Author: haileyw2015

When “Conquer the World” is on your To Do list…

Posted on by haileyw2015

Today I had a great question from a fellow entrepreneur: with a million things to do, and many of the items being “get users”, “get investment”, or essentially “conquer the world, and when the tasks are so broad and the mandate so big, how do you actually get things done?

Well, good question friend. It isn’t easy to prioritize and get everything done. Carly and I both have tons of work on our plates at all times and the work is never-ending. Essentially all startups want to be successful and having your biggest dreams on your to do list I have found is not helpful, but actually counter productive. I have to break it down for myself so that I can act on those ideas. If not, I would just get overwhelmed and nothing gets done.

One thing that has really worked for me are simple to do lists. Another thing is thinking logically–as in 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.–of how to acquire customers, and what I need to do today and then this week or month to get that done. Next is keeping the communication open with Carly. We have meetings to talk about our goals and then processes on how to reach them for that day, week and month. It often changes, but this gives us a direction and helps us hold each other accountable, or pick up the slack if something happens in between.

I also bought myself a nice Moleskine notebook today. I know they’re ridiculously expensive for what they are (and on a startup budget it was a splurge!) but I saw it as an investment into what I needed to do to keep on track. I had a free notebook from my boyfriend but the paper covers tore easily and I ended up with a mess I was too embarrassed to use at meetings. This way I can look, and actually be, organized!

So step one? Cross out that big conquer the world crap.

SXSW vs. Web Summit

Posted on by haileyw2015

This week we went to the Web Summit in Dublin which attracted 22,000 attendees from around the world. Investors, startups, and media from the big tech companies like Google and Dropbox to venture capital firms like Greylock, NEA and Sequoia were all well represented. It was a truly impressive event and my first time attending.

We met some amazing people and investors. The Summit really made me feel encouraged about our prospects for the future and feel we have an amazing product, idea and team. Carly was running around the whole time, accosting investors and media alike, and I admit I did my fair share. But we got a lot of great exposure and a lot of interest. We met with investors from the Middle East, Europe and the States and met incredible startups from around the world. It was a truly global tech summit and very exciting to see what some companies are doing.

I have attended South by Southwest (SXSW) many times at interactive as well as the music and film elements. The last time I attended South by was as an investor and before that as a tech/music/culture enthusiast. At the Web Summit, I attended as a co-founder of a startup, so certainly that changed the way I saw the conference and what I expected to get out of it. I saw many similarities and differences between the two conferences so I thought I would share a few of the highlights:

1. Segmentation

Each attendee at the Web Summit was assigned a different attendance segment and was given different color coding for their badge. Media was dark green, investors red, ALPHA startups pink, BETA startups bluish-green, etc. There were also events organized solely for each type of attendee and other types were not allowed to join in those events. Some workshops, talks and night events were planned specifically by segment and as such meant that there was less chance for an early-stage startup to meet a later stage or an investor who is interested in their space. One attendee who is an accomplished entrepreneur, angel investor and mentor at a major accelerator told me he fits into almost every space so he picked “other” and got a yellow general attendee badge. As a result he was not allowed to visit many different events he was interested in because he did not fit the right category. That means less chance for the serendipitous meetings and less chance of learning from people at the various elements of the tech ecosystem.

Furthermore, because it was so easy to recognize media or investors, it was quite often an invitation for desperate startups to accost the attendees. One investor called his badge a “target” and most took them off as soon as possible or tucked them inside their shirts. Almost every encounter was structured around the idea that one person was a “media” and the other a “startup”, or any other combination, oftentimes leading to a forced and stilted conversation on that basis. At SXSW the structure is more about ideas and themes. You can attend a panel on social innovation and Africa and sit next to an entrepreneur from Nairobi or a journalist from the NYTimes interested in that space, making it much more likely to find people valuable for you to talk to than grouping by your role in the machine.

2. Pitches and Exhibiting 

One of the strengths of the Web Summit was its emphasis on startups. Hundreds, if not thousands, were there and as a startup attendee, I felt that there was a lot of value given to us. The Pitch Competition stages were front and center, and were always well attended by investors, media and other startups. It was always standing-room only at the pitches. At SXSW, pitch competitions are in side rooms and are also well-attended, but not given the same central role in the event. SXSW Interactive is more about thought leadership and innovation on an abstract level, featuring top tech leaders of the world to come and talk about privacy in the internet age or the future of space travel. This has strengths as seen in point 1, but has drawbacks. Startups are innovative but have not established themselves yet, thus they are not given the space to talk at the panels and as such are given secondary importance. The pitch competition at the Summit actually culminated with the startup finalists pitching on the main stage.

