startupfest 2016: jevon macdonald (startupindex.ca) - how to

Taste it again, for the first

time.

Or more accurately…

The first time,all over again

ABOUT ME● Have always been trying to be an

entrepreneur● Generally a bad student and

unemployable● Recently: Just spent 3 years at an

acquirer. ● Left in Nov and now starting a new

company● Very enterprise. Very platform.

It’s good to learn…

Back at the beginning...

Holy shit it has been 20 years??

Things first-timers do...

WHAT WE DID WRONG

7 ‘co-founders’

Unclear roles

Nobody had any actual experience

No vesting

Evenly split cap table w/ no vesting

Weak outside support/advisory

ADVANTAGES

We were early

No distractions(other than Counterstrike and Starcraft)

Raw talent

Clear implicit leadership(meritocracy, I was at the bottom…)

Unconstrained sense of potential (ego?)

It’s good to learn…

but things change and sometimes

you forget things too

“Facebook for the Enterprise, before Facebook was really a thing... so you have no idea what it is…”

– should have been our slogan

Team

Product

Market

Shitty

Not committed

Didn’t exist yet

Things I did all over again

WHAT WE DID WRONG

We moved really really really slowly

We didn’t release often

Didn’t listen to customers

Told people they were doing things wrong

Didn’t know a thing about the enterprise

Didn’t invest enough in making early customers “wildly successful”

… and more...

ADVANTAGES

We saw the future

We made something people could see

Built amazing relationships with analysts in our space

can’t think of any more...

$50m, superstar co-founders, and a market that is exploding

So then...

What can

change?

Team

Product

Market

Still Shitty

Kind of amazing

Got really massive

I didn’t want to do any of that again.

Not even close.

So, then . . .

Team

Product

Market

People loved

Really special

Grows every.Single.Year.

Being early

Being smart

Being reassured

Social proof

Reducing risk

Sexy product

Something to talk about

...

Use to care about Now caring about

TEAM

Clarity of roleValue = Equity

PRODUCT

Clarity of purposeValue = $

MARKET

Growth rate = Opportunity

Role of buyer

Speed, speed, speed

Start company Jan 1 2011

Raise Seed Round – 1.7mApril 1 2011

Launch @ Techcrunch

DisruptSept 2011

From:marc@salesforce.com

Subject: AlohaDefinitive AgreementJuly 4 2012

~18 months

Holy shit that was fast

15 years distilled into 18 months of execution

It was still a whole lot of luckBut luck is easy to screw up

So you better be ready for it when it comes around

And now... 18 years of execution

Team

Product

Market

Not just tech

Have been there before Mind

boggling.

Thank you!

Jevon MacDonald / jevonm@gmail.com / @jevon

co-founder arigato.sh