Disney, Microsoft, Google and Fox... Companies are in the mood to shop. As a fast-growing, young company, how do you play the field strategically? Join our experts as they share advice on how to maximize your exit choices.
Strategy Series | What’s Driving Mobile Advertising? August 15, 2007 | 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Nokia Research Center | Palo Alto, CA
Advertising is expected to become a revenue driver for the mobile industry. While the mobile advertising ecosystem is just emerging, leading content providers and brand advertisers are beginning to sell mobile specific campaigns. And, the Mobile Marketing Association recently reported that 41% of mobile TV viewers will accept advertising to subsidize video services. Join this panel of industry experts to explore the opportunities and challenges of mobile advertising.
- What are brand advertisers expecting to see and pay for in mobile advertising?
- Are brands engaging or is it still experimental territory?
- Do consumers want advertisements? What is a good user experience?
Moderator:
Andreas Kluth, Technology Correspondent, The Economist
Speakers:
Peter Barry, Head of Venture Capital and Start-ups, Vodafone Group
Gene Keenan, VP of Mobile Services, Carat Fusion
Ian Foley, Director, Rhythm NewMedia
Jason Tsai, Group Communications Director, Universal McCann
Ramin Vatanparast, Principal Researcher, Nokia Research Center
Strategy Series | Partnering with Gorillas
July 18, 2007 | 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Perkins Coie | Menlo Park, CA
While your venture just might be the next saleforce.com or Facebook, most start-ups exponentially increase their chances for success through partnering with a Tech Heavyweight or two. Whether it's distribution, marketing alliances, minority investments, or simple API usage -- teaming up with a giant should be part of your plan. At this Strategy Series event, join representatives from a number of large companies to share their tricks and tips about how to forge a successful partnership.
- How to have a clear and realistic understanding of what you can get out of a relationship with a bigger company.
- Types of research that can yield invaluable insights into what big companies are looking for in technology partners.
- Negotiating the terms of the deal without giving away the crown jewels.
- How to spot red flags in the negotiating process and knowing when to walk away.
Moderator:
David Frazee, Partner, Perkins Coie
Speakers:Roman Bukary - SAP
Inder Narang - Adobe
John Nogrady – Microsoft
Jason Shellen - Google
DEALMAKER FORUM
May 15, 2007 | 12:00pm-6:30pm | Fenwick & West | Mountain View, CA
DISCUSSION SESSIONS:
Sessions will be moderated, yet interactive, using the collective wisdom from both featured speakers and participants. The following topics will be framed using specific experiences or case studies to illustrate why and how specific strategies worked.
CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
AOL/Userplane | Mike Jones | CEO, Userplane
Fenwick & West | Sam Angus | Partner
First Round Capital | Rob Hayes | Partner
Google | Amin Zoufonoun | Principal, Corporate Development
Intel Capital | Rob Rueckert | Senior Investment Manager
Jive Software | Dave Hersh | CEO
Microsoft | Don Dodge | Emerging Business Team, Collaboration
Panorama Capital | Mike Jung | Principal
Salesforce.com | Adam Gross | VP, Developer Marketing
Salesforce.com | Mark Suster | VP, Salesforce Content
SAP | Dan Maloney, Vice President, SAP Global Ecosystem and Partner Group
Scale Venture Partners | Sharon Wienbar | Managing Director
ThinkFree | Jonathan Crow | Director of Marketing
TSX | Ungad Chadda | Director of Listings
WebEx | Jay Shah | Vice President, Business Development
CONFIRMED PRIVATE SPEED-DATING COMPANIES
Central Desktop | DreamFactory | EchoSign | Habeas | IMified | Jive Software | Netvibes | Oddcast | Pageflakes | Salesforce Content (formerly Koral) | Seriosity | Smartsheet | Thinkfree | Vyew | Yugma | Zoho
SCHEDULE:
10:30am - 12:00pm - Invitation-Only Speed Dating
12:00pm - 1:00pm - Registration and Grab-a-Lunch
1:00pm - 2:00pm - Scale & Scalability - Cool Technology to Cool Millions
Ok, so say you've built the greatest office product since paper clips. Now, let's say you have attracted thousands, no scratch that, millions of users and they all love what you've built. Now what? How do you turn your exponentially better office solution into a viable, scalable business? Once you have customers, how do you scale and monetize to go from a cool technology product to cool millions? This session will allow participants to dialogue with leaders who have had success in building a sustainable business in this sector.
