Here's the meaning of Airbnb logo if you ever wondered 😍
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@svtrip2016
Here's the meaning of Airbnb logo if you ever wondered 😍
Guess what 😍! You can ride Google bikes when you go to Silicon Valley 😍
Airbnb Company. The best community
I was amazed when we went to Airbnb company. Regardless how much people working there, people were very friendly. I don't remember meeting anyone there who didn't smile and welcomed us. That actually shows one of the reasons why Airbnb is a successful company. It is amazing to visit a company that I used their app before. I was able to get clear answers to all my questions when I was there. We had a tour in the company, all of the meetings rooms are designed from the actual listings that are in Airbnb application, which is an interesting fact to me. All in all, I really had fun in Airbnb!
Overheard at the Valley….
These are some memorable comical exchanges I recall from the trip.
(Note: Names such as Echo, Charlie, etc. aren’t code names for specific individuals. They may refer to any individual. Some statements and exchanges are slightly edited for clarity, conciseness and/ translation.)
On our way to hotel from the airport, someone suddenly decides to ask out of nowhere… Echo: How do we get to Golden Gate from here? Bravo: Go straight from here, and take a lefttt. How am I supposed to know??
On our way to Uber’s office… Charlie : If we take Uber to Uber, will it be free?
While going through a posh suburb around Stanford… Tango: We should raise money on IndieGoGo for buying a house here and list it on AirBnB. 21st century beginning!
During a journey in the van… Charlie: Can we stay here another day professor? Prof: No we can’t…. Charlie: Oh come on mannn !
During the Arab panel meeting, someone jokingly asks… Charlie: Professor, will you get into trouble if I decide to stay here? The Panel: you don’t say it. You just do it.
Our host at Pug-and-Play, who is a of Persian origin, says jokingly… “Last week the [head of whatever] from Homeland Security visited us and they had to hide me all day”
After taking free Zynga branded bottles from their office… Echo: Do you feel like working for Zynga? Bravo: No. Do you? Echo: Me neither.
Aayush in the wonderValley
Arrival and Day 0:
So here I was. Finally. In Muricaaahhhhh!!!!!!! That’s what I and a friend of mine refer to the US fondly. This was my first time in America and what a place to be in. Silicon Valley- the place I so aspired and dreamed to be at in the long term. I was already awestruck by San Francisco and neighboring cities when I was gazing through my plane’s window as we were descending at SFO.
“when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Never a believer of this quote but I end up bringing this up every now and then because, well, sometimes this really fits my situations. So the universe granted my wish soon enough (Well when I said I wanted to be at the Silicon Valley, I didn’t mean a short trip. Ahem… perhaps I should have been clearer in my wish to the heavenly ears of the universe).
The American airport experience and NOT!
I am not kidding when I say this. Before this trip, I was wishing I get frisked and pulled aside for interrogation by the TSA. Why? Because this is me. I have some weird, curious and adventurous side to me. Guess what? The universe granted my wish again. Well… sort of! I declared at arrival I had something liable to customs out of dilemma. Turns out they were not liable. Anyways, as I was exiting the airport, I was asked to move to the customs inspection area. Gone were my some 30 minutes and that of the group who were waiting outside for me. Argh!
So folks, if you were on this trip with me and reading this, and assumed I got “randomly” selected, let’s make it clear that - I WAS NOT!
The day after arrival, on Day 0 we went around San Francisco. Amazing city. But since I am not writing this for a travel magazine, let me save my writing and your reading time and skip day 0.
Day 1: The Day at Zynga, 500 Startup and IndieGoGo.
Zynga. Where do I start? I was not at all interested in visiting Zynga although I was and am appreciative of getting to visit and talking to people at Zynga, a famed Silicon Valley company. The first thing that struck me was how the company’s building was not posh enough. It was a big building nevertheless, but I used to think all big tech companies at Silicon Valley have up-market and well-furnished workplace from doors to staircases to all the way up to offices. The offices were elegant but the rest were not so much. It was an eye opener. And I must say it was nice to see a big tech company which was only established less than 10 years ago operating from such a place despite having hundreds of millions in revenue. It was inspiring in the sense that when your startup grows, you need a big enough workplace not posh enough. Oh and did I mention I was surprised to see how they didn’t have security guards at the entrance? Seemed like that area in San Francisco is one safe place! I also must say the meeting at Zynga was uninspiring because most of the questions and answers revolved around technicality of their products and their development. Nothing at all to excite me to come up and go for a startup, or even entice me to join them. Social games weren’t my thing anyways.
