Startups: Lessons from Building and Exiting Two Companies
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Ryan Junee has experience starting and investing in startups. He co-founded Omnisio in 2007 which was funded by Y Combinator, and later founded Inporia in 2011 which raised $1.3M from investors. Some of his advice for startups includes focusing your idea using surveys, minimizing cycle time between iterations, talking to customers early, and pitching with a compelling problem/solution narrative and demonstration of your product. Acqui-hires, where larger companies acquire startups primarily for their engineering talent, are also discussed as a potential exit.
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Startups: Lessons from Building and Exiting Two Companies
- 1. Startups Ryan Junee ryan@junee.org http://ryanjunee.com
- 2. My Background Idea Launch Learn Pitch Exit? Questions?
- 3. My Background Idea Launch Learn Pitch Exit? Questions?
- 4. Learned a Lot
- 6. Funded by Y Combinator (Winter 2008)
- 10. 2010: Quit YouTube, brainstorming (w/ Max Skibinsky)
- 12. Raised $1.3M from top silicon valley investors
- 13. Epic Fails Pivots 12 months 3 months 2 months 11 months
- 14. We are still going (currently 200k users)
- 16. My Background Idea Launch Learn Pitch Exit? Questions?
- 17. Your Idea: credit: Peter Thiel
- 18. What is your passion?
- 19. Consumer distribution, distribution, Internet distribution Enterprise Build and manage Software a sales team Energy, Biotech, Solve hard AI, ... technical problems
- 21. My Background Idea Launch Learn Pitch Exit? Questions?
- 22. FOCUS
- 23. Use Surveys to Decide • Google Docs Form + Amazon Mechanical Turk • AYTM.com Inporia v1.0
- 24. Landing Page / Smoke Test •Value Proposition •Sign Up • Facebook • Email • .... Drive traffic with Google Ads, Facebook Ads ... • Wide variation in price • Inporia $2.17/user (Google) • Mobile dating app: $0.10/user (Facebook)
- 25. Launch, Press (Mobile example) Goal: Increasing downloads over a week (= top ranked list) 1. Monday/Tuesday launch is best 2. Pre-brief all press (with embargoes) 3. Tech blogs break the news (night before launch) 4. Ask people to re-tweet news 5. Mainstream press articles (launch morning) 6. App review sites (1-2 days later) 7. Paid user acquisition (1-2 days later)
- 26. Kaleidoscope v1.0 - Not Bad
- 27. Kaleidoscope v2.0 - Much Better Featured by Apple
- 28. This Morning: Featured by Google
- 29. Integrate with Social Platforms Pinterest Organic Press Facebook
- 30. My Background Idea Launch Learn Pitch Exit? Questions?
- 31. Minimize Cycle Time credit: Eric Reis
- 32. AARRR! credit: Dave McClure
- 33. Before Product-Market Fit: • Retention (do they come back?) • Engagement (time/actions on site) • Mobile: reviews/ratings
- 35. Easiest Simple questions: Qualaroo • “What else would you like to see on this page?” • “How likely are you to recommend this? (NPS)” Video testing: usertesting.com In-person interviews • Craigslist • 45 mins / $20 Most Information
- 36. After Product-Market Fit: • Growth in DAU We are not quite there yet!
- 37. My Background Idea Launch Learn Pitch Exit? Questions?
- 38. Single Sentence Elevator Pitch 30 seconds ‘Demo Day’ 2 minutes 10-slide deck 20 minutes
- 39. Elements of a pitch 1. Single Sentence 6. Business Model 2. The Problem 7. Distribution 3. Your Solution 8. ‘Secret Sauce’ 4. Product Demo 9. Team 5. Market Size 10. Milestones more...
- 40. Fundraising in Silicon Valley • Seed Stage: (200K - 2M): Convertible Note • Series A (2M - 5M): Equity
- 41. Seed Valuations Going Up Source: Fenwick & West + my estimate
- 42. My Background Idea Launch Learn Pitch Exit? Questions?
- 43. Who would you rather be? “Companies are bought, not sold”
- 44. Acqui-hires in Silicon Valley Seed Stage Funding Supply of Engineers Acqui-hires • ‘Soft landing’ for failed startups • $1M - $2M per engineer • 2 - 4 years vesting • Payback investors (sometimes)
- 45. My Background Idea Launch Learn Pitch Exit Questions?
- 46. Questions? Ryan Junee ryan@junee.org http://ryanjunee.com