Startups

Hawkins talks on the importance and inevitability of portablity. With portability comes small size, low cost, simplicity and the need for less power. With wireless networks on their way to becoming very inexpensive, Hawkins envisions a T1 line with high horse power and large memory in the pocket! The need for portability will make the item in your pocket the center of your universe, he says. He notes that there will be obstacles, but believes that this shift is inevitable.

I never had a technology company, says Hawkins. He believes that products come out of product marketing people who really love and understand products. He asks his employees to use competitor products to learn something from them. The focus should be on what people want and what they need, rather than only on technology.To build a successful product one has to innovate continuously, focusing on what people do and not what they say. And if you build a product, use the thing yourself.

Founder of the Palm Jeff Hawkins shares his story of graffiti, a handwriting recognition software, and the intuitive leap of using a keyboard to show that users can and will adopt to new technology. He elaborates on the role of market research, as well as how to listen to customers and follow your intuition and vision for the future.

Hawkins discusses how the cell phone took over mobile devices in the realm of personal computing. He projects where Handspring will go in the future with this transition.

Hawkins never really wanted to start a company, he admits. He considers himself an accidental entrepreneur who was approached by two venture capitalists while planning on building a small product.

Khosla shares his view on technology-driven entrepreneurship and predicts the growing impact of technology on life, society, and the economy.

In Kleiner Perkins perspective, Khosla argues, the traditional model of giving is broken. Social entrepreneurship and ways to leverage money are very important. Although there is not enough money in the world to solve the world's problems, if you apply and multiply, there are, in fact, solutions to some of these problems. Examples of companies providing these solutions include Gramine Bank and Aprotech.

Khosla talks about how Juniper Networks started, and the role of customer feedback in the product development. There was not one vendor thinking of building an OC48 router for the internet. Juniper perservered and took a risk in the technology, despite the majority of customer feedback.

Things aren't ever as good or as bad as we think. Today (2002) is one of the best environments to be an investor. The last three or four years were not a lot of fun--if Khosla went to someone to build a reasonable business, the response he would get was that another company was willing to give more money for less work. He would have to explain that the role of a VC was to help companies develop a real economic model and to give an honest valuation.

Roizen gives an inside glance at what VCs hopes to invest in. Her company, Mobius, is looking to invest in various fields from nanotechnology to component level architecture, to systems and wireless space.

Roizen believes that in the VC business, most companies fail. Therefore, the rare successes of their portfolio companies has to be big. Often you hear 10X, i.e. you should see 10 times your capital coming back, she says. It is also calculated as dollars in, dollars out, or internaI rate of return (IRR). The Mobius fund today has an IRR of 90%. Roizen notes you will almost never hear a VC use IRR.

Timing is everything when starting a company, Roizen says. Mobius raised their money in a good time and now have a lot of gas in the tank, she notes. Some companies needed money in June 2001 when people were not answering phone calls. She considers this an example of bad timing.

Heidi Roizen, managing director for Mobius Venture Capital, explains that Mobius Venture Capital has $1.5 B under management in current fund, $1 B in prior fund, and 100 active portfolio companies. There are ten VCs at Mobius who invest mostly in software, communication, wireless, next generation and web services, she says.

Roizen talks about performance and limited partners in venture capital. Smaller funds on the most part are suffering. A large funds success depends on what a startup's past performance has been.

Roizen says VCs look at how companies behaved during the downturn. Mobius was upfront with their LPs about where they stood and this paid back. Entrepreneurs that were gracious and upfront will be backed again, she notes.

Levinson believes it is easy to feel like a little fish in a big pond when you're starting your company. He talks about leveraging what you have to make your company stand out from the rest, and it all comes back to customers.

Levinson offers the following bit of advice to brand new entrepreneurs: Talk to customers. Identify potential customers and pick their brains: What do they want? Would they buy what you're selling? And how much would they pay?"

Number 2 in Frank Levinson's Top 10 Things You Must Have to Start a Business. Levinson talks about how a real business involves selling to customers and receiving money in return. He warns new businesses not to shy away from selling their products early on. He also gives advice on recognizing a real customer.

Number 9 in Frank Levinson's Top 10 Things You Must Have to Start a Business. Let people know you're in business, says Levinson. Name your company and put a sign up as soon as possible. Your main motivator should be the customers, he adds.

Clearly, without producing something that meets a customer's needs, says Levinson, a business is not a good position to succeed. However, it's important that the business create its own goals and work to fulfill its own needs as well. He describes the best methods to reaching a compromise in this situation.

Kelley talks about how the observation phase is the most overlooked part of the development process. Kelley hires social scientists to watch people complete tasks instead of asking them usability questions. He prefers to see them as customers instead of users and strongly believes that customer satisfaction comes with understanding their values. He gives examples of how his team will observe a customer in their usual environment instead of inviting them into a sterile lab for product testing. The case studies he presents include a television remote control.