I sketchnoted this live at the free MaRS Entrepreneurship 101 series (webcast and in-person session every Wednesday). Click on the image for a larger version of sketchnotes.
Feel free to share this! You can credit it as (c) 2012 Sacha Chua under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada licence.
Here’s the video:
Lived it Lecture with Kunal Gupta of Polar Mobile ― Entrepreneurship 101 2012/13 from MaRS Discovery District on Vimeo.
Find more details on MaRS Discovery District’s blog. Check out my other ENT101 sketchnotes, or other sketchnotes and visual book notes!
Text:
MaRS ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101
Jan 9, 2013 #ENT101
Lived It Lecture
KUNAL GUPTA, POLAR MOBILE
Focusing less on entrepreneurship and more on the ENTREPRENEUR
Our story:
While we were studying at Waterloo: iPhone App store, still
one year away
Inspired by mobile experience in Hong Kong: Watching TV!
The great thing about Co-op was that I learned I don’t want to
work for anybody. So we started a company!
Nobody knew what apps were. (Huh?)
Prototype of magazine on Blackberry
meeting:
Why would anyone use this?
Where are the ads?
How do we get content in?
Q: Finding talent?
A: Referrals, events
Q: Pricing?
A: Listen. “How would you like to pay for this? -> Model neg.
Go out there and talk to customers
even big companies!
Nobody knew what I was talking about! (What’s an app?)
We’ll think about it. (3-6 months..)
We could’ve given up. We didn’t.
10 weeks, 9 phone calls… BUSINESS!
Professional persistence!
We launched 6 months before the App store
Went after US market in between exams
Q: Negotiation
A: Put off pricing -> validate problem first
Early days – no one expects you to have a rate card. As a
supplier, you want to use your own agreements eventually.
Q: Explaining ideas to people who pass it on
A: 1. Keep it simple. 2. Ask if they understand 3. Don’t need
to sell in first meeting.
Q: Small startup e-mailing/selling big companies.
A: Short, links at bottom. Put yourself in their shoes. Would
I reply to this?
We graduated and went full-time.
There’s so much noise about the difficulty of getting FUNDING.
THE REAL CHALLENGE
/ Is there a proven market?
/ Do you have a product or service of value? Can it SCALE?
/ Do you have the TEAM you need?
Singapore is an AMAZING country. They always shoot for gold.
Learn from lots of places around the world.
Q: Future of mobile?
A: Amount of consumption -> 30% of traffic now mobile, will
cross 50%.. mobile-first. Changing the way people interact.
Manufacturers – what are people buying? Investments? Growth?
Q: Deciding between do and delegate?
A: What’s the most important thing for your business at this
time? That guides your time.
Q: Managing cofounders
A: Transparency -> trust. Expectations, concerns. Alignment.
How did we get Time Warner?
E-mailed the president!
What’s a little Canadian company doing in New York?
Blackberry -> made in Canada
9 months to get to a deal
rollercoaster
I was so stubborn I insisted on having Sports Illustrated as
part of the deal
What we thought this would take
What it took
TEAM:
Hire for aptitude and attitude, train for skills
What should we do?
You know more about this than I do
Oh!
Alignment is important but hard
New vision
Ex: BANANAS
People become more similar…
When you’re starting out, you need to keep REALIGNING
Chief Everything Officer } It’s not the right thing to do! You
can’t scale
Guarantee: You’ll make more mistakes than your team. Get over
yourself.
Your body
barometer for business: stressed? focused?
Hey, is everything all right? You seem a little off.
Should I finish school?
Yes. Learn how to do things you don’t want to do.
You have to learn how to make tough decisions.
Toronto: Great place to start!
customers
talent
listen and develop product
Vancouver: Happier?
REMEMBER: HAVE FUN!
You can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.
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