hwijaya

We are working on something similar in Australia - http://www.startup-australia.org/thevalley. I am moving to SV early next year. I'll try to add to the SVstartup wiki based on few bits of information I have gathered.

For books, get a Kindle. I did that 2 weeks ago. Since then I have sold or given away most of my books. It took 1 more thing away.

Summary: scale sales and marketing team with no repeatable sales model.

Personal experience: learned same lesson using other people's money. CEO hired 15 marketing and 10 sales people without a working product. Burn millions of dollar. Fired everyone after 3 years. 1 marketing and 1 sales left.

Giving upon on the idea or entrepreneurship? I am curious to learn on when should pivot and when to stick with an idea. Thx!

I find the other video about finding 'great stories' from Ira is equally interesting.

It resonates well with me after running my own startup for few months. Finding 'great startup ideas' seems require the same approach as finding great stories.

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qmtwa1yZRM

Hmm .. maybe this will catch Virgin attention if all of us do it?

http://twitter.com/hwijaya/status/5436741226

Clickable link: http://go-test.it/hackernews

Appoint them very carefully.

Understand that it feels good to have an 'advisory board' but at the end of the day, the only person who's going to get your biz off the ground is you.

[EDIT: My own experience: most people are more than happy to give advice without being formal advisers]

Agree here. Never see anyone find a co-founder by networking. And, probably not suggest it as well since it takes time to know if someone is a GREAT cofounder.

In Australia, we had 'Bootup Camp' http://www.bootupcamp.com/. In 2 weeks, they went from idea to auctioning the business. In this event, i have seen people that eventually become friends and continue to build their next startup.

No. I read somewhere, median age of founders are 40. Use your experience to your advantage. Get yourself a great cofounder and start kick some ass.

Anyclip?

Watching it for first few minutes ... but feel there is not enough focus on Garry. It feels more like about TC50 and other things Jason + Mike are doing with Garry as the advertisement.

As i am reading into this whole "raising money" topic recently, this is what i came across in Venture Hacks.

My understanding is, shop around, but, don't say it as "shop around". Use other languages or excuses.

http://venturehacks.com/articles/shop-around

This is the summary:

Summary: A deal is only as good as its best alternative. Keep improving your alternatives until you have a signed term sheet. And keep developing your current offers or they will die. Finally, don’t say "shopping around", it puts investors off their stroke.

Apparently, i just posted this yesterday:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=801605

Clickable links:

http://venturehacks.com/archives

http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive

Thanks about "there is no universal answer". I was thinking if there is some "average" equity that people are giving out for 100k. Example, in YC, it's 2% - 8%.

Reading dhouston (founder of DropBox) application - http://files.getdropbox.com/u/2/app.html, i think it's okay to continue working solo rather than settle for less than ideal when you apply for YC.

From my personal experience, i also recommend the same. It's like having a relationship. Great relationship > solo > lousy relationship. You spend much more energy and stress with less-than-ideal cofounder compare with going solo.

Optimist Prime at Blindoptimists

And save some times to read it?

1. Do you believe you have what it takes?

2. Are you able to let other people down?

3. How do you handle setbacks?

4. Are you really an inventor, rather than an entrepreneur?

5. Can you accept that your company may outgrow you?

6. When you look in the mirror, does an entrepreneur look back?

Most of those questions are not answerable before you make the jump. Just do it then you'll find out most of the answers.