Small Business Administration

SBIR June WebinarCofounders: Why the Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts

• June 25, 2013 – Washington, D.C.

Small Business AdministrationOffice of Investment and Innovation

Small Business Administration

Agenda

Updates

Introduction to Jessica Alter

“Cofounders: Why the Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts”

Q&A

Small Business Administration

Updates

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)http://www.sbir.gov/faq/general

Previous webinarshttp://www.sbir.gov/content/sbir-webinars-posted-online

Technical concernshttp://www.sbir.gov/feedback

Small Business Administration

Featured Speaker

Cofounder & Chief Connector, FounderDating  

500 Startups mentor

Former CEO, Formative Labs

Former GM of Platforms, Bebo (Acquired by AOL).

BBA from University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard

Jessica Alter

THE BIGGEST MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE WITH COFOUNDERS

3

THREE MISTAKES

6

Starting a startup is too hard for one person. Even if you could do all the work yourself, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to cheer you up when things go wrong.

– Paul Graham, Y-Combinator

NEED TIMING APPROACH

NEED

7

Complementary skill sets You don’t know what you don’t know

Emotional/Mental partner and sounding board

Day-to-day < fulfilling Idea Inkling Hans Solo

TIMING

8

Don’t wait until you’re ready to have a baby… Start “dating” 6-12 months before you’re ready to

take the full leap! ALWAYS have a side-project

APPROACH

Hard selling an idea never works Fall in love with the person…not the idea –

the idea will change

9

“ When I get an email pitching me an idea, I hear ‘I need someone to build my idea. I can't pay you in cash, so have some equity.’ That's not attractive to me. I have a LinkedIn account full of spam from recruiters, developer groups I belong to get spammed by people like this as well. This is why FounderDating exists. I don't want to work on a wine app. I want to work with awesome people, and if the idea we pick is a wine app, so be it.” -Jimmy, FD Member

ABOUT FOUNDERDATING

10

NO IDEA NECESSARY

HIGH QUALITY

REACH

50% ENGINEERS

0001000111000010001001010001001

PREMIERE ONLINE NETWORK FOR ENTREPRENEURST O CONNECT & F I N D C O F O U N D E R S

PARTNERING FOR SUCCESS – CASE STUDIES

11

Signature Labs Tapactive Yabbly

David Hegarty – MSFT // KelloggTraun Leyden – Comdasys AG

The enterprise retail clienteling solution.

Robert Victor – Google // CornellDan Oved – Cofounder, Blueprint Health

Private workout instruction for everyone.

Tom Leung – Marchex // HarvardIan Shafer – Amazon

Quora for shopping

• Process

• David spent 1.5 years alone before he met Traun

• Worked nights and weekends to make sure the relationship worked

• Funding

• Funding secured from NEA and Draper Fisher Jurvetson

• Progress

• Secured several contracts with major retailers

• Process

• Began working together on this idea right away

• Took 2 months

• Funding

• Recently accepted into ERA accelerator in NYC

• Progress

• Accepted into top NYC accelerator

• Launched Beta

• Process

• Looked for a match on values

• Took 2 months

• Funding

• $800K raised from top angels

• Progress

• Named App of the Week in iTunes

@founderdating or @jalter

info@founderdating.com

http://www.facebook.com/FounderDating

APPLY to JOIN

QUESTIONS? ASK OUR MEMBERS

12

“The network you have may be great. But finding someone that is great in your network, and is ready to start something serious right now is much tougher than it seems. FD links you with people that you know are amazing, and gives you an instant bond and connection with them, allowing a lot of other time-wasting steps in the process of finding a cofounder or a meaningful project fall by the wayside.”

– Adam A. (NYC)

“There's no way I would have met my co-founder without FD. Sometimes 6 degrees of separation is too many and non-competes cut off a lot of your natural co-founder market.”

– Tom Leung, Yabbly (Seattle)

Small Business Administration

Questions?