500 Startup was up next. A visit to this company was everything I expected out of this trip. A venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator. Again it struck me how the office of a famous company that in turn supports hundreds of startups was not very big and to an extent crowded (Guess I had been looking too much into Google’s and Facebook’s offices).
I asked our host if they support international startups and if they like to see international startups register as US company for having a better investment prospect with VCs. Yes and yes - his elaborated response was like music to my ears.
Another memorable moment for me was when prof. Houda disagreed with our host (a Jordanian) saying it is not helpful for people back at our countries if entrepreneurs like him stay at US and don’t come back. He said along the lines that his type of works will not get enough exposure and investments outside, and it doesn’t matter much for his countrymen if he operates from Jordan or outside. I agree with his latter view with some limitations but totally agree with his first. Where does this put me? Well I lean with our host. Sorry prof. Houda.
IndieGoGo? Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it Superman? Never heard of it before today. Turns out it is like Kickstarter. Such a nice platform to raise money from the crowd for small business, altruistic purpose and even personal issues. I was totally blown away by how the crowd is willing to put money into even mundane stuff. Raising $2m for an altruistic project in Pakistan when asked for only $100k wasn’t surprising enough, then what about raising enough money to replace a chipped tooth? Are people nuts? I think I should start a campaign to raise money for a new laptop.
Day 2:
IDEO? Come again? Like IndieGoGo, I had never heard of IDEO before seeing it on our trip itinerary. A leading and original Design Think company that had helped the likes of even Apple during its early days to design the mouse, IDEO was eye opener for me in how complex and important it is to craft a consumer product from its shape to packaging. And who knew that even big brands have to outsource some of their design works to companies like IDEO because they can’t have a dedicated design team.
Great company. Great location around a residential suburb. Great emblem outside their…. wait! Why didn’t they have a big structure reading their “IDEO” logo hanging above their office entrance? Must be some Design Thinking.
On to Uber Technologies. If the likes of Zynga, IDEO and 500 Startup surprised me with their lax to almost non-existent security, Uber Technologies totally surprised me with their stringent measures. Guards in uniform, internal security gates, etc. I would have forgiven you if you thought you were at an airport terminal. May be its needed when a host of taxi companies are after you. So far Uber’s office had been the first that matched my preconceived imagination of what a big Silicon Valley Startup’s office is supposed to be like.
We were escorted to the meeting room where we were received by our hosts Haider and Rami, and joined by two more Uber employees. Haider and Rami expressed everything we as a group felt lacked from our Zynga hosts. Both were so passionate about what they were doing. Both had good stories to tell about how they made it to US and then to Uber from their respective countries. It’s not the big technology that inspires but the journey of people to tech companies. And their story did inspire me.
And they reminded us that they aren’t a taxi company. They are a tech company investing in arrays of fields from AI to autonomous vehicles whose flagship product happens to be dispatching taxis. Hence Uber Technologies and not Uber Taxi Company.
AirBnB. I am stopping talking about offices and security henceforth. So moving on… we had a tour around the workplace and then to the meeting hall. We were told about the company’s beginnings and its current products. The part about its humble beginning were inspiring- how the 3 co-founders raised money by selling cereals during a 2008 US presidential campaign event and how the three didn’t come from a technical field at all before building this behemoth based on tech.
Most of the questions and answers by our two hosts and us revolved around technicality and the company’s products and how it functions. They were fresh out of college and straight into AirBnB unlike our hosts at Uber. Hence their story was short and uninspiring. It would have been interesting to talk more about the co-founders and things they did to scale the company. But hey… I got to visit AirBnB, can’t complain about it.
Anki. When I was googling for info about the three companies to visit for the day, I totally forgot about Anki. Again, I had no idea what Anki was about. So there we are in front of a skyscraper that reads KPMG. God knows which floor we were taken to by the elevator and I find us crammed into a small meeting room in a mysterious office.