2:00pm - 2:20pm - Break
2:20pm - 3:20pm - Till Death Do Us Part? - Building Mutually Beneficial Partnerships
While it is probably true that your venture may be the next big thing, it is also true that your probability for success would exponentially increase if you had a Tech Heavyweight in your corner. Whether for distribution, marketing, development, monetization strategy, or just leveraging existing APIs, teaming with a giant is the strongest route to building an empire. Learn from those who have negotiated on both sides of the table what it takes to get a deal done and how to make it work for you.
3:20pm - 3:50pm - Break
3:50pm - 4:50pm - Exit Here - Veer Left at IPO or Right at Acquisition
Recently, acquisitions have been the only viable exit for many start-ups. However, there was a time in Silicon Valley when IPO was the exit of choice. With interest rates still relatively low and buyers flooding the market, acquisitions don't seem to be losing any steam. But the public markets are becoming more attractive options for some companies. In fact, some have even prophesized that 2007 will be the year of the IPO. In this panel, we'll hear directly from those who have "walked the walk" on what it's like to veer left at IPO or right at acquisition and how to determine the best option for your company.
5:00pm - 6:30pm - Invitation-Only Speed Dating
5:00pm - 6:30pm - Attendee Reception
TO REQUEST AN INVITATION: Space is limited for this event. To request an invitation, please complete our form.
The cost to attend The Dealmaker Forum is $125 for members and $165 for non-members.
Strategy Series | Which Comes First - Eyeballs or Revenues?
June 6, 2007 | 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Perkins Coie | Menlo Park, CA
Most consumer-facing startups fight an uphill battle to gain massive user adoption, or dare we say, eyeballs. Try asking 10 start-ups where the money will come from, and 9 out of 10 will say, "advertising." Despite the fact that ad dollars are moving off TV and out of magazines, are there really enough advertisers out there to make everyones' business profitable (or even sustainable)? Didn't we learn anything from the last millennium? This Strategy Series event will bring together a collection of seasoned executives share their views on how to plan more strategically.
Discussion points include:
- What turns a consumer-facing company into a breakout play sustainable by advertising dollars?
- How do you a build a business that can withstand fluctuations in the advertising market?
- How do you think about and plan for alternative strategies (M&A or IPO) for growth while ramping up your user base?
Moderator:Mark Albert, Partner, Perkins Coie
Speakers:
Vineet Buch, Principal, BlueRun Ventures
Matt Sanchez, President and CEO, VideoEgg
Ted Rheingold, CEO, Dogster
Lance Tokuda, CEO, RockYou
What's Your Bullet-Proof Strategy? April 19, 2007 | 6:30pm - 8:30pm
The difference between success and failure is execution - so what's your strategy for success?
You may have a cool technology, but so what? The bottom line is always the same: a good idea is just not enough - to play and compete in this game, companies need to have a scalable revenue model, sustainable critical mass, a bullet-proof strategy and flawless execution.
We will discuss the key factors that lead to success and separate the bench warmers from the players. Discussion points include:
- What's your bullet-proof strategy to gaining market share?
- What are the most successful revenue models?
- How do you identify and measure your company's value proposition to go from a "nice to have" to "must have"?
- Once the beta is over, how do companies find paying customers?
- Once they find paying customers, how do they keep them, stay innovative and continue building and delivering value for them?
- How do you identify strategic partnerships to drive growth and adoption, and what is your value add?
