Back at The Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp!

Great experience mentoring and judging the pitches of student entrepreneurs from around the world at this week's bootcamp on the UC Berkeley campus!

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Here's the director of the program Gigi Wang laying out the goals of the bootcamp.

 

Congratulations to Acuity, the team I mentored and my cojudge Rick Rasmussen and I sent to the finals.

 

Watch the pitch battle here: https://www.facebook.com/UCBerkeleyCET/videos/1232326256848097/

Freedom of the Internet demonstration, TBT

Odd to see this Internet ban memory from my final days as an expat in Istanbul at a time when America is voting to save or kill Net Neutrality tomorrow.

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A photo author, journalist & mid-east politics expert Hugh Pope took of me midway in the march from his Istiklal apartment.

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What Hugh Pope wrote about that day:

Some pictures of demonstrators on Sunday 15 May 2011 calling for reform of Turkey's new conservative internet laws in Istanbul's Istiklal St today - the biggest, loudest and happiest protest I've seen in more than a decade of living in the city center. Some signs were funny too: "Dawkins is a scientist, not a pornographer, you retard!" "Your Internet is being cut according to Islamic regulations" (carried by the two gentlemen in chador-like garb, punning on signs in religious-minded meat shops) "EnSUCKlopedia" (well, roughly), "Censorship for Security is like Sex for Virginity" and "Hands off my porn". 

Unless the government backtracks, a whole new system goes into force on 22 August. Internet providers will be obliged to offer every subscriber four filters of varying severity, and forcing Internet cafes to choose which sites can be accessed in advance. Any attempt to bypass such regulations will be criminal, and all Internet providers will be responsible for enforcement. 

The liberal Radikal newspaper, for instance, compares this coming system to that of China, Iran or Cuba. This appears to be a new turn for Turkey, which has so far been ambivalent on Internet freedom - YouTube was banned for what seemed like years, but even the Prime Minister noted that it was easy to use a proxy server to reach it. But from 22 August even proxies will be banned ... and all this in a country negotiating to join the EU! 

Not only Turks are concerned. Turkey's expat harem's Queen of Social Media, Anastasia Ashman, peeled off the crowds to visit and tweet from our windows overlooking the crowds of tens of thousands (see picture). At the same time, her Internet guru husband Burc managed to get my wi-fi system working properly for the first time in five years. So a big catch-up for me and I hope the demo will turn into a giant step forward for Turkey.

The Berkeley Method Bootcamp: Mentor & Pitch Judge

This was one of the startups I judged at The Berkeley Method Bootcamp, Fall 2016, UC Berkeley's Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology -- and the team our room sent to the finals.

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Featured in a video interview for BMOE, talking about the issues of early stage startups.

Featured in a video interview for BMOE, talking about the issues of early stage startups.

Takeaways from the European Innovation Academy

Enjoyed working with these fine fellow mentors, and the students and administration of EIA! 

Click through to read Nine takeaways from keynotes at the European Innovation Academy in Nice, France this summer. All the presentations are linked there too.

Thanks to Dany Augustinho, an innovation specialist at Amadeus IT Group, for including mine! 

 

Dany writes, "90% of startups fail. Every entrepreneur should bear this in mind. So, if you’ve been playing around with our APIs, and considering launching a startup in the near future, it is time to learn from the experts!

"For the third year in a row, Amadeus has sponsored the European Innovation Academy, a summer school that teaches students from the world’s most prestigious universities – and some selected Amadeus employees – how to innovate and launch a startup. Three weeks is all that it takes for them to find the right idea, draft a business model, prototype their product and learn how to fund their project."

 Here's my keynote, which used Product Hunt as an example: "How Meaningful Community Can Grow Your Revenue"

A few slides...click through to Slideshare to view the full presentation.

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And what a surprise appearance in the keynote of another mentor in the program, Gigi Wang's "Know Your Customer: Customer Persona & Customer Validation"!

 

Interviewed for a Growth Hacking thesis

...by an Irish entrepreneur from the European Innovation Academy this summer. Here are his questions, and my answers:

 

 

    •    What is growth hacking in your opinion?

Accelerating the usual rate of growth of a product or service.

 

    •    How relevant is growth hacking for start ups?

It’s required for startups to differentiate themselves from lifestyle businesses and other non-scaleable businesses.

 

    •    In your opinion, has there been a paradigm shift away from traditional sales and marketing? If so, is it here to stay? If not, why not?

Marketers would say no, growth hacking is the same as marketing. What might be different is the time scale.

 

    •    What are the characteristics required to be a growth hacker?

Knowing where people are, how they can be reached, and what it’s worth costing to do so.

 

    •    Is an appreciation of marketing and coding needed to growth hack successfully or is a deeper understanding required?

Expert growth hackers would probably say there is a deeper understanding, but I think anyone can be a growth hacker to a basic degree. I like growthhackers.com as a resource for newcomers.

 

    •    What method / methods of growth hacking did you or your organisation employ to gain traction? 

The last startup I worked with was so unfamiliar with growth hacking they refused to consider the San Francisco and Silicon Valley standards I suggested. They are not based in the USA. This would have been a way for them to level the playing field, and I suggest it for startups outside the USA.

 

    •    Should big data be embraced in the customer acquisition process or is privacy becoming more important?

If you can get access to data, by all means, use it. Also, don’t be a creep, and think of the user. There is plenty of data users don’t mind parting with for real value. It does not have to be a privacy issue.

 

    •    Are there a set of steps a startup can take in order to optimise the growth hacking process? Is growth hacking an art or a science or a combination of both?

It’s both an art and a science. As I suggested earlier, try tapping into the community of growth hackers at growthhackers.com

 

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Chief Mentor At The European Innovation Academy

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Honored to be a Chief Mentor at the European Innovation Academy this summer in Nice, France. (That's like Tim Gunn's role on Project Runway, for up to 7 groups of entrepreneurs.)

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500 college student entrepreneurs will take an idea to a tech startup in 15 days in this program that brings together faculty from 75 nations, and education programs developed with universities and organizations like UC Berkeley, Stanford, Google, IBM and Amadeus.

Thanks to Ajda Mustafova for making this connection.

 

 

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