There we were welcomed by Boris Sofman. Our first meeting with a CEO or co-founder on this trip. Anki was young. Founded in 2010, still had just over 100 people in the team, had been raising venture money and were on the verge of releasing their first product. This was the first company we visited that was still in startup phase practically. Boris is a CMU alum who met his co-founders while doing his Ph.D. in Robotics at CMU. He said how the company’s goal is to bring robotics to consumer products. And as first step they are releasing a set toy cars that drives around a track, simulating weapons use and impact like in video games, sensing other cars and maneuvering against rival cars. In short, it is Hotwheels with AI married with Need For Speed.
Technical details aside, Boris was distinctly so passionate about what his company was developing. He talked of how the idea was conceived as part of the co-founders Ph.D. works and how they made a functioning prototype. He mentioned how important it was that his company moved to Bay Area from Pittsburgh. He emphasized the size and system of Silicon Valley Venture Capitalism and how they would not have raised enough money for an idea like theirs anywhere else. Seems like the grass is indeed green in the valley.
Anki was my favorite and most inspiring visit for the day, and also among the best in the entire trip.
Day 3: At the Festival.
So I was told that we will be spending some 7-8 hours on our own at the Launch Festival. I was like “darn… how am I supposed to spend that long in one place? I will be bored in no time.” Oh boy! I was so wrong.
There were three areas hosting three different events for startups. Launch Stage area, Scale stage and AMA (Ask Me Anything) which was basically a pitching platform. There was also an area where dozens of startups were given booths. I was not sure what those booth were up for. Were they looking for investors, customers, or both. I couldn’t figure that entire day. I visited 2-3 booths anyways. One guy at one booth was suddenly eager to explain his product to me. Turns out he saw the Carnegie Mellon logo my jacket. Well… it does help when you are nobody at a place and your famous university makes you something there.
I moved between the three stages back and forth during the course of the day. Labelling boring to the Launch Stage is an understatement. May be I went there during an especially boring talk, I’ll never know. All I know is I couldn’t take it and moved out.
Scale Stage was my favorite. So many engaging and even inspiring 15-20 minute speeches followed by some QnAs. It was like Ted Talks by IT professionals.
AMA Stage was fun too. I sat (stood actually) through 4-5 pitches. Watched decent product with bad presentation, unconvincing product with good presentation, and good product with good presentation. My favorite was Chariot, a Bay Area startup which offered shared van rides to people to commute between home and work supported and managed by a mobile app. Who knew Uber let a small company that offered a somewhat similar product that too in their own geographic domain to breathe!
Day 4: The day at the paradise.
“Is Google God?” Years ago I read a column in a tech magazine with a byline just that. It certainly isn’t but its HQ in Mountain View sprawling among suburbs, green boulevards and even a canal is a paradise, a figurative one for computer scientists and engineers
We were received by our two hosts. They took us around a stretch of their campus including their visitor center which was a replica of their some section of their office. Sleeping pods, massage chairs, small golf playing area inside the office… dayum!
Almost everyone knows Google provides its employees free food. But who knew it also provides its guests? May be we were special case. Anyways, thank you Google… I mean Alphabet... wait… Ok whichever is entitled my appreciation has one from me.
The hosts, both of Arab descent, a man born in US with parents of different heritage, while another was a woman born in Egypt to a normal family. Rayman worked in Sales for Chromebook but had a degree in political science (if I remember correctly) with no prior sales experience at all. Who knew you could get into Google like that? That was amusing until he mentioned Google got 2 million applications last years. Damn it. He killed the small dream I had.
Our Egyptian host Marwa was a software engineer-turned-product manager for Youtube. Her story of personal challenges, and how she assimilated into Google’s workforce coming from a foreign and distinct background was encouraging.
The villain of the day was time. I had so many questions to ask them, but we ran short on time pretty quick. May be we shouldn’t have been allowed to spend that much time taking pictures and enjoy ourselves at the visitor center. Again can’t complain… I got a chance to be at freaking Gooooogleeeee!!!!!!!!!
Quanergy. So the next stop on our itinerary was an energy company except for that it isn’t. That name is deceiving. An autonomous vehicle systems company that developed the sensors and the technology for driverless cars, it had developed a sensor at a meager $250. The car perhaps need more than one sensor to be placed at different sides of the vehicle, but that’s still peanuts compared to the $80k bulky device Google is using for their system currently.
The QnA session with the CEO and co-founder Louay Eldada was absorbing and intense. Many of us were so excited about his system and his background. His journey from Lebanon as a student, being sponsored for his PhD by DARPA, founding several companies and making successful exits before hitting the biggest jackpot in terms of valuation and ground-breaking technology with Quanergy made for a captivating story.
