UPDATE (Sat 26th of June): It seems that the conference is canceled. Waiting for more information.

UPDATE 2 (Mon 28th of June): Cancellation is confirmed. There is no PGI conference of any kind this week.

Today we’re talking about the importance of actors from all over the world, coming together and building a vast network and therefore we’re calling this episode “Connecting Continents”. We had our lovely guest Tanya Noel, founder of Partners for Growth and Innovation on the Podcast and discussed the conference on the 28th to the 30th of June in Viareggio, Italy, where Valto also will be speaking and the underlying reasons to why conferences like these are so important.

You can listen to this brief Podcast below in the player or on iTunes.

Here’s some discussion points:

• Conference program
• Slowing down the pace and getting away from the ‘white noise’
• Creating deeper connections
• Getting entrepreneurs to “slow down” and the value of pausing

Grow VC Partners up with Startupbootcamp from Denmark

On our big mission of democratizing early stage funding and empowering startups, we are glad to announce our partnership program with Startupbootcamp in Denmark. Startups participating in Startupbootcamp will receive startup profiles in the global Grow VC community and all the possible tools to add value to their hard work. Grow VC is constantly looking for new partnerships with different organizations around the world, that share our passion for entrepreneurship and pushing the envelope!

Startupbootcamp launches in August and runs during a course of three months, finishing in September with a highlight at Investor Day. The process goes through three phases, 1) developing the idea, 2) creating a prototype and 3) selling the idea. The process builds up to Investor Day, where the teams will present their ideas to hundreds of investors and hopefully find their rocket fuel to make their businesses the best they can get.

Startups will share highlights on their journeys in the Grow Venture Community and their progress will be followed by a vast audience of potential future partners and customers. Grow VC aims to open the Startupbootcamp program as wide as possible, for a global audience of just the right people. We are delighted to be able to follow along the progress, the learning process during three months and the development in the teams.

Applications are still open, until the end of June! Check out more on Startupbootcamp.dk and listen to the Podcast for experiences and insights from Alex!

You can play the episode on the player below or on iTunes.

In this episode of the Podcast, we present the partnership, discuss the program and coaching in general. We are glad to have Alex Farcet from Startupbootcamp on the show. Here’s some highlights:

“We take ten teams, give them a little bit of cash, lots and lots of mentorship, put them in a pressure-cooker environment, work really hard for three months and then showcase them for investors”
“Getting to a point where I can kick the ball really hard, without kicking you”
Alex on Startupbootcamp

Here’s some points from the Podcast:

• Grow VC on Danish Podcast Harddisken - Kudos!
• Startupbootcamp in a nutshell
• Partnership between Startupbootcamp and Grow VC
• Mentoring and coaching startups
• How to apply for Startupbootcamp?

The Red Herring editorial team selected the 2010 Finalists as the most innovative companies from a pool of hundreds from across Europe and there are some familiar companies among these finalists. Cellictica and Zonerider of these we have also covered in our podcast and newsletter.

“Simply Magical Mobile Apps that Listen to You, Understand You and Talk to You!”

“LumoFlow is a seamless collaboration environment for businesses. Share documents, have discussions and get projects done.”

“Zonerider turns ordinary wifi networks into secure Hotspots. we see a world where anyone can share broadband and get paid via ads or fees”

You can find all of the startups in our venture community.

As I was asking if we can mention each of the startups in this post I also got a call from Cellicticas CEO, Kimmo Sainio from some additional updates. Kimmo told me that they are in process of closing their funding round within a month or so that they have in part also been raising external to Grow VC. So, those of you that have been looking at their direction with an intention to jump on board, may want to make sure you don’t miss the boat. Needles to say what’s the easiest way to do that.

Here’s also their latest video about their Trippo VoiceMagix launch for iPhone US-market, enjoy!

