[New York - June 2010] Financing Lean/Agile Startups

Event Summary

• What is an “lean” or “agile” startup? Do non-lean startups exist?
• What are viable options for financing a startup until you achieve profitability or fundability?
• Is “lean” a (temporary) stage of a startup or a (permanent) type of startup?
• If it’s a stage, what is the objective of the stage? What is a “product/market fit”. How do you know when you’ve achieved it?
• If it’s a type, what makes certain startups more applicable to the lean/agile approach than others? How do you finance startups not of that type?
• If you’ve already achieved a product/market mix, why would you then give away equity and control by seeking venture funding?
• What legal structures (LLC, C-Corp, S-Corp; Delaware vs. New York; etc) are most appropriate for the lean approach?
• What impact will proposed changes to angel finance regulations have on bootstrappers?
• What event should trigger a search for investment? Competition? Acceleration? Being first to market? Finding an application for a new technology? Funding development of an initial prototype? Sustaining a system with lots of users but no revenue model?
• Does ‘lean-ness’ change after financing? What should change about the way a startup spends money after a financing round?

Moderator:

• Graham Lawlor, Founder of Ultra Light Startups and CEO of BrightMap

Opening Remarks By:

• Kareem Kouddous, Co-founder & Organizer at NYC Lean Startup Meetup
• Phineas Barnes, Principal at First Round Capital

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Murat Aktihanoglu, Founder and CEO of Centrl Inc and organizer of Entrepreneurs Roundtable
• Brad Burnham, Partner at Union Square Ventures
• Joe Chin, Co-founder and CEO of SourcePad
• Peter Rothberg, Partner at Duane Morris

Presentation Slides

Kareem Kouddous – Lean Startup in 5 Minutes

Phineas Barnes – Leanwashing

Main Presentation – Financing Lean Startups

Panel Video

Pitch Video

[field name=iframe]
Video courtesy of Deeper.io

Pitch List

Panelist Bios

Murat Aktihanoglu
Murat most recently started and sold Centrl Inc, a location-based social network. Prior to founding Centrl, Murat was a technology consultant for 16 years building web, media and 3D infrastructures for SGI, Sony, Logitech, Pioneer, Panasonic and various startups, including his own previous startup TheNextWeb.com. Murat is also the organizer of Entrepreneurs Roundtable monthly meetings for entrepreneurs and investors in NYC. His book on Location-based Services is coming out this summer from Manning.

Brad Burnham
Brad is a partner at Union Square Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund focused on web services. Prior to Union Square, Brad held a variety of sales, marketing and business development positions at AT&T and Bell Laboratories and was a founder at AT&T Ventures first spin-out, Echo Logic. After Echo Logic was sold in 1993, Brad joined AT&T Ventures as an Executive in Residence and later General Partner where he was responsible for 14 investments. Brad currently serves on the boards of Indeed, Pinch Media, Tumblr, Wesabe, Adaptive Blue, SimulMedia, Tracked.com, Meetup, and Bug Labs.

Joe Chin
Joe is the Founder and CEO of SourcePad, an instant outsourcing company. Prior to SourcePad, Joe was the founding CEO of Guidester (now Searchandise Commerce) an eCommerce ad network. Joe was also the Managing Director of REOL, Internet Analyst at Laidlaw, founder/President of Diadem (a multi-player game company), and founder/principal of JEV (an import/export company). Joe is a frequent speaker and has been quoted in numerous publications such as BusinessWeek, Fortune, and Inc. Magazine. Over the course of his career, Joe has raised over $20 million in financing from both angels and VC’s.

Peter Rothberg
Peter is a partner with Duane Morris LLP, a full service law firm. He focuses on corporate securities, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, financial transactions and digital media company representation. Peter represents both startups and venture capital funds including Village Ventures, High Peaks Ventures, Borealis Ventures and Stonehenge Capital in financing and acquisition transactions. Additionally, Peter sits on the board of the New York/Tri-State Chapter of the Keiretsu Forum, is the Lawyer in Residence for NYU Stern School of Business Entrepreneurship Program and is Legal Counsel to Ultra Light Startups.