3. Parties 

SXSW and Web Summit both held their own in the party category. There were many sponsored parties at the Summit from PayPal to Salesforce and even the IDA hosted Bono as a speaker at its’ Wednesday night event. SXSW has an overwhelming amount of parties from hundreds of companies, from Ford to Facebook, and give away ridiculous amounts of swag and free stuff. There were fewer events at the Summit, but that’s not necessarily the worst thing. You can’t be in ten places at once so I’d say that was actually a positive. That meant that the official Web Summit events, “Night Summit”, were actually better attended than the official events at SXSW which essentially were attended by the people who didn’t get an invite to a better sponsored party.

Web Summit is smart to know that some of the best networking at these conferences is done at night over a Guinness and they took the time to make sure that some space and time was given to spontaneous networking. However, the segmentation happened again and there were investor-only parties, BETA startup parties, etc. I was with a group of investors who tried to attend a BETA party they were actually turned away. It was funny, but at the same time it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

4. Music, Food and Film

SXSW has a clear lead on the music and film. It is more established and has hundreds of events with the top acts in the world. I did not attend the Web Summit’s music and film events, but there were also not many to choose from. I am not sure what direction the film and music elements of the Web Summit will take as it is so centrally focused on tech, but it could be interesting. Essentially if you are going for only music or film, skip the Web Summit and go straight to South By. The “Food Summit” at the Web Summit was great, though. They provided free lunch for all three days and it was very tasty traditional Irish food prepared by some of the leading chefs. However it was pretty far from the rest of the events and I only made it to two of the days.

5. Dublin vs. Austin 

Both cities are really fantastic and share a lot in common. Both are college towns and have a seat of government there. Both have great bars, chill people and amazing food. The best places I went in Dublin this week included Pichet, the Port House and Dame Street (an actual street). The RDS conference center in Dublin was southwest of the city center as opposed to being in the heart of it like the conference center in Austin which is a drawback. We were trapped out there and it was very hard to find transport sometimes back into the city center. At the same time, trying to find a cab in Austin during SXSW is a lot like the Hunger Games, so I can’t say one wins out here.

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SXSW  is the largest tech conference in the world, had over 30,000 attendees in 2013 and attracts the largest companies and top leaders in the world. SXSW has also been around since 1987 versus 2010 for the Web Summit. Growing from 400 attendees in 2010 to 22,000 this year, there are still a few kinks for the organizers to work out but overall it was a great event as has definitely put Dublin on the tech map. I can easily see it transforming Dublin the way SXSW has transformed Austin. Another exciting development is that the first Irish consulate to be opened in 80 years will now be in Austin. There will most likely be some SXSW-Web Summit cross pollination as well as Dublin-Austin. I will be going to both SXSW and Web Summit next year. Both are great events and well worth the trip.

The Web Summit in Dublin

Posted on by haileyw2015

And we’re off, our BeConnections team will officially be landing in Dublin in the next 2hours, wow, are we ready to rock ‘n roll.

It’s been 3 months of jam packed meetings, preparations, business plan revamps, proposals, emails back and forth to Brian, Emma, Aaron, Paddy and the whole crew… I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re sick of us already (oops!). But the truth is that Hailey and I couldn’t be more excited!!

To put it in perspective, I’ve spent the last 2 weekends cutting out stickers… yes stickers. Like most entrepreneurs, Hailey and I are on a budget, which, means doing stuff ourselves. Since printing out vinyl stickers was too expensive, we asked our local friendly printing shop to buy sticky paper and print out our logo several times, on a dozen A4 sheets. What this meant is that I went home, cut out each logo individually… 600 times, and stuck it onto the lollipops, gum and mini Kitkats that we bought at the supermarket. Total: EUR 30, as opposed to EUR 350. Success!

The best and possibly most awkward moment, however, was on Friday night. Unlike most people my age (28), I was at a printing shop at 22:00 the night of Halloween… no costumes were involved, nor was I having an affair with Jose, our local printing man… instead I was picking up the 500 pamphlets, 1000 flyers and 1500 business cards that we had ordered weeks ago. I ended up chatting with Jose’s young assistant (18) who quickly told me all about his girls problems. Shame, what a sweet and innocent young man. Does it all go downhill after 30? As my aunt would say, the older we get, the more we have to pick from the scraps of men left in the single aisle. Although to their albeit, I have no complaints yet.

Focus, back to the printing shop… Madrid has just installed electric bicycles all over the city, and I used this cheap and environmentally friendly method to get back home, which normally would have been fine except for the unusual circumstances. Imagine this, big birds, Mickey Mouses and assassins walking through out the city center, and me, on my electric bike carrying 15KG of printing material… who’s scarier?