We as students couldn’t relate to his experience and situation. He had a Ph.D., founded several companies in the meantime and his current technology was developed over 25 years with some loyal people who were with him all along the way. But we could relate to the man. There were many of us non-Arabs who hailed mostly from the subcontinent and feel inspired by his achievement. For me, it was a lesson on the importance of perseverance, scholarship and team loyalty.
I also felt privileged as Eldada told that he felt like at home with us and told some secrets that he would have not told other people. I feel that way despite having us sign a NDA. I will certainly keep an eye on this company. This company has the tech for being a next big thing.
Plug and Play. You will be forgiven to guess that this is a music service for your phone. It is a leading incubator and accelerator for startups which supports international companies too and has tie ups with 12 governments around the world. After a tour around the offices, we were taken to the top floor for a session with a panel of five Arab entrepreneurs at different stages of their life as well as their startups.
Most inspiring among them was an 80 something entrepreneur. I had this nagging feeling that if I don’t have an idea for my first startup by the time I reach 30, I will never have a startup because it will be too late to pursue a first startup after that age. I don’t know why I had this thought. It bothered me a lot. But after hearing him, that thought went away to a great extent.
The panel underlined that failure is a sort of achievement in the Valley. They talked about how some of the traditions we hold on to in our countries are holding us back in terms of innovations, how it is so very different in the Valley, how you are supposed to embrace and adapt to the Valley instead of trying to hold on too much to your cultural norms, and also the importance of work ethics and persistence. Among the main take away was how startups aren’t for everybody. You don’t look to start a startup, it happens as a result of trying to turn a good idea into something usable and tangible.
Day 5:
Took pictures around Facebook’s campus. Went to Stanford. Met a close friend who I thought I would never meet again after he graduated last Spring. And finally the airport for an arduous 16 hour flight.
And did I mention Stanford campus is so beautiful? If Stanford was a girl, I would have knelt already. Might as well send roses to the campus next February.
Silicon Valley 101
[..] My purpose to bring you here is not necessarily to just bring back the startup culture in Middle East. My purpose regarding this trip, my expectation is to complete your academic education by inspiring you and providing you with opportunities to complement what you have learned in class - Prof. Maher Hakim on answering my question at the Arab Panel
WARNING : LONG AND IMPULSIVE POST
In most of the companies we visited, we had a QnA session at the end, and one of the recurring questions was “How can we bring the culture of Silicon Valley to Qatar/Middle East” or “How can we get back our Arab Entrepreneurs in the valley?” to which Zafer Younis from 500 startups very well said that “It does not matter as the goal of helping entrepreneurs and these students is to help them succeed. It does not matter if they come back or not” Ultimately, they are inspiring the little wantrepreneurs by representing that region. It does not matter whether they do a startup in Middle East or U.S. Later in the Arab Panel when our Professor asked us for reflections, I asked him a question that what are his expectations from us after the trip or in other words, what was the purpose of this trip, and he gave me the answer I expected him to give that how he values individual learning more than anything. He further elaborated that “It is also not necessary that all the people here go for a startup after graduation as this is not the purpose of the trip. In fact, I would be glad if you can get inspired, work for and learn from one of these big companies.”
And with that I would put out a do and don’t an important lesson for wantrepreneurs (aspiring entrepreneurs) out there i.e.
Startup is not something that is forced. Do not try too hard for a startup if you are not interested to do that. Do not do a startup just because it is cool. Yes, do a startup if you have a problem that will burst your head if not solved. Do a startup if you want to be independent. Do a startup if you think you can contribute and be recognized on a bigger scale for your work and that it would be impossible to do that if you work for bigger crowded companies.
With that being said, I don’t disagree that there is a need for the Arab region to grow in terms of product development and entrepreneurs. I also don’t have any objection at the question about how the culture of the valley can be brought back. What I just want to say out loud to the next year’s batch is that when you describe your reason to visit the valley, it is nice but not necessary to say “I want to bring the culture of silicon valley back to Qatar.” And as Professor Maher Hakim said and as we saw in the Valley that even if we work in U.S, we are representing and helping this region one way or the other.
