Yes as the titled suggest, Silicon Valley comes to Malaysia is a 2 days event held in KL where speakers from the Valley comes to KL for a conference. Malaysia managed to invite Jawed Karim, co-founder of YouTube, Shawn Fanning of the legendary Napster and LinkedIn’s founder Konstantin Guericke to be part of the event. While I couldn’t be there for the event, have been following the tweets and things are really exciting over at KL. Some of the takeaway from the tweets:
- I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying. -Michael Jordan
- Once u stop working on your startup,it dies
- Perseverence pays off, keep on going, keep on talking to people, keep on learning- Paul Bragiel
- Advice to entrepreneurs “Stop making excuses! but this, but that — cry me a river! Just go do stuff!”
- Malaysian, stop saying you dont have time + money and you want angels to invest on you.
- Kulveer Tagger: Become Creative is the first step to be entrepreneur
- Paul: part-timer is a red flag for me, you have to commit
- If u r serious in becoming an entrepreneur, stop making excuses, go do it!
- Firmly believes this is the Asian century – Patrick Ennis, Ph.D, Head of Technology, Intellectual Ventures
- Focus on a single and clear message to avoid confusing the marketplace
- When pitching for funding use data driven presentation and social proof to convince investors
- To advance need imagination and a large pile of junk. Hv to let mind roam free. Edison same thing with lightbulb
- Always hire attitude and enthusiasm over experience
- Don’t change the work to fit the people. Your people should fit a specific business objective
- Jeff Hoffman: Business plan is meant for all key measurements you have to track & fine-tune not the answer to your business
- The shame in life is not failure, the shame in life is not trying. – Jeff Hoffman
- When things fail in business, do a post mortem at the end of the day and learn what mistakes we have made.
- Jeff Hoffman on analytics -“Don’t overanalyse the frontend, ask your customer. However, tune your business arnd d backend analytics”
- A business plan is not to place all the answers, it is to place all the questions
- Do you think your customer will like it? Just ask them!
- “Don’t just do a 2.0 of an idea, start without gravity to that idea” – Priceline’s Jeff Hoffman
- Blue sky strategy: Pretend that the industry doesn’t exist, and pretend that there is no gravity.
- Jeff Hoffman (Priceline), don’t take advice from golfers, if you are playing baseball
- Assume that people will leave you, because you want the people who work for you are smart enough and will leave become the next CEO
- You don’t hire resumes, you hire character and integrity
- “Get in there. Once you’re in place, you’re harder to dislodge” – Priceline’s Jeff Hoffman
- Evander Holyfield – the difference between 299 and 300 is the difference between being the world champion or any other boxer.
- What’s the secret to sucess? While you were looking for the secret, I was busy at work. – Hoffman
- Success tip: Surround yourself with people smarter than you.
- J. Hoffman, Priceline: If you haven’t failed, you haven’t pushed the envelope enough
- Build your team around THEIR GOALS, not yours.
- Build your team – you CANNOT do this alone, you are not as smart as you think you are. Surround yourself with people smarter than you
- You might not be the smartest person in the room but just launch what u want to do
- You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room. Just get up and launch
- Validate your business idea with the customer, not the people around you
- Know what you want to “play”. Don’t talk to golfers if you want to be a baseball star.
- compile data, connect the dots and ask the big question – what can I do today that I couldn’t yesterday?
- Info-Sponging: At start of your day and let your mind wander – wonder, click, repeat. Look for disruptive events and convergence.
- Most innovative people – take time to explore, go somewhere, get outside of your lil bubbled world
- You don’t have to know everything to be a successful business owner, you have to LEAD! Build a team
- The people of Silicon Valley are not smarter than us. They just start working on their ideas why we stay and complain how hard it is
- Anything in life that is worth doing is hard.
- make a product that others didn’t make and what might delights
- If your goal is to make money as an entrepreneur, you’re better off employed
- Be passionate. Believe. Be innovative – think ahead! – Jonas Kjellberg
- Entrepreneurs, be prepared that you won’t get funding. If the money isn’t here, go to where it is!
- When sourcing for funding, keep in mind of what you can add to them rather than what they can do for you
- “if we’ve a limited budget, where should we spend?” “Marketing. Not office.”
- Panelists message – VCs want to see passion. No passion, no funding
So much excitement going on! Hopefully there will be a Silicon Valley comes to Singapore soon. I bet the participants of the event is fully motivated to work on their startup right now.