Announcing the winners

The Finalists are evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries. The 2010 Red Herring Top 100 Europe will be announced in Paris on May 27 at a special award dinner at the Red Herring 100 Europe event. A perfect occasion to celebrate the exceptional accomplishment of European technology companies and entrepreneurs, while exploring the future of the region as a global player.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nomadesk Finalist For The 2010 Red Herring 100 Europe Award (prweb.com)
• Kampyle is a Finalist for the 2010 Red Herring 100 Europe Award (prweb.com)
• German Job vertical Spirofrog awarded RedHerring Europe100 finalist open 4 investors (blogs.sun.com)

Nobody has everything it takes to do everything except Superman..and then again not even Superman has Batman’s scientific prowess, Iron Man’s weapons or Spiderman’s stealth. Before I go on a tangent about the abilities and weaknesses of superheroes the point is, the same applies to most entrepreneurs going through the early stages of seeking the “right” founding team in the quest to turn their idea into a growing business.

No one entrepreneur has every skill set required to be a one man workforce and take an early stage startup to the next level. Some are gifted with creativity and ideas, others may have great technical abilities, some others could be great marketers while the next ones could have the financial and legal know-how needed. This is precisely why finding the right partners to complete the core founding team for a startup is so critical to seeing the business take off. A great idea is just that…a great idea. A great idea backed by a team with the passion and skills to turn it into reality with the resources to do so is the way forward.

Somehow, when it comes to being able to find those individuals who share that passion, have the skills and fit right in is always a challenge. One that seems somewhat simpler in places like the Silicon Valley because talent and skills aside, every other person there has the entrepreneurial spirit, knows what you are talking about and has the startup culture ingrained into them. For those serious about their ideas and starting their businesses it was often ‘off to Silicon Valley!’ or someplace they could find other partners on a similar wavelength and mindset to help them execute their plan. With the crowd-funding model and the GrowVC platform, things just got easier.

The ‘Virtual Silicon Valley’ consisting of entrepreneurs, funders, experts and service providers within the platform has created an environment ideal for entrepreneurs seeking the right people. Bringing like-minded people together on a platform that’s equipped for helping those seeking expertise in critical areas like technology, business development, legal and financial brings the concept and benefits of a “Virtual Silicon Valley” to a global level through the web. Have a beta product you’ve developed but need the marketing support to drive revenues? Have a revolutionary idea but no clue as to how to legally protect it? Have an application idea but no programming skills to build it? Chances are, you’ll find the right partners in an environment occupied by fellow entrepreneurs.

So it’s natural that most of us don’t come with all the skills needed to see a business flourish but given the “right place” one can seek out the “right people” and great things can follow. Imagine the kind of team you could put together if you could meet all the superheroes in one place! Perhaps you can….at least if that team is for your startup. Seeking founding partners just got easier.

Echelon 2010 is Asias leading web technology conference taking place in Singapore on June the 1st and 2nd. We are thrilled to be a part of such an innovative and forward oriented conference, and will be presenting our contribution to our collective futures there as well. More information on Echelon can be found on their homepage, here.

Living in a network society, we want to give attendees the opportunity to network, prior to the event, as well as after in our Virtual Silicon Valley. So for the first time ever we are also going to sponsor all of the 50 startups that are presenting at the event, by giving a one month free access to our Virtual Silicon Valley. Also, at the event Jouko will separately select or organize a vote for 5 of the startup companies to get their free account extended for 3 months.

For everyone else at the event you may want to look up Jouko as he going to be handing out limited number of “free visas” at the event to our Virtual Silicon Valley.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Grow VC World Tour Continues (growvc.com)
• Grow vc nextworkshop2010-05-10 (slideshare.net)
• The virtual silicon valley that is GrowVC (smlxtralarge.com)

Image via CrunchBase

One of the great things about blogging is that not always do you need to come up with original stuff. Sometimes you just come across a story so good, the best thing you can do is just to pass it on.

I just received the latest Michael’s Minute, an ocasional newsletter by Michael Robertson – one the serial entrepreneurs I have been following on and off, for several years.

In his latest Michael’s Minute, he’s telling a great story about one of his “own idol” that let him down. It’s such a great story that the best thing for me to do here, is to link to it below and not post anything about the story itself here – because it’s best when read in the original format.

The message in this story is very clear, it demostrates how valuable your integrity is and that’s a very important message to everyone, in our community where all of us are putting a lot of trust in others.