With that being said, here are some interesting and favorite things I observed in the valley :
1) Good Questions all around : Unlike most of the conferences/seminars I attend, all the questions that our group asked in the qna sessions were relevant and important. Before we went to a company, we used to do a 20 minute research at the breakfast table about the company and what’s going on with it. Later in the van we used to tell each other about the company and our findings to give context before meeting. Now the purpose of the research was not to “think” of a very critical/controversial question that we could ask the reps (representatives) and score. Yes, many people do that in the seminars and but it’s just unhealthy way to think about it. The purpose of the research was to see if there was any question that was bugging us or that got ‘triggered’ from that research. So if you have to “think” of a question, you really don’t have a question.
2) Similar cultures in companies : Interestingly, most of the companies had wide open spaces, no executive offices to tone down hierarchy and encourage collaboration. Interestingly, almost all the companies (Uber,500 Startups, AirBnB,etc) we visited had their rooms named after cities (Paris,Dubai,Dublin,etc). So if you are in a room and someone calls you to ask where are you, you can sound cool and say, “I am in Paris.”
Picture Source : Link
3) Post-Conversations : After each visit, we used to argue in the van about the company. Some topics we discussed were : So would you like to work for the company if offered (many of us said No for Zynga), This guy (Louay Eldada from Quanergy) is the boss, Anki could have done a better start than starting with a toy, AirBnB offices were amazing, why Zynga is not stable company to work, how inspiring Marwa Mabrouk from Google was, whether Kashmir belongs to India or Pakistan, Egyptians are smart or not, most of the startups at launch festival were useless, difference between cmu and stanford, how we could have worked hard to get into stanford, etcetra. HAVE THESE CONVERSATIONS. These are amazing ways to learn, especially learn at times why your thinking is wrong. These conversations are best to observe things. Trust me.
4) Do not underestimate : When we went for Quanergy, we all literally thought that it is some small company with an Arab CEO trying to copy google’s self-driving car and that it would not be worth our time. Let me tell you, this became everyone’s most favorite company. This was as big as any other company. The guy (CEO) had an amazing personality and man he was the smartest man many of us had met.
5) Google and Stanford : Visit to Google was my favorite part of the trip. Not because of obvious reasons of it being amazing. But because of the inspiring talk we had. Host Marwa Mabrouk told her inspiring story which we all could relate to. She told us her struggles of the conservative society, and how she had to call “Mufti” to talk to her mom in Egypt to let her go to US for work as her mom was not ready. Also, we cycled around the beautiful Google campus on GBikes. Amazing right?
The second most favorite part of the trip was Stanford, and for obvious reasons. CMU Alum, Dilsher and Fahim received us. Dilsher told us about the ecosystem at Stanford and differences in CMUQ and Stanford. How Stanford does not have any invigilators in exams as it trusts its students. How it does not use plagiarism detectors, etc. The campus was just beautiful, and the weather was amazing as it was pouring. Silicon Valley has a great advantage of Stanford as it is primary source of smart founders and engineers here or in other words as my brother writes, the source of mana of Silicon Valley. Warning when you visit : You will get depressed thinking why you are not part of it. But yet it is an inspiring place to visit and eat amazing Waffle fries.
Picture Source : Link
Places we visited : Zynga, 500 startups, Indiegogo, Ideo, AirBnB, Anki, Uber, Google, everyone’s favorite Quanergy, Facebook (from outside),Launch Festival 2016, Plug and Play, and Stanford.
And I say this with zero exaggeration that this trip was and will be the best and the most inspiring trip of my life. Finally, I would like to end this blog post with something I feel is important :
Never think less of yourself. It is highly likely that when you visit Google, AirBnB, Quanergy or Stanford, you would feel depressed to see how smart people are, how people younger than you are part of it and that you aren’t. How you could have done better in classes/SATs to get into Stanford. Not that this is a wrong way, but this is just an unhealthy way to think about things you “could” have done. Think about things you “can” do. There’s no way you cannot work in Google. There is no way you cannot be successful. All you need to do is work hard and not procrastinate and above all enjoy what you do.
- Shahan Ali Memon
SanFran Day 1 - 500 Startups & Indiegogo
500 Startups
Our visit to 500 startups was nothing short of exciting and insightful. 500 Startups is a startup accelerator based in the bay area and founded by the famous entrepreneur Dave McClure. The accelerator is probably the second most successful startup accelerator after the y-combinator. Like many other accelerators, 500 Startups invests $100K in startups in exchange for 5% equity. Their investment philosophy is very interesting.
