Startup Leadership Program

I am very pleased to report that SLP Boston is organizing it’s 2nd Ever Investor day, February 13, from 6-9pm EST. This time with a big difference: A team led by Michael Miller, Founder of Socialete is blowing it up, with 18 VCs already committed in tech, cleantech and lifesciences, and 4-5 more on their way. This event is really important for every Fellow anywhere, because we’re beaming in pitches from Chicago, Silicon Valley, New York and San Diego to these VCs.

Who’s incharge
Michael Miller – (running the show), Chris Tsai & Vikas Goyal (lifesciences pitches), Olivier Ceberio & Pedro Santos (cleantech pitches) and Kyle Fugere (tech Pitches). These guys are supported by Ben Reid (Chicago), Ankit Jain (SV), Chip Breitenkamp (San Diego) and Ji Li (New York) to ensure we have a great representation of startups.

Who’s coming:
These are the funds so far – 5AM (Lifesciences), Atlas, Bantam Group (Angel), Battery Ventures, Black Coral Capital (Cleantech), Common Angels (Angel), Covidien Ventures (Lifesciences), Excel Venture Management (Lifesciences), Flagship Ventures, Flybridge Capital, LaunchPad (Seed Fund), Next View Ventures (Seed Fund), Norwich Ventures (Lifesciences) Project 11 (Seed Fund; Techstars MD is Cofounder), Rockport (Cleantech), SROne (Lifesciences – GSK Corporate VC), Terawatt (Cleantech), Third Rock Ventures (Lifesciences) and Venrock.

For those of you around the world, we’ll have one of these in India soon, and hopefully NY and Silicon Valley as well.

Anupendra & the Incredible SLP Investor Day team

SLP Boston is pleased to announce an Investor day on February 13, for our Fellows. Thirty startups in SLP will pitch for money or advice from around the US to investors located in Boston. The investors already confirmed include:5AM (Life sciences), Atlas Ventures, Bantam Group (Angel), Battery Ventures, Black Coral Capital (Cleantech), Common Angels (Angel), Covidien Ventures (Life sciences), Excel Venture Management (Life sciences), Flagship Ventures, Flybridge Capital, LaunchPad (Seed Fund), Next View Ventures (Seed Fund), Norwich Ventures (Life sciences) Project 11 (Seed Fund; Techstars MD is Cofounder), Rockport (Cleantech), SROne (Life sciences – GSK Corporate VC), Terawatt (Cleantech), Third Rock Ventures (Life sciences) and Venrock.

We’re working on a similar event in India. Stay tuned !

Anupendra Sharma

Thanks to TechCocktail for sharing this Flickr photo of Brad Feld under creative commons license. 

Note: There were two segments of a call with Brad Feld. The first part consisted of short pitches from six SLP entrepreneurs located around the world.  The second segment of the call was a talk with Q&A with 100 Fellows from the Startup Leadership Program (SLP) around the world. We’ve provided the writeup from the second segment. 

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BusinessInsider released a list of its favorite startups for 2011. We’re glad to see three fellows – Shaun So, Kelsey Recht and Vipin Goyal amongst those listed. Here’s some information on all three.

Cubby, founded by Shaun So (SLP NY 2012) offers a service that picks up your bags anywhere in New York for $10 and stores the bags for $7-12 per day. Shaun has been a bike messenger in New York, the U.S. Defense Department as an Intelligence Officer, and a policy analyst. He worked in Afghanistan and has over nine years of experience as a counter-terrorism and intelligence professional. His cofounder has worked in the real estate development industry. Between the two of them, they’ve got all the qualifications to make sure your bags are stored in a timely manner.Click here for Cubby

InstEvent was founded by Kelsey Recht (SLP NY 2012). Kelsey runs a website and a company that takes over all the headaches for arranging parties of any kind in the city. She describes it as a cross between AirBNB and Seamless. Prior to InstEvent she worked at Sears Holdings where she invested in retail start-ups and worked on business development and operations. Kelsey has a Kellogg MBA and a BA from Williams College. Click here for InstEvent

SideTour was started by Vipin Goyal (SLP NY 2011) currently founder & CEO , and is a venture-backed company that was in Techstars.  SideTour was born out of Vipin’s travels after Joost, where he was inspired to start a company that offers small unique experiences and tours around New York. Vipin worked in business development and strategy at Joost, MTV and McKinsey. He is a Harvard undergrad and a HBS MBA. Click here for SideTour

By: Zoe Peden

Fundraising – first rounds

First up was Jamie Murray Wells who explained that his company, Glasses Direct was funded on student loan and an early example of MVP and enough to show that the business model worked. He commented that working from a small amount of money really encourages you to focus

In the initial stages of looking for investment he was hesitate to take on too much friends and family investment so was very selective that it was capital they could afford to lose.

