Augusto Coppola co-founder & CEO Innovation Lab

1. Idea vs Team
What will drive you to success
Augusto Coppola
co-founder InnovAction Lab

2. Experts

3. My first startup

4. What I mean by “success”?
60x

5. What investors thought about me
Pure genius

6. VC Consultant

7. InnovAction Lab

8. What's the secret ingredient for success?
There is no secret ingredient
(Po, Kung Fu Panda)

9. My second startup

10. What I mean by “failure”?
0x

11. What investors thought about me
@#*WTF@]+!

12. No one understands a nut (not only me!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_Venture_Partners
We said no to: eBay, Apple, Intel, PayPal
(http://www.bvp.com/Portfolio/AntiPortfolio.aspx)

13. Vision
Mission

14. ... no kidding, I’m serious
Vision/Mission Statement Generators are freely available:
http://www.timmcnulty.iofm.net/missionstatement.htm
http://www.isms.org.uk/mission%20statement.htm
http://www.laughing-buddha.net/toys/mission?
Our challenge is to assertively network economically sound
methods of empowerment so that we may continually
negotiate performance based infrastructures
(generated by Dilbert ‘s Mission Generator)

15. Vision: why do we do it?
Understanding trends to anticipate value

16. Visions: examples
Microsoft 1978
A computer on each single office desk
My first startup 1996
New services will be enabled and provided by Internet
My second startup 2002
Money will not be the only currency

17. 4 qualities of a good vision
1. Short (and written in plain English)
2. Easy to understand (also if arguable)
3. Comes true quite rapidly (less than 5 years)
4. Persistent (it lasts for decades)

18. Mission: what we do? For whom?
Microsoft 1975
Developing one easy to use operating system for any
HW platform vendor
My first startup 1996
Developing a billing system for Internet services
delivered by Telco operators
My second startup 2002
Developing a Telco platform to dinamically authorize and
price purchases of any possible good based on any
possible currency combination

19. Challenging your core value
Don’t project into the future your past success
(i.e. success makes you blind)

20. Vision & Mission keep you focused
Collect and organize data about pros and cons

21. What markets should we address?
Large and quickly growing markets (CAGR > 10%)

22. Now write down your business idea
1. What are the emerging trends we are noticing?
2. What does our product/service do?
3. Who will buy it?
4. Why will they buy it?
5. What is the forecasted size of our market?
6. What is the duration of our opportunity window?
Jot down everything in less than 200 words and start
pitching your targets

23. Team

24. What is the value of the idea?
A person with a new idea is a crank
until the idea succeeds
(M. Twain)

25. Team: can we do it?
Microsoft Corporation, 1978

26. Discipline of learning
Fail fast and cheap (and move on)

27. What do you know about your market?
nothing
Entrepreneurs live in world of surprises, they cannot afford
the luxury of prejudices

28. What do you know about your market?
everything
We don’t know what the market will be.
We perfectly know what the market was.

29. Questions about founders
• Where are the founders from?
• What have they accomplished in the past?
• What is their reputation?
• Whom do they know?
• Who else needs to be on the team?
• Are they prepared to recruit high-quality people?
• How realistic are they about the venture chances?
• How will they respond to adversity?
• Do they have the mettle to make the inevitable hard
choices that have to be made?
• How committed are they to this venture?
• What are their motivations?

30. Conclusions

31. A few football scores
Great teams with bad ideas 2
Average teams with average ideas 0
Great teams with average ideas 2
Average teams with great ideas 1
...but great ideas are always generated by great teams

32. Thanks
augusto@innovactionlab.org
http://www.innovactionlab.org
http://www.facebook.com/InnovActionLab
http://www.facebook.com/augusto.coppola
http://twitter.com/5anatre
http://twitter.com/innovlab
http://it.linkedin.com/in/augustocoppola