Rather than trying to find the next big startup out of hundreds, what the accelerator does is that they invest in hundreds of startups who go through a very rigorous selection process hoping that one or two would become unicorns one day.
Our host in 500 Startups was Zafer Younis, a jordanian entrepreneur who successfully sold his company in Jordan and joined 500 startups initially as an entrepreneur in residence and later on became a partner responsible for screening and investing in startups.
Zafer Younis gave us a tour of the facility and walked us through the value proposition of the 500 Startups. In addition to the equity investment it makes in each of its startups, the accelerator also assigns an EIR (entrepreneur in residence) and a growth hacker to each startup. EIR are previous startup founders who had a successful exit and who joined 500 startups to help startups hosted by the accelerator in building their product with the hope of finding a good product market/fit. Growth hackers on the other hand are responsible for helping startups generate demand for the product either through increased traffic or installs or other ways.
Zafer also noted that most of the startups hosted by 500 startups passed the idea and prototype phase and already have developed a base of users. Many of the startups hosted weren’t at the seed stage. In fact, as Zafer said, some were at the growth stage with users bases in the 10s of thousands. Clearly, the program was highly competitive.
Few keys topics discussed by Zafer were interesting to some of the audience members who aren’t necessarily familiar with the startup world. For example, some of us came with the idea that startups should have business plans prepared to pitch before investors. With a smile on his face, Zafer said that nobody looks at business plans in the bay area for early stage startups as no one can really predict a startup’s future at that stage. He also stressed on the importance of for a startup of knowing their “unit economics“. These are things like the churn rate at which users leave the app/website, the cost of user acquisition, the user lifetime value. The last two are of great importance as startups can’t survive in the long run unless their customer lifetime value is less than the cost per user acquisition.
Our conversion diverged into the reasons why the startup culture is weak in the MENA region. Few points that were discussed were in relation to the risk averseness, lack of VC funds directed to growth stages, red-tape and highly fragmented markets and lack of technology adoption and penetration.
All in all, Zafer’s talk was inspiring and informative. It was indeed very motivating to see a person who started and built a successful startup in Jordan ending up being a major influencer in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the bay area. Few people have the opportunity to manage startup fund investments, even less so as part of a successful accelerator like 500 startups. I will end this on a thing Zafer said that resonated with me: “You can’t expect people to innovate and then penalize them for failure. Innovation doesn’t happen without failure”
Indiegogo
In Indiegogo we met Breanna DiGiammarino, Senior Director of social innovation. Breanna shared with us few key tips on building successful Indiegogo campaign. For those who aren’t familiar with Indiegogo, the website is a crowdfunding platform similar to Kickstarter. The unique selling point about Indiegogo is that support they offer to campaigners with dedicated account manager to help campaigners reach their crowdfunding goals.
Here are few of the tips Breanna shared with us on how to start successful crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo:
Start with small goals and leverage your network to achieve the goals:
The first tip Breanna shared with us is to have small amount to raise than that in mind and then trying to convince friends, family and colleagues to contribute to help raise it to 30%. From Indiegogo’s research, campaigners should at least be able to reach 30% of their campaign goals just by leveraging their social circles. When that number is hit, it becomes much easier for other people to think of the campaign as a legitimate and credible one and therefore put some of their money in it. After the goal is reached, the campaigner can always activate Indiegogo InDemand to raise more money.
Create the buzz around the campaign with a coming soon page:
Rather than trying to get traction the same day the campaign is launched, it is much better to create some buzz before you start the campaign. This can be easily done through a coming soon page where campaigners can add videos and brief description of who they are and what they are trying to achieve with their idea.
Campaigns with video are much more successful than campaigns without videos:
People love visual content. While, I don’t remember the exact figure, the amount of money raised by campaigns that included video to describe the idea and to introduce the campaigner seem to raise much more money than campaigns that don’t include videos. Videos don’t need to be professional level productions but definitely need to have the personal touch of the campaigner.
Communication before, during and after the campaign:
To insure that people always have your campaign in mind, it is important to have few touch points with them either through social media, sms, email...etc. From Indiegogo’s research, email surprisingly seems to be the channels with the highest conversion rate across the three. At any rate, independently of what channel the campaigner prefers to use, being always in constant communication with people is key. Breanna recommended that campaigner should have had at least 2 to 3 communication messages with crowdfunders before launching the campaign. Of course, after launching the campaign staying in touch with the audience by updating them on the progress on the project is key to ensuring trust of the crowdfunders.