After friends and family he looked at angel industry in 2 sectors in 2005
1. professional angel networks

2. strategic angels – people you need to help with the business

He approached the latter and asked for advice rather than to invest. Angel networks are very underrated.

Venture capital stage

By the time Jamie knew he needed £3.5 m in series A funding he’d met most of the VCs around by networking at all the tech events in London.

He used advisors as it was his first time through fundraising and wanted to make sure he had the best structure in place. Business raised about £26M so far.

Jamie’s points to remember

1. In terms of how much to ask for, what does the business need to make the business stand on its own two legs. Enough to give the business a chance to prove itself. What is the minimum I can raise. That the PnL can sustain or a fundraising milestone.

2. In terms of giving away equity, don’t get too sentimental

3. Make rounds very competitive, many people take easy option and take what they can get.

4. Be careful getting locked into a seed funding too early.

Financials with Kingston-Smith

Richard Heap and James Kesner took us through the top sales mistakes they see when a company is trying to sell itself:

1. Weak 2nd tier management

2. No diligence on other side, too much own involvement.

3. Be in control of the process

They also gave us the structure of a good financial model
1. Fully integrated monthly model
2. Many deals fall down on forecasts – need to turn my quarterly into monthly for next 12 months
3. Cashflows and balance sheets
4. Opening position needs to be clear as does the time period

Common mistakes that they see:

· Make sure all your spreadsheets linked up!

· Better to go lower and overperform so do not fall at first hurdle and not hit first quarter

· Make sure got plan B what if scenarios

· What do we need, what do we need it for and what are you going to get out of it

Term sheets with Giles Hawkins from Orrick

Giles told us that a term sheet is basically an agreement to agree and its important to have it as full as you can. At the end of day investors are money managers who optimize the upside and protect the downside.

Giles recommended that you must have some provision in terms of option pool and if you see full ratchet in a term sheet strike it out!

One of the most emotional areas of the term sheet is founder vesting. If you leave within a certain time period lose most of your shares. This is the most negotiated term with VCs. Put time and attention to look at what triggers any loss. Try to have more than one deal on the table to avoid the worst.

Founder Vesting is normally over 4 years. 1st year lose everything. 2nd year 25%, 3rd year 25% etc . Recommend do it from beginning so can say in second round already vested for 2 years.

This blogpost is intended to share the experiences of a Fellow who joined SLP, started a company and raised a Series A round of financing.

The Setting
In 2006 I entered the Genetics Ph.D. program at Tufts University in Boston with two objectives: to understand science at the world-class level and to start my own company. Tufts would help me over the next four and a half years accomplish the first goal – culminating in my Ph.D. dissertation on Gene Therapy Strategies for Retinitis Pigmentosa – but with no formal business training or idea for a business, I was flying blind into entrepreneurism.

In Boston I quickly became aware of the start-up and venture capital arena, which was vastly different than the science world that I was accustomed to. I learned of a program for entrepreneurs that would
ultimately change my life and help me realize my second goal of starting my own company – The Startup Leadership Program (SLP).

The Startup Leadership Program in Boston By the time I wrote my application for the Startup Leadership Program class of 2008/9, I had already begun to formulate an idea for a business that would incorporate my passion for science and my desire to be an entrepreneur. I had met another Ph.D. candidate at Tufts, Brigham Hyde, who shared these passions and was equally motivated to realize these aspirations.

SLP was a game changer for my company Relay Technology Management, Inc. When I entered SLP, we had identified the unmet need in the marketplace to increase the efficiency of early-stage drug development, but had developed a business model that was limited by human capital and was neither scalable nor fundable. SLP immersed me with other entrepreneurs in Boston who were at various stages of the startup experience – some had companies that were already operating and were looking for outside investment, some were just getting going, other SLP fellows were enthralled with the idea of starting a company,
but were not yet sure what business to pursue.