In our lives, there are multiple occasions when one can make a wrong decision that could make them loose their integrity and when we talk about business, often there can be plenty of money at stake – basically setting the price to “sell your integrity”.

When you come across these situations in business, I suggest you to think really hard about your choices and stay true to yourself.

It’s easy to understand that one of the most valuable assets that we all have is time and that is something that simple nobody, regardless of how much money they have can buy more, or buy their way back and fix things in the past.

So if you loose your integrity, it means you loose time and the time you loose with integrity is calculated in years not in months.

Read the story: “Sad Saga of Floyd Landis”

“Idea behind this emerging Crowd-funding model is to fix the current inefficiencies of private seed funding for firms” says The Business Times article. Singapore based The Business Times is Asia’s leading business daily. I had an honor to write an article for the paper. I will also talk about this topic in Echelon 2010, Asia’s Leading Web Technology Event, organized by e27 in Singapore on June 1 and 2. Echelon 2010 speakers are a rich combination of startup ecosystem professionals from the US and Asia.

The Article continues “EARLY phase startup funding requires new solutions. Venture Capital (VC) companies are moving their focus to more mature companies and institutional investors are decreasing investments in VC funds. Entrepreneurs want to have more competition and transparency in the funding market, and business angels require better tools to locate good startups and for easier deal-making.”

The final conclusion is “The startup funding market is one of the areas where new online services will make a lot of changes during the next two years. The traditional VC model is not enough anymore; we need a more effective, transparent and global market for startup funding.”

You can read the full article from The Business Times’ web site (subscribers only) or see a copy here.

Grow VC has just launched its own Service Investment round. This means that we look for some people to work for Grow VC and we offer options for the company. At the moment we especially look for people that can help us in software development and business development in some regions. We have already now got applications from several very good candidates around the world.

How does it work in practice? We define an hour or week rate for each position. For example, we pay a person $750 a week for his part time work. This means $3,000 a month. And we look for four month work from this person. It means totally $12,000. We also pay an extra interest for this, for example, 10%. In this way the total compensation for the person is $13,200. Then we just divide this by our estimated valuation, we get an ownership percent, and we offer equal amount share options for the person.

Our proposal includes two alternatives:

1. the person can convert the options to share
2. he/she can sell them back the company in the next funding round, and get cash compensation from his work.

This is very straightforward model to get resources.

Why we make it in this way? First, we want to demonstrate this to all our members and startups in the service. Grow VC offers a Service Investment marketplace where all startups can look for resources in the same way. But it is not the main point; the main point is that we see this is now the best way to get right resources.  It is important to see that you don’t need a funding round and money to all resources, you can also get resources directly. This model enables many good people, who have no money to make investments, to invest in your company.

We also believe that in many cases in this way it is possible to get more committed people who also think company’s long term success. This kind of model attracts people who have a real entrepreneur mindset.  This is an effective way to build your team especially in an early phase.  Then after funding rounds you can have another compensation model them.

It is important to have very clear principles for this kind of round: how you calculate the compensation, how you convert it to ownership or money, and what are targets and milestones in the each task and role. We are going to publish tools (for example, Excel and agreement templates) to make this kind of Service Investment round. And we also publish more details about the results of our Service Investment round, when we have closed it.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Grow VC model in full detail (growvc.com)
• “everyone funding startups” – Grow VC’s community funding model is launched (growvc.com)

I wanted to do this for “weekend reading”, as weekends are good time to relax and enjoy some longer posts and do some thinking. If you watch all the videos linked to this post you can easily spend close to an hour with these, so I made this post so that it can be easily enjoyed even via your iPhone while laying on the couch. – I also included a list of my favorite blogs and podcasts that I read/listen to learn and keep up with the “startup stuff”.

Are entrepreneurs born or made?

Every now and then, there are talks going on about “are entrepreneurs born or made?”, I’m not sure if there is a real answer to that or not, but what’s pretty clear regardless, is that to become an successful entrepreneur, there are many different things that can help you to become one.

Few key points:

• start paying attention to things around you
• realize what things could or should be different
• learn to enjoy continuous learning

I personally think that entrepreneurs are born with entrepreneurial mindset, behavior and thinking, just like having some other personality features that one may have. However, this does not mean that all these people with entrepreneurial mindset will become entrepreneurs, or that someone without this mindset would not become one. It may well be that we all have these entrepreneurial minds, but some have more stronger than others. This may well be the difference between an entrepreneur and a great entrepreneur.

