check, as did the organiser Jewell Sparks. As you know, when you are named checked in the ultimate startup blog you are living large).

Unlike some other startup meetings this was a tight two hours, around a conference centre in a law firm, with a slightly older, less hipster-ish, but still relaxed (the organising partner was also dressed down) attendance.

Here are my take-aways:

• a lot of VCs don't advertise, you have to seek them out and if you do, get an introduction rather than cold call.
• VCs tend to look for seven to 10 years of involvement in the business, well at least German ones do
• read Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist by Brad Feld - I've already downloaded it to my Kindle.
• also check out Brad Feld's blog 
• if you have to incorporate in the US, it will probably be best in Delaware or California

When you approach VCs you have to:

• have a real business which has a solid, scalable model
• be respectful to everyone, some VCs are quite small and you may be lucky just to talk to a junior
• show traction and how you would use the money
• disclose anything (e.g. dormant co-founders) before you are found out
• take projections seriously - don't be glib
• don't forget to include legal costs
• have scenarios on what would you do if you raised more/less/none/exactly what you wanted
• some VCs will do convertible loans before series A round
• VCs might take 5 to 25% of equity depending on investment
• ultimately the deciding factor for VCs to invest is the team (including are they fun to work with - answer: yes we are)
• beware of liquidation preferences - better for a co-founds to have less equity 
• documents can be in English (yay!)
• business plans are less required by VCs (than by, for example, banks).
• a pitch desk can be 10 - 15 slides (with even ca 60 backup slides) and take 45 minutes of a 1.5 hour meeting with VCs - though the initial meeting may just 15 minutes.