Everyone Funding Startups

Dara Albright explains why Facebook's IPO is symptomatic of broken public markets and how retail investors are "no longer willing to serve as the exit strategy for the privileged." Dara also brings hope. She discusses how the the JOBS Act will democratize capital formation and return the public markets to their rightful place as the engines of economic growth.

Our tour guide for this episode is Carole Wai Hai, founder of the Beijing-based startup grassRoots’ly. Carole uses her personal experience to provide entrepreneurs and investors with an inside look at the landscape they would encounter in China’s capital city.

Have you ever found yourself leaving a business trip with the unsettling feeling that you spent too much and learned too little? On this week's episode of the Grow VC Everyone Funding Startups podcast, Fred Caballero (@fredchannel), C0-Founder of StartupStay (@StartupStay), discusses how his venture hopes to end this feeling forever by connecting traveling entrepreneurs with local counterparts willing to host.

This week's episode of the Grow VC Everyone Funding Startups podcast features Dave Olson (@daveohoots), VP of Community at HootSuite - the leading social media dashboard for managing social networks.

This week’s episode of the Grow VC Everyone Funding Startups Podcast explores the link between global entrepreneurship and international diplomacy. Joining us to discuss this powerful connection is Shelly Porges – Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of State and director of the department’s Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP). Shelly describes the startup ecosystems that exist in GEP target countries and the successes and challenges she has experienced in her quest to spur global innovation.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking the “play” button below or through this direct link  (right click to save).

• General mission of the Global Entrepreneurship Program (00:50)

• The link between entrepreneurship and international diplomacy (03:20)

• Specific examples of Global Entrepreneurship Program projects (11:00)

• What does startup finance look like on the global scale (12:50)

• Can impact investing play a role in this space (16:50)

• How will the increased use of crowdfunding affect global startup financing (20:10)

• How to get involved with the Global Entrepreneurship Program (25:00)

Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode of Everyone Funding Startups. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or connect on twitter at @rdavidwill.

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This week we were joined by Dr Jo Twist, CEO of the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (UKIE), to discuss the potential impact of crowdfunding on startups and developers in areas such as gaming and digital media worldwide.

UKIE is the only trade body for the UK’s wider interactive entertainment industry. It exists to champion the interests, needs and positive image of the videogames and interactive entertainment industry whose companies make up its membership.

In February 2012 UKIE released its Crowdfunding Report, which outlines why access to finance is a key barrier to growing the interactive entertainment industry in the UK.

Listen to the podcast on the player below or here directly (save as for mp3):

An overview of UKIE and Jo’s background in tech journalism, digital media, and academia (00:30)

Why ‘gamification’ isn’t the answer to everything in user experience (03:14)

What prompted UKIE to publish its report on crowdfunding (04:40)

The different models of crowdfunding and how they can help startups and developers in Interactive Entertainment (09:30)

The impact of the recent UK Budget on the industry (16:42)

UKIE’s events for startups and developers (19:55)

How to get in touch with Jo and how to get involved with UKIE (22:30)

You can learn more about UKIE and become a member by going to their website http://www.ukie.org.uk. Follow Jo and UKIE on Twitter and get in touch with Jo by email at [email protected]!

Development Capital Networks produces the WBT Innovation Marketplace, in order to connect the dots between investors, licensees and entrepreneurs. This year the WBT is organized the 22 and 23 March, in Arlington, Texas. Jouko from GrowVC will join a panel on the future of venture capital in the event – we’re looking forward to it!

We were joined by Amanda Radovic, the executive director of the WBT Innovation Marketplace. Having a very international perspective with activities all over the country and even outside the US, we explored the relationship between different regions and even countries. The relationship between Texas and Mexico is particularly interesting, as well as the relationship to Latin America.

Listen to the episode on the player below.

Some quotes from the episode:

This years theme is very much focused on open innovation. Really opening those doors, sharing what these unmet needs are and having the startups and spin-outs, the universities and the federal labs really demonstrate their capabilities to partner, to license technologies and to work with the VC community.

You kind of wonder, well how does an activity like mentoring a company lead to economic development? But, it’s all part of an ecosystem.

Best bits from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona!  

A lot of changes have occurred since the MWC was set up. Jouko joined me after spending the week in Barcelona and reported on the congress.

How has the field developed and what should startups take into account with the changing ecosystems and shifting landscape? What does Jouko state about the Microsoft-Nokia ecosystem and its future?

We talked about global developments too, where the US and Asia are pushing the envelope in terms of the entire mobile field. Where on the globe are the largest areas of opportunities in the mobile area? Where does the open source development fit into this progress?

Listen to the podcast on the player below.

“In that way I would say, that it’s hard to say anything really significant and new in Europe in mobile, compared to what the situation was in the 90’s.”

Bill Attinger, founder and CEO of ActSeed and mentor to thousands of entrepreneurs in their community, joined us for a chat to discuss some common denominators in entrepreneurship and how value is driven on a global scale. With many shared values between Grow VC and ActSeed, it is easy to identify and relate to many of the point brought up in our own operations.

Listen to the episode for topical points on starting up ventures, creating and sustaining value, the “Let’s just talk about it” – syndrome and many other subjects that are relevant for startups and their stakeholders alike.

Listen to the episode in the player below.

Here are some quotes from the episode:

Actseed aims to solve the real problems of what we call, ‘unnecessary failure’

We have a real, I think a real misunderstanding, a common global misunderstanding of what entrepreneurship is and we think it all comes from a few spots: Silicon Valley, that it’s Google, that it’s Microsoft in its day or Apple.

You can’t create the perfect template about how to create the perfect business. That’s kind of what makes it exciting, because you will never create the universal template.

The attention economy works for a select few, whereas the wallet economy works for all of us.

First of all, the teams to come out of Startupbootcamp are just amazing! We’re delighted to see the program expand, to see the impact it can make on a larger scale!

We talked with Ciprian Borodescu from the startup Webcrumbz and about their experiences from graduating from the bootcamp and taking their startup further.

Listen to the episode on the player below.

It was an exciting discussion on many levels. 

An experienced technical team going in to the bootcamp program, stepping outside  their comfort zones and examining the full panorama of the startup life cycle. One can just imagine an expert in the technical field going out to the streets of Copenhagen, selling a product even before it is developed. Unthinkable!

The teams experiences from the program seem vast, from what Ciprian shared with us, from serving as an eye-opener on some levels and shifting their focus away from developing a product or more features, to focusing on the customers needs and feedback.