Trying to fit it all in my suitcase, plus clothes and candy is a whole different story…

So who are we meeting? Only the best and brightest of the industry! Hailey has done an awesome job at picking at her old contacts from Silicon Valley (she used to work at the Emerging Technology Fund in Texas). Just to name a few off the top of my head, we’ll sit down with Stewart Rogers from Venture Beat, have a coffee with Bruce Upbin from Forbes, meet with Stephen Partridge from Events.com and chat with Scott Sandell a General Partner at New Enterprise Associates. Two words in capital letters: VERY EXCITING!!

And the best part of all is that we’re just beginning – literally, I’m on the plane on route to Dublin! To kick off the event, Hailey and I will be attending a pub-crawl this evening and one of our investors, Felipe, arrives tonight to give us a hand throughout the week – how nice, right? It promises to be an intense but hopefully rewarding Movember ahead and of course we’ll keep you up to date with our news.

For those reading this post that will also be attending The Summit, shoot us an email and lets grab a Guinness! We can be reached on info@beconnections.com.

Expectations

Posted on by haileyw2015

As entrepreneurs, we are dreamers. We dream everyday and all day about our projects. We spend endless nights worrying, thinking (sometimes overthinking), and planning.

In most cases, our expectations are high, which means a mixed of emotions that affect us personally and professionally. Because if we didn’t expect anything, then we wouldn’t defend our projects time after time, against our family, our friends, a long line of investors, and the occasional hater.

But what happens when our expectations get washed onshore like rubbish on a beach?

That is exactly how we felt on Wednesday,  like empty coke bottles and ripped plastic bags on an impeccable kilometer long white sand beach. Gross, right?

Let me explain. Hailey and I had been floating on cloud nine the past months thinking that our chances to get into The Next Step Challenge were high. I imagined myself living in a bubble in Denmark and soaking in the advice from the most talented entrepreneurs and investors in Europe, and Hailey had already discussed with her boyfriend that she could be away for a few months.

Dreams. Expectations.

After all we had past all the rounds, and when interviewed over the phone had been told that BeConnections was amazing, which we agree, we are amazing.

So what happened? Please feel free to ask the program because we have no idea. I received the typical rejection letter from their manager regretting to inform us that we had not been selected, but that they wanted to keep an eye on us the next 10 months in case we go viral. Upset? No I was beyond that stage. What a weak deal. Rejection is part of life, but we would have appreciated a tailored response.

Of course, I emailed the organizers back, and asked why. Fellow entrepreneurs, that three letter question is so powerful and barely used in our industry. Don’t be afraid to use it, entrepreneurship is a constant learning curve.

To our dismay, we haven’t received a response yet from the program, except for the typical excuse in the letter that BeConnections wasn’t big enough yet. Thanks for that obvious point, we’re a startup and that’s why we wanted to be part of your program. I thought that was the point of an accelerator… “To accelerate.”

Regardless, not to worry fellow readers, it’s not over until the fat lady sings and Hailey and I aren’t even close.

It’s all about the pitch

Posted on by haileyw2015

It’s 2:00 am; I’m sitting on my living room couch with my back hunched gazing at the computer screen. We’ve just applied to another accelerator, this time Techstars… why not?

“No we don’t have a tech co-founder.”

“Need? Where do we begin.”

“Sure, we’ll attach our business plan (sh*t, Hailey?)”

I need a break. More caffeine? Definitely not, I can feel my eyes twitch.

I find myself thinking about my old job, the one with really “long” hours that had a fat paycheck attached to it. I look at my black cat gnawing away at one of my business cards Founder & CEO, and chuckle to myself. I’m actually happier.

I don’t have a penny in the bank, I probably haven’t slept 8 hours continuously since August, my parents live across the street but to them it’s as if I’ve moved to Mars… permanently, and showering has become a chore. But… I feel radiant.

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This is Carly typing by the way… Hailey’s is in the process of moving across the ocean from Austin to London and well, her story is definitely different, as yours probably is too.

Mandela my cat just rubbed up against my leg. I bend down and pick him up. We’ve become best friends since August… is that weird? Anyways, I have other things to worry about at the moment, like our “elevator pitch.” Want to help me?

Elevator pitch. noun. 1. Very concise presentation of an idea covering all of its critical aspects, and delivered within a few seconds (the approximate duration of an elevator ride).

Ok. BeConnections is… scratch that, wait yes, no that sounds awful.. I’m going for a glass of water.

Carly, come on… what’s our pitch? Right. I can put this into words.

“Search, find and connect with partners & suppliers around the world on the first free B2B community and company database online”