The top startups from the previous edition of Lisbon Challenge went to the US for a Roadshow where they could meet some of the best investors, startups and world known companies in San Francisco and Boston. From Google to Amazon, from Y Combinator to the Alchemist, this Roadshow was full of insightful tips for startups and entrepreneurs. Our own Bashara Hinnawi joined this exciting trip with Ricardo Marvão and the cool crew from Numa and startups from Le Camping. Check out every detail of this trip by reading the following journal that Bashara put together for all of you.
Departure Day - What a wonderful (long) flight
I reached the airport at 10am and went directly to do the check in. After a cup of coffee with Ricardo, I created a WhatsApp group called “LC Fall 14 Roadshow” for the all participants: Jorge Santos (Magnifinance), Nuno Rodrigues (Doinn), Helena Vieira (Myskinmix), Rodrigo Tejana (Walmond), Giacomo Putignano & António Davoli (Walletsaver), Bia Rodrigues & Oscar Ferruz (Planedia), Ricardo Marvão and me. After boarding the SATA airplane we took off. I was surprised to find out that the plane had a stop in Ponta Delgada, in Azores, which for some passengers was the final destination while for others, like ourselves, was just a pit stop on our way to Boston.
We reached San Francisco at 11pm local time, after 23 hours traveling!!! Once we grabbed all the luggage Ricardo booked an Uber. It took 7 minutes until a 7 seater jeep arrived and took us to our new homes for the next 4 days. When we reached the apartment that we booked through Airbnb, where a nice girl welcomed us at the entrance and took us to the apartment. The apartment looked like it came straight from an episode of Seinfeld.
Day 1: From Amazon to The Vault to meet Sush.io
After breakfast we booked an Uber and headed to the Amazon building. We arrived at 9am and met all the teams from Numa, they were a crew of 20 people. Not much later all of our teams arrived. Then we went into Amazon Web Services office, where Ryan Kiskis kindly took us in and talked about VCs, AWS, and much more.
After leaving Amazon building we headed towards The Vault, an amazing co-working space. The design and logic of the space was amazing. The creativity rooms were amazing. The quiet rooms were intelligently thought out. After the office tour was over we started a session with Thomas Guillaumin, CEO of Sushi.io.He gave us some insights from the point of view of a French startup that moved to San Francisco. What kind of challenges they faced, what investors expected and how does it differ from the ecosystem in Europe. He mentioned the challenges of getting a Visa and how the business plan has to be pumped up to portray the potential job opportunities for the local market and not to remember, to shoot for the stars in terms of planning and revenue forecast.
In the afternoon we visited Runway where we met Camille Landau from Portugal Ventures. Like all the places we’ve been to, Runway was not different. An amazing workspace, entrepreneurs could even bring their bicycles and dogs into the workspace. It looked like having a dog was a prerequisite. After an illuminating talk about what investors are looking for we left and had a talk with Marc Rougier, founder of Scoop.it. He gave us priceless insights about the failure and success of a Startup. What works well in the valley and where to start your business. He talked about the difficulties of creating a successful company.
Later on, we met a VC called Galvanize on another meeting organized by Le Camping. At Galvanize, Roman from BPI provided his insights to Le Camping team and some of the French speakers amongst us.
Later on we all went for a great, typically American, dinner with the Unbabel team. Vasco, Sofia and João from the Portuguese startup Unbabel, joined us as well as Pedro Vieira from Goodguide and Paulo Dimas, CEO of FacesIn.
Day 2: The Alchemist and Task Rabbit
In the morning we went down to Yammer to visit the Alchemist accelerator. Ravi Belani, a managing partner took us in and explained how the Alchemist works. Did you know that the Alchemist accelerator has a Customer Day with 40 of Fortune 500 companies coming to get to know the startups, potentially closing deals and providing feedback? He urged Magnifinance and Walletsaver to apply. As usual the main aspect he is looking at is THE TEAM. The workspace at Yammer is mind blowing. They have a kitchen place which is full of food and drinks of all kinds and it is free. After all why leave if you can eat, drink, have fun, relax and work all in the same place.
After our lunch we took off to the next meeting at Task Rabbit. At the door they had a tablet where you had to enter your name and agree to a NDA before entering. We were welcomed by Bryan Leonard, the chief architect. He talked about how Task Rabbit expanded, how his partner and himself were working for IBM together when they decided to help people out with daily tasks. He elaborated and busted the most common marketplace concern that “a critical mass of users will not bypass the platform for recurring service requests if you provide them with a good service”.
Day 3: The Square, 500 startups and Blumberg
In the morning we went for our first visit of the day where we met Fadi Bishara from Blackbox at Runway. Fadi told us about how Blackbox operates. It’s a 2 week program that focuses on connecting teams in a scalability phase with potential investors and customers. “If you want to get into this market, you have to do it the Silicon Valley way… focus on the people, focus on service and live your product”. “The path is Connection - Trust - Relationship - Agreement and here you can leverage on someone else’s relationship to build your trust. ” and don’t forget “It is never about the idea…”
Having to cut the visit short we had to rush out for our visit to Square. Oh and not many people know it yet but they have a feature called Square Cash that allows you to send and receive money from friends in 5 minutes. The space was huge and they also use square in their fictitious coffee shop, fictitious because the employees get refunded for any payment immediately after. Everybody was mesmerised about the space, the setup and the technology.