This is was it for day 1. More on the other days to come.
-Anas
One of the best things!!
( CEO of Quanergy Company ) Today we met the CEO of Quanergy company. I would like to write this post about the CEO of the company because he it worth to talk to about. Dr. Louay ElDada is such an amazing man and meeting him considered as one of the best thing that happened in this trip, that is why I consider myself lucky. You may wonder what is so special about Dr. Louay and let me tell you what. He is so humble and down to earth, despite the fact that he is very very busy, he was actually thanking us for coming to and he was so happy to the point that he shared with us a lot of things that he wouldn't talk about in public. The fact that he is so proud of himself as an arab successful entrepreneur gave us all motivation and energy. As Dr. Louay told us "never forget where you come from and always work hard". -Noor AlQaedi
Takeaways from SV (I)
- The cereal entrepreneur idea from airbnb: the founders in their tough, early days sold cleverly designed cereal boxes to keep their start up alive, which impressed Y-Combinator who described them as persevering 'cock-roaches'.. - Anki founder's suggestion that perhaps masters is a sweet spot if you're unsure between further studies and joining/launching a start up. The idea that he was trying to project was that if your idea is complex and/or technical then you lose most competition straight away.. Couple examples of this that we saw were ANKI and Quanergy. A phD can be an option depending on your interests and ambitions. - one idea that IDEO gave us (!) was that sometimes an 'anthropological analysis' is more beneficial than statistical analysis. Talking to a few people in a highly detailed and personal session rather than surveying a large number of people with a short questionnaire can often work much better. - having like-minded individuals physically around you, if not necessary, is super important (Silicon Valley is the perfect example). - choosing the right idea and the right market for your product is important. an example is the Arab woman, whose always lived in an Arab country, but is doing a jewellery startup where the main market is US (narrated by zafer younis). - 99.9% of ideas fail. Accept and embrace that. Calculated risk taking is therefore needed. - IDEO had the intentional kitchen and collective eating space for people to interact and share ideas across teams and in an informal, casual setting because they believed that often the best ideas do not come from a workspace. - Uber. The large company that tries to make itself feel like a start up. Making everyone feel like they can have a large impact even there's lots of employees. Bottoms up initiative taking. Spreading power to the roots. - Airbnb. They portrayed the guest experience through a picture story. They continue to add slides in between to make it a complete user service instead of just a rent out. - The idea of starting businesses from specific to broad. For example, airbnb started with hosting for a single event - Cereal entrepreneur idea from airbnb - Anki founder suggestion that masters is a sweet spot. How studying something beyond UG gives you a depth to lose most competitors - IDEO, the idea that sometimes an 'anthropological analysis' is more beneficial than statistical analysis. Talking to a few people in high depth rather than surveying a large number of people with a short questionnaire - having like-minded individuals physically around you is super important (SV is the perfect example) - choosing the right idea and the right market for your product is important. Example the Arab woman who is doing a jewellery startup and her main audience is US (zafer younis) - 99.9% of ideas fail. - IDEO the intentional kitchen and collective eating space for people to interact and share ideas across teams and in an informal, casual setting - uber. The large company that feels like a start up. Making everyone feel like they can have a large impact even there's lots of employees. Bottoms up initiative taking. Spreading power to the roots - airbnb the guest experience through a picture story. Adding slides in between to make it more complete - starting businesses from broad to specific. Examples airbnb started with hosting for single event (a design conference), anki started with a simple car racing product even though the visions of these companies are much bigger. Thus, having a big vision but starting small is a nice characteristic to have in a company. - the importance of design - getting rid of fear of failure, whether it be grades or entrepreneurship or your career in general - the idea that creating ways to use existing products better instead of creating new products can also work. Examples include uber, duolingo and airbnb, all examples of crowd sourcing. The masses helping the masses. - early in life, there is more room for mistakes and changing paths and trying new things. Don't settle, don't go for a stable job or the better income. But try to explore and reach your potential because it can be much more fulfilling. (Qasim)
Thank you Louay Eldada for a very inspiring visit. We wish you and Quanergy all the success! What an amazing potential!
My absolute favorite talk so far. I have tears in my eyes. Thank you Marwa! Maher
IDEO for design lovers!!
