Thriving in the Crisis: A Mentor Roundtable at Innovate Europe 09
Posted by Jorge Bernal May 05, 2009
So once again, Innovate Europe starts in Zaragoza, although this time a bit different. There is a “Master Class” which started yesterday with a roundtable called “Thriving in the Crisis”. We could listen to some of the experts which will be sharing their experiences at the master class, like David Sifry, Marten Mickos, Yoav Leitersdorf, Maximilian Niederhofer, Barak Berkowitz, Madeline Duva, and Mike Rogers, conducted by Ignacio de la Vega .
Ignacio and Javi will be attending the Master Class this week, but I also joined the roundtable (this was the only part free and open to the public) and took some pictures.
Having been in the MySQL conference 2009 two weeks ago, I could see there’s a world of difference between people speaking there, and these guys. You can see the experience through the lenses: how the speak, how they move, the way they look at the public, and even directly at the camera. Even when taking pictures at a roundtable is more difficult than with a single speaker, I got wonderful conditions to shoot. Even the light was good enough.
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Experience indeed, good names there – but it’s important to realise what they have experience with.
In terms of building successful businesses, they’re definitely there. Bootstrapping (no venture capital), not so much.
Running a non-VC-funded company is quite different in many respects, but that’s exactly the kind of thing that people might want/need to do right now. In many cases, VC funding is the problem, not the solution – the issue is not potentially VC capital drying up for new ventures, the problem is distracting focus from really good ideas getting to the real world as soon as possible, while building a viable long-term business model.
Presentation and charisma is important and makes for an excellent experience, but that does not make someone an expert on everything. They are just expert in whatever they have experience with, not other things. Being “expert” or “experienced” is very subject-matter specific.
Arjen, I completely agree with that. I liked David Sifry’s statement that customer money is the best kind of funding.
I’ve never been sure about getting VC funding for our company. Just because you have a chance to get it, doesn’t mean you need it.
If your company already makes money and is sustainable it’s really not so much venture capital now, is it?
At the moment it’s far more lucrative to buy plain old simple blue chips and other stock as opposed to funding some company that could be the next Google (if that’s even possible). With credit drying up there is less leverage involved so an intelligent investor would lower his risk exposure, especially with government swooping in and influencing the market dynamic.
It might be better to raise the money by other means so you can keep more of your future profits