The diversity of entrepreneurs in the SLP program, ranging from mobile to cleantech, to life science to computer science play an integral role in expanding our identification of a need in a marketplace to a
technologically-driven product company.

Beyond the “hard skills” workshops which taught the fundamentals of finance, accounting, and angel/venture investing, there were “soft skills” workshops that refined sales techniques, pitching to investors, and general leadership principles.

The Transformation
By the end of the 9-month program, SLP had transformed me from an aspiring entrepreneur to a focused and disciplined leader. Just as importantly, SLP had helped Relay become a technology product company
that was attractive to investors.

Relay has gone on to be award winning finalists in the MassChallenge $1M global startup competition with guidance from several mentors that I was originally introduced to in SLP including Venture Capitalists
Richard Dale and Anupendra Sharma. Relay was also, the first SLP startup to receive a “Helping Innovators Thrive” award for free legal services at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge which gave us tens of thousands of dollars worth of free legal advice thanks to Richard Kimball who supports SLP, and Relay was fortunate enough to be a part of DogPatchLabs in Cambridge run by Gus Weber and Polaris Ventures.

The SLP Network
The network that SLP provided was invaluable. I received mentorship from life science entrepreneurs who had successfully grown and exited companies, and had the opportunity to speak with Desh Deshpande – who
gave a passionate speech to SLP that I will never forget. The SLP network also benefited Relay. We were introduced to one successful life sciences publishing entrepreneur through SLP. I asked him to join our board, and he was critical as he made the introduction to a large multinational on our behalf that would eventually lead to our Series A financing and strategic partnership. The importance of a solid advisory board cannot be understated. As an entrepreneur your advisory board can validate your company to
investors, make introductions to potential clients, and offer invaluable advice from people who have talked the talk and walked the walk. One key lesson I learned at SLP was the importance to “close
the loop” with every email and introduction. I learned the importance of always thanking individuals for their time, resources and introductions, even if nothing results immediately.

To say that SLP played a role in my personal growth as an entrepreneur and leader is an understatement. SLP did much more for me (and my company) than I can ever give back – nonetheless you will feel compelled to give back to the program that helped make you and your company a success. Guy Kawasaki says it best, “you have to be a Mensch” –to give back as a part of the process. SLP is an amazing experience and can help entrepreneurs at any stage learn from the best and realize their dreams. An organization that gives you more than you can ever return, but will teach you lessons that will help you change the world.

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Dave Greenwald, Ph.D. is a 2009 SLP Fellow and co-founder and CEO of Relay Technology Management, Inc. You can follow Dave on twitter at
@drdg007 and read his blog at davegreenwald.com.

Today we had a class focusing on the finer points of putting together a team and bringing in the right talent. The session started with a talk from Craig Driscoll from Highland Capital Partners, who discussed the top 10 things to take into account during this process. Great presentation so I followed up and will be meeting with him tomorrow to get some more specifics what to look for at our specific point in development. Specifically how to identify the right talent that will also work for equity since we are as still bootstrapped.

After Craig we went over a case put together by our fearless leader, Anu Sharma. It was interesting, but not much to report here as most of you will be going over the same case. After Anu, we heard from three former SLP fellows about the trials and travails of putting together a founding team. This was a great segment moderated by Mr Jared Chung, but we were all sworn to secrecy, so can’t go into too many specifics. Basically, make sure you have the four D’s addressed beforehand and know what each founder wants to do with the company (long term growth or quick flip). The four D’s in case you were wondering are Death, Divorce, Dissolution and Decisions. These are all clauses that need to be laid out in the founder’s agreement to prevent ugly disputes and wasted time later on if something happens.

The last two talks were a little more on the HR side of things, with a Robert Young from Edwards Wildman and Lauren Celano from Propel Careers. Robert discussed the legal ramifications of hiring individuals and how not to screw yourself. Lauren went over some of the more basic nitty gritty of how to ensure that everyone is happy. Due to time constraints (as usual), these talks were cut short before all questions could be addressed and the two speakers were kind enough to take some time out of their evening to join us for the customary after-meeting drinks at Top of the Hub, which I haven’t been to since my Junior Prom. Took me back a few years!

John Moore III