Regardless of how it is, there is a path to becoming an great entrepreneur, some people can follow it – while some cant, and some only go half way. In every entrepreneurs mind, at some point they realize they are an entrepreneur. This path – to become an entrepreneur, is why I wanted to do this post.

While I was thinking on how to do this post and thinking some analogies to explain some of the key points, I started to think clips from one of my all time favorite movie “The Matrix”. My plan was to only use few clips from Matrix and then some other stuff, but as I started to search for suitable clips in YouTube, I realized that I could build the whole post around clips taken from the Matrix. Some of the videos could not be embedded, so the actual YouTube videos are linked and you can see them by clicking pictures.

The path of becoming an entrepreneur

While you’re watching the clips below, try to replace the roles in the movie with those occurring in the entrepreneurial and startup world, like mentors, service providers (experts), business angels, team members, corporations, venture capitalist etc. and enjoy!

Learn to question the functions of the existing models

At some point you start become aware that you may indeed be an entrepreneur. Sometimes you realize that yourself and sometimes someone else will see it in you before you do, and starts to talk to you about it. – When you feel yourself questioning many things around you – you need to go and meet other people that are entrepreneurs. People with ideas & passion and those that have done it before.

Learning to question the existing models will lead to finding “new and better ways of doing things” and that’s the most natural path to come up with a great idea for a startup.

The earlier you can see “some new way”, the more time you have for safe bootstrapping. When you are too early, market is not ready and when “the new way” is already obvious to everyone, it can be too late for great entrepreneur. The right time to build a business around “the new way” is difficult to know, but at the point when enough smart people (that can and are willing to help you)  are seeing “the new way”, it’s as close to right time as it can be.

In our case, we are questioning existing funding models, you can see this in the very first blog post I wrote in Dec. 2008, titled: “Ever wondered where does the VC money (originally) comes from?” – Now that we have published our core model, you can see that we think there can be a new, more efficient and meaningful way for early stage funding, that can help enable more startups that are seeing things “the new way” in what ever they are doing.

Understand the big picture

To be able to really start learning, first you will need to understand the bigger picture. Whatever you are doing and however well you think you know the things you are planning to do, you need to become aware of other things around you that will have effect on the outcome of what you are planning to do – things that will help or bring obstacles on your way. Having been “in the business” where you want to bring the change is very important. This means having been studying, working etc. enough within the area you are about to make a change in.

To make this learning process faster, it’s crucial to follow, meet and talk to people that already understand it (like some of the people I follow in twitter) in same or deeper level that you will need to as well. It’s also important to understand, that while it’s important of having lived in the system, the system itself really cant not teach the things you will need to learn about being an entrepreneur.

Learn the related basic skills in other industries to be able to battle within your own industry

Besides the skills that you need for your own industry, you will also need to learn other important skills that are essential for your success. In our context, this means learning to listen people in volumes and to present your business and goals in simplistic ways. Or to learn how to acquire needed funding to make your business a reality. Simply put you need to learn to convince other people to give you their money for what you have to offer.

From this clip it’s easy to understand how also smaller basic roles like “the operator” are crucial for the future success. In startup world this means relevant service providers or experts, that can help, teach and give you the insight in some tricky issues, or simply take care of some of the related important segments of your business (like legals, accounting, etc.), stuff you need to understand but that you really should not be doing/focusing yourself, if you are in a greater mission. Here’s a related post on how can you work with “the operators” for your startup.

Stuff to read:

VentureHacks – AVC – Both sides of the table – VentureBeat – TechCrunch -  37 signals – Lean Startup – ArcticStartup – Master of 500 Hats – OnStartups – VentureHype – Paul Graham Essays – Guy Kawasaki, …

Podcasts to listen:

Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders – This Week In Startups – VentureVoice – VentureCast – VentureHacks – 37 signals – Grow VC

Train your skills

When you have real life experience, you have learned from others by reading and listening their theories, it’s time to start practicing what you have learned. – While you continue to work with your startup, participate to your local events to pitch your startup and see others pitch theirs. This is also a g00d way to meet potential new team members to build you core team.

