I'm not joking. This weekend Judge Business School hosted the conference Silicon Valley comes to Cambridge. A few of the "big guys" from the most successful internet companies in California came to share with us their experiences.
It started Thursday evening with a panel debate in the Student Union on whether Europe or USA will become the best place to build the future billion dollar companies. Five people supported each side, all of them making very good points and with a great sense of humour. People from the stands could also participate. Why not Asia? Of course, there is no answer, but the debate itself was educating and motivating.
It started Thursday evening with a panel debate in the Student Union on whether Europe or USA will become the best place to build the future billion dollar companies. Five people supported each side, all of them making very good points and with a great sense of humour. People from the stands could also participate. Why not Asia? Of course, there is no answer, but the debate itself was educating and motivating.
In my opinion the USA have a lead because they are real entrepreneurs, they are more prone to take risks, they don't care about failing. Europe's strenght comes from the Universities, the knowledge, the reasearch, but action need to be taken. And Asia is catching up. China and India have an enormous workforce potential and really bright people.
It was interesting to read the speakers profiles. Some of them are "serial entrepreneurs", guys who have founded dozens of companies, some of them complete failures, but some of them big successes. Maybe the two more popular ones were Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and with shares in Facebook and Mozilla among other companies; and Hermann Hauser, founder of Amadeus Capital Partners. Wise and wealthy guys.
Masterclasses were held on Friday at JBS and I assisted to as many as I could. I liked all of them and took some hopefully very useful notes. The most simple, but maybe the most useful one is "just try". If you want to be an entrepreneur you need to take risks. The only way to test if an idea is really a good idea is trying to put it into practice. And the sooner the better, specially if it is in the Internet. Other very good point was that if you are going to approach venture capitalists you need to tell them that you are going to work full time in your idea, that you really believe in it, that you have passion for it.
Unfortunately I had to leave before the end because I had a CVP meeting. We are running out of time and still don't have any consistent results. The next two weeks are going to be hectic.
Unfortunately I had to leave before the end because I had a CVP meeting. We are running out of time and still don't have any consistent results. The next two weeks are going to be hectic.
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