Startup America Partnership Webinar
By Sara Hopson ( @sahopson)
Last Wednesday, I settled into the dry oasis of Boston Common Coffee Co. to listen to the Startup America Partnership webinar (great vantage point to watch the Financial District-ers run through sheets of rain to South Station, by the way).
A startup itself, Startup America is seeking to connect 'partners' -- a category including a wide range of industries, from powerhouses like IBM, TechStars, Facebook, to Cisco and HP with entrepreneurs across America. These partners offer services and resources to startups that apply for them and are accepted. (A list of current program partners can be found here.)
The webinar went over the basic structure of the program and the direction it's currently moving in. The next platform launches in mid-August, at which time entrepreneurs get the free, base level (mainly startups looking for mentors, resources, and provided services). To qualify, they would need to be able to provide two basic pieces of information on a regular basis. They would have to report the revenue run rate for the prior month as well as how many full and part-time employees they currently have. Both of these items would be used to help track the progress of the new partners as time goes on.
The webinar, which viewers were able to 'log into' through Twitter or Facebook, as well as utilize the integrated chat feature on the page, acted as an open forum for the SAP hosts to interact with the viewers. Viewer questions covered topics such as how SAP would help with sales, access to mentors, business growth, investor connections, finding and keeping talent. CEO Scott Case, who is also the founding CTO of Priceline.com, also fielded more general questions related to being part of a startup and the current startup ecosystem in America.
Case identified five key areas which his company will focus their energy for the type of high-growth-potential startups that join SAP. Those are expertise, services, talent, customers, and capital. As an example of services provided, Google has commited $100 million in $1000 chunks for its AdWords service to drive better web-search results for companies in SAP. Case said that similar partners will continue to be brought on to help these startups access their customer bases.
When it comes to mentors and investors, Case said that an important aspect of heading a high-growth startup is investing in creating a network of people who care about your success as much as you do, and to think of it as an advisory group. Startup America, on their end, will be working to make mentors and advisors available to partners. Driven Forward's Glen Hellman has more on that with his guest blog post on SAP's website, here.
Startup America wants to help companies who have potential for high growth ("speedups", as SAP lingo terms them) because those are the companies that will create jobs and drive the economy. "Entrepreneurship is a core American value", Case emphasized, and Startup America Partnership is focused on startups because "only through strong entrepreneurship are these companies driven to success."
Although Startup America won't be connecting startups with angel investors or actual seed capital, Case recommended partners have an extremely practiced pitch in order to try to seek out investors for smaller amounts of seed capital ("Persistence, persistence, persistence"). He mentioned TechStars and Startup Weekend as resources for founders to look to for help with raising capital and finding investors.
A couple of the best take-aways I had from the webinar in relation to Swellr were Case's answers to broader questions. Someone asked what the biggest hurdle between idea and launch typically is for founders, and Case replied by saying that it's not so much a hurdle as a lack of persistence to pursue the core idea and be willing to pivot and change -- the biggest single challenge is getting stuck on a path and not listening carefully to customers. Case said he learned this lesson early: Priceline was founded as a telephone service where you would call in to make an offer for air travel. The founders quickly realized, with the advent of e-commerce, that Priceline would be better suited for the Internet.
Another viewer asked if SAP would be helping entrepreneurs write business plans or practice pitches, and although they aren't specifically focused on that, Case offered an example from his own experience -- this time as a former high school athlete -- as advice. He said to think of pitching your company as a sport. Athletes watch tapes of their performances after the fact to hone in on areas of improvement, and startups should be no different. He recommended recording your pitch and watching it back. And again with the persistence: startup founders should "get out there and pitch to everyone about your business."
Startup America Partnership will be doing more webinars throughout the summer as the new platform's launch approaches. Check them out here, as well as on Twitter.