Have a healthy attitude with failure

Everyone fails on something at some point. When we were kids we did it all the time and that’s how we learn. Obviously the goal is not to fail, but the fact is that you are able to learn faster when you do. – If you are racing F1, you don’t know how fast you can take the corners, until you spin out of track. After you have done it, you know how far you can push the car and still stay on track. Same goes for everything else. – Just make sure you are aware what you are doing and what level of risk you are taking. If you crash your car, the race is over and if you pass out and you don’t know what just happened, it’s hard to learn from it.

Also make sure to communicate and agree on the level of risk you are about to take with everyone involved, or you will start to loose the people around you that are willing to help you next time. It also helps if they have experienced similar failures in the past themselves.

Pay attention to details along the way

As you move forward, remember to pay attention to those small details and indicators along the way that help to remind you of what you know. These will help you to keep your focus on things that take you forward. – In business these can be metrics. When you combine metrics to your gut feeling, your gut feeling will start to develop for the better.

Entrepreneur without a team – is not a great entrepreneur

When you are on your way to becoming true entrepreneur, a big part to understand is that if you are aiming to go solo, your chances of making it big are much, much slimmer than with having a great team with you. Your team is everything, when building up your startup and product. And when things go really bad you must be able to count on them. Simply, if you are thinking of doing it alone other people don’t really care so much of what you are doing and even if you succeed, there’s no others to share the excitement with you (people that really understand it).

Take care of your team

What makes a great team – is the fact that they care for each other. If someone is in trouble, you can count on your team to come for the rescue. The relatiships that are build in any startup team, usually carries way beyond one company, those ties that people create when living in challenging situations are the types that carry on for the rest of our lives.

At some phase you arrive to point when you are ready for the big leagues

If you are a true entrepreneur, all the failures, small detail, incidents, fights and close calls eventually push you to the point where you realize, that you now know enough to take on the big challenges and really start to go big with your idea. You know you have the right idea, the right team and the right people close to you, that can help your team to achieve the big vision. At this point nothing can really stop your team (think facebook).

When you hit the serious growth

This next clip is highlighting that phase in your startup growth when you clearly have a big winner in your hands. – That time when you have proven your model, maybe raised boat load of money and are growing in an insane pace (think facebook). At this point there are all kinds of people, companies, media etc. coming at you in a continious stream and you need to fight for your position to make it. Not all startups can or want to arrive to this phase, but if you do, it’s good to know what’s waiting for you.

What next?

Now that you have lived the process of becoming an great entrepreneur, what next? – Well, that all depends on you. What is your next big thing?

The end credits

This last video is just a nice wrap-up of some of the key points that we covered above with some nice soundtrack. Enjoy your new entrepreneurial freedom

I hope you have enjoyed this post as much as I did creating it. Regardless of what point you may be in your journey of becoming an great entrepreneur or the next big thing, you should take advantage of our platform, where you may find and connect with those people you need to move your startup to the next level. Or perhaps to join another startup already on their way.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What It Takes to Be an Internet Entrepreneur (suescaletta.com)
• Everything I didn’t learn about startups as a VC (…or why VCs don’t make good entrepreneurs) (thisisgoingtobebig.com)

For any Start up, there is a need to build a great pitch and make it effective. Here are the most typical topics you should cover in your first short pitch, where the goal simply is to have a change in the next step.

• The problem
• The solution
• The market
• The plan to reach the market (inc. your team’s knowledge base)
• Proposed Deal

If you think about this in “PowerPoint format”, in your elevator pitch (3-5 min), you should not have more than 5 points per slide with max 7 rows of text. The idea is that you only hit the highlights and make your audience “want to hear/read the details” = your goal.

Here’s few pointers by Carmine Gallo about the Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.

1. first set the theme
2. outline your presentation and make it clear when you have covered one thing before moving on to the next one
3. BE excited. If you are not, why would the audience be?
4. sell experiences or value, not the features
5. make it visual, less text more images
6. practise, practise and practise

More in the video below.