MODERATOR: Ken Gullicksen, Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures
PANELISTS:
Sandhya Venkatachalam, Senior Manager - Corporate Development, Cisco
TJ Kang, CEO, ThinkFree
Jeffrey Walker, President, Atlassian Software Systems
LOCATION:Morgenthaler Ventures | 2710 Sand Hill Road, Suite 100 | Menlo Park, CA 94025
http://www.morgenthaler.com/ventures/contacts.asp Sponsored by: Microsoft | SAP | France Telecom | Keynote Systems | Perkins Coie
Strategy Series | Office 2.0 & the SMB Market February 13, 2007 | 6:30pm - 8:30pm | SAP Labs | Menlo Park, CA
The FACT: Change is undeniably afoot in the business software space.
The CATALYST: Start-ups with a value proposition for small-to-medium businesses.
The SITUATION: The SMB has been an elusive market for many years because the economics of finding and servicing business with few people and financial resources has not been worth the pay off. However, as web-based computing has exploded ?" the sands have shifted ?" in favor of the nimble start-up.
The OPPORTUNITY: Nowhere is the opportunity for a thriving revenue model is it more apparent than the emerging "Office 2.0" space where software and services are available for a fee. It's like turning on a switch ?" and presto ?" you've got a database, a website, secure storage ?" all for a monthly fee.
The RISK for the SMB market: The upstarts worry that notable giants will just "do it anyway." The RISK for existing enterprise market: Existing enterprise players who worry that these nimble and low-cost solutions will erode their market share.
In this strategy series, we'll explore strategies for success on both sides of the fence, reveal threats and opportunities you need to understand before you can compete, and determine whether everyone will be able to play together on the court... or whether some will be merely bench-warmers for the real players.
Topics to be covered:
How do we define the SMB market today and what kind of revenues does this market represent? What are the greatest pain-points for the SMB market?
What products are gaining the most traction and generating the most revenues?
How will traditional software firms' offerings change?
MODERATOR:
Mitchell Kertzman - Partner, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
PANELISTS:
Jason Lemkin - CEO, EchoSign
Zach Nelson - CEO, NetSuite
Cliff Reeves - General Manager, Microsoft
Jason Wolf - Senior VP of Strategic Initiatives, SAP
LOCATION:
SAP
3410 Hillview Ave Campus
Palo Alto, CA 94304
Registration closes on February 13, 2007 at 3:00pm
Non Members - $60 advance / $70 at the door
Members - $40 advance / $50 at the door
1/23/07 | Strategy Series | Stepping on the Web 2.0 Scale - A New Years Resolution in Silicon Valley
| January 23, 2007 | Shasta Ventures | Menlo Park, CA | 6:30PM - 8:30PM Don't waste your time trying to define web 2.0 - that was so last year. And by the time the pundits nearly reached consensus, a $1.65 billion transaction was finalized-.obviously, acquisitions don't need definitions
It's 2007 and its time to weigh in. Consumer facing internet companies are a dime a dozen, but the few and far between are worth much more than a dime. Users are great and revenues are better, but if you can't accommodate growth, you have no business in this business.
This Strategy Series event will take a deep, hard look at the underlying business models that offer potential for economic growth within a Web 2.0 company and the strategies that lead to scalability. So step right up onto the Web 2.0 scale-..and join the industry experts and heavyweights for a spirited conversation on the following topics:
- What does a scalable Web 2.0 business model look like?
- Is the ad model really the only viable option?
- Are you a feature or a business? How does this impact your business outlook?
- What are the long-run goals? Acquisition or go it alone?
- How does team building affect a company's success? What other factors come into play? MODERATOR: Tod Francis - Shasta PANELISTS: Adam Gross Shawn Hardin Jason Pressman Sam Schillace EVENT SPONSORS: 
Registration Sponsor:
- Salesforce- Flock- Shasta- Writely/Google LOCATION:
Shasta Ventures | 2440 Sand Hill Road #300| Menlo Park, CA 94025
http://www.shastaventures.com/contact.htm |
Momentum Growth Conference