Second day was amazing, we went to several companies such as IDEO. IDEO is a design company, they do product & digital design. I was amazed by the products that they have made. Big companies such as Apple consider IDEO to design their products. IDEO consider users as a critical part of their design process, which is one of the main reasons of their success. We went to the physical space of their work, we saw the actual process of prototyping. I really liked that because I could relate it to what I studied in CMU! -Noor AlQaedi
Currently at Google 😍 walking around the company and see in real all the things I heard about before. -Noor
Beside visiting companies and learn from the people we meet and see how the environment looks like in each company, professors make sure that we visit well known places in SF as well. One of them was the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco's most famous landmark. It was an amazing place as we saw the sunset there. -Noor AlQaedi
Launch Festival; SCIO
During the event, there was many talks and pitches happening and students were given the freedom to decide where and what to attend. While some decided to visit and learn from amazing successful founders who shared their success stories and gave tips on tackling tough issues; others along myself were interested in new ideas emerging to the market. One of those that caught my eye the most is Scio: a sensor that scans materials or physical objects whivh allows yoi to get instant relevant information to your smartphone regarding food, medicine, and more. It is the world's first affordable molecular sensor that fits in the palm of your hand. Scio is a tiny spectrometer and allows you to get instant relevant information about the chemical make-up of materials around us, sent directly to our smartphone. The founder himself showed us a demo of how it works and it was just brilliant, it took less than a second in the analysis of the object being scanned and another second in revealing the results. Hope to meet other inspiring entrepreneurs in the exciting days to come. -Abed
Bless Up and let us start up
Within this whole world, it can be one word or more that can make it happen. “Business” can be one of them, but it is most importantly the communication between all of us. I assume in the other part of the world, we are just some sort of package that are interested in money more than its value, in failures more than success, in “me” more than “us”. But let us take a moment and ask ourselves this question: “ what would happen if we all decided to work as a team? If we left me and started saying I? If we started to think about ideas instead of waiting for them to happen? If for one moment, we just keep our differences outside and focus on the “idea” itself or at least what matters? If we just stop sleeping and start working on the dream so it become a reality that even the dictionary removed the word “dream” from its content? We keep depending on others, we focus on weakness points of others, we…but let us stop again for a moment and observe what others can do because in reality, believe it or not, middle east owns a high capacity of brains that can run the whole world if they just use it appropriately. This trip has taught me a lot, not just business terms, but actually about the whole life in general. How beautiful it is to work in an optimistic supportive environment where everyone strives for a better product that can help their own people and the other part of a world? Comfortable, optimistic, team spirit, communication and value are key words in every business or start up company. But the highlights of the company are all related to these keys proportionally that if one of them declines, the whole thing is going down with it. In the end, it is nice to think of the people out there who will thank you one day for your product at an affordable price rate. The last question is:“What is it that they want and they don’t have? Their need is essential to the business out there. I am sure that Education City has needs, Qatar has needs, all people have needs,…so you can think of more than 100 ideas that can serve them. Smile and start up your day with an idea. In the end and in the middle of darkness, all we need is one white dot which can later expand and make the whole painting beautiful with all the dots complimenting each other forming a perfect essence and pleasure for humanity race. Smile because you are alive. Smile because there is minimum one person in Africa dying from hunger and poverty. Smile because we have all the resources to do so. Smile and appreciate what Qatar gave us, because it deserves to get more appreciation at some point. A start up would be a great idea for me, you, Qatar, Middle East and the world. Sheikha Salwan Abou Salem "Learn how to live and give before the other life happens.”
A good Mix of Learning and Fun
Applying for this trip back in December, and never been on a university trip before, I never knew what this experience would be like. I still remember being double minded about going, but boy, never have I been so wrong in my life. it has been a wonderful experience where at each step we leaned something new and at the same time the very next thing that we went for was a recreational activity. The blend was perfect.
Every company we went to, provided an exceptional lesson to be learned and i never realised until now how the minds of the startup owners work. How do they overcome the risk involved in taking this route and most of all the inspiration that comes with this.
There is so much to look forward to in this this trip, there is so much to learn, that it would be a crime to walk away from this without leaning anything, without having it impacted the way you think, without having to realise how lucky you are to be here and how important something like this could be for the life you have to live ahead.
This is the only University Trip that I have attended in my stay at CMU-Q and I am glad it is that way. The best experience I have had :)
AIM