After we left, we rushed to Blumberg Capital visit, we were running late. At Blumberg we met Bruce Taragin who bluntly said, and I quote “Looking for world dominating startups”… He had a good amount of focus comparing the US to the ecosystem in Israel. Some great tips of Do’s and Don’ts such as “Try to under promise and over deliver”. Blumberg has invested in great startups like for example Hootsuite and they seem to be a good partner, with a Startup mentality.
In the afternoon we went for a visit at 500 startups and the most valuable input I realised is that they really focus on customer acquisition. They do 4 batches per year, 2 in mountain view and 2 in San Francisco. A program of 3 and half months. When we got there, the entrepreneurs in residence were helping out teams with their marketing activities, including metrics, KPIs and strategy.
Day 4: Google, YCombinator and Feedly
In the morning we woke up at 6:30am, so that we could go to Samsung Innovation Center. We were welcomed by Rajiv and David and they patiently heard the pitches from the teams and provided feedback regarding the fit to Samsung prospects for investment as well as cooperation. We left with a feeling that several teams might be interesting for Samsung. The person to go to regarding products for development testing was left for a later time to connect with Gary Coover.
After that we drove to Google. The campus is as a small city, all colourful and technological. We went to the Google Ventures building where we had a presentation about their activities. But the action started when we got to the kitchen, EVERYTHING WAS FREE! !! All the teams, hungry like crazy, went for those drawers full of sweets and snacks. I saw some of them actually stacking food in their pockets as if it was our only chance of survival. I took the opportunity and grabbed a cup of tea and Beef jerky. We had a tour around the campus, there was a Google car driving around, you could see colourful bicycles, lots of restaurants - all free and a playground. They even had a mobile hairdresser and a mobile Gym squad.
Next we went for a visit at YCombinator and we were greeted by Michael Siebel himself. He gracefully accepted the challenge to give us a brief overview about YCombinator followed by hearing out some pitches from the teams. He definitely gave the startups constructive feedback on how to position themselves in the pitches. His requests were: what is the product, the market (anything less than a multi-billion dollar market does not work), how you scale and the team and the partners equity distribution. After around 12 pitches we had to cut short and start moving towards Tango.
At Tango, we were hosted by Eric Setton. He showed us around and guess what? Free food, collaboration areas, quiet rooms and you can eat and drink on your desk. Eric’s overview of Tango was extremely engaging. One explanation caught my attention. He was asked about the difference of usage between countries. He gave an example that Tango is very hot, for example, in the middle east and the fact that the community was able to communicate through an app was liberating.
Again, we had to cut short and move straight to Feedly. We were welcomed with beers and snacks. Feedly got the boom in traction after the Google Reader shut down. Edwin Khodabakchian explained that when he heard that Google Reader was closing he was sure that it also mean the end of Feedly. But by acting fast and reassuring the Google users that Feedly was there to give them a better alternative, brought success to the company. That promise was a risk since they did not have a product ready to handle the mass migration, but within 2 weeks they did it and headed towards success.
Day 5: Welcome to Boston - Cambridge Innovation Center and Mass Challenge
We flew from San Francisco to Boston and reached Boston at around 8:00am local time. We decided to go straight to CIC - Cambridge Innovation Center to have a breakfast and pop into our meeting. We met with Sidi Gomes, the architect of the CIC. He showed us around the huge multiple floor space where they provide working space for all entrepreneurs. They had an open space, meeting rooms, quiet rooms and much much more. It was inspiring the amount of thought that goes into designing such spaces.
After CIC we Ubered ourselves to Mass Challenge premises. At Mass challenge, we were welcomed by Amir Eldad and Kara Shurmantine. Kara showed us around and she explained that they do the program once a year and they accept 120 out of 1000-1500 applications from all around the world. The selection process involves many mentors and partners. They are solely funded by sponsors and the 15-20 teams get invested. They have a fund of $1M that is distributed between the top teams in a varying mode depending on the actual project and team. She also mentioned that they are opening in Tel Aviv and London and expect to open 10 more during this year worldwide.We left Mass Challenge and again Ubered ourselves towards Workbar.
We reached Workbar in the afternoon, our last visit of the day as well as for the Roadshow. We had a warm welcome from Tiffany Knight and Abigail Taylor. They offered us a warm drink followed by a tour around the Workbar facilities until Bill Jacobson finished his meeting. They’ve built an impressive workspace, starting with the community coffee area and taking us up to the 5th floor where they had the startups working in an open space. The design was carefully planned to alternate between spaces where teams can make calls and have loud conversations to areas where silence has to be maintained. They also had phone booths and a kitchen area. Tiffany explained that all of the co-working software was built in-house, to provide them the capability to monetise on replicating the model. They had an attendance and location dashboard that showed where each member was located. She explained that when a member logs in to the wifi, that person is detected and displayed and the location is based on the access point location… pretty neat. Eventually, Bill finished his meeting and joined us. We all went downstairs to celebrate a Happy Hour dedicated to the Lisbon Challenge team. The challengers pitched in front of a small audience and networked with all the startups there. It was a perfect ending for a fabulous roadshow.
Hope you enjoyed. Stay tuned to the next Lisbon Challenge Roadshow powered by Beta-i
Bashara Hinnawi