Category Archives: business angels

First week of PlanJoin at Tetuan Valley Fall Startup School

Posted by Planjoin on 23/10/2012 None comments

These series of guest posts are written by the teams attending the Tetuan Valley Startup School 2012 Fall Edition. This post is from the Planjoin team, who wants no traffic because they didnt put links to the information about their startup or themselves :) But thats ok, i do! follow me at @kmelan

PLANNING ON A LONG, INTENSIVE AND FUN TRIP……DO YOU WANT TO JOIN US??

Week 1 has been an unusual one…..you are really excited to be one of the teams chosen to be part of such a great program, but you still don’t know how it’s going to be, what kind of assignments you have to do, who the other teams are…but before you have time to think about it, you’re on stage pitching your idea (or at least, trying to do so)…..speed, action, get things done….this is the first thing you can feel when you’re in Tetuan Valley…..and 100% english, no kidding!!

That being said….we realized how important was to get an MVP simple enough to go live shortly to test our business hypothesis…..and this is really important in Spain as opposed to other countries where rapid growth in users usually comes before early monetization as it’s assumed that the money will come later on…

Well, we decided this very first week to pivot a little bit from our original idea and focus on just one single problem and its solution, to see if people do really care about what were doing, meet our MVP deadlines, and for sure, take into account the monetization issue from day one.

We’ll take into account all the feedback from peers and mentors last week and try our best next wednesday pitching PJ in spite of the changes!

See ya,

Eduardo
@edsancho
PlanJoin.com

Startup Spain Angel School #2 – Reloaded! 22nd March #StartSpain

Posted by admin on 07/03/2012 1 comments

Friends, Tetuanees, Countrymen! Lend me your ears!

At the beginning of February we launched the first edition of Startup Spain Angel School, with a lot of buzz on the media. Our goal was to brain-wash them wallet-holders and get them all crazy about investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs in Spain. And it worked! But you know how this things work. Lots of cool startups are looking for funds, so we want to help prepare more Business Angels to support them! Therefore we’re launching a 2nd edition of Startup Spain Angel School, the one day bootcamp for potential angel investors to learn how to squander their fortunes by getting into internet startups.

Now seriously. Today, none can deny we’re living in a digital revolution. This is the time to build the future standards of information and communication technologies. And either we make an all-in now, or we’re going to be dropped behind for ages.

The Tetuan Valley Crew has been promoting entrepreneurship, investing and facilitating venture capital deal over the past 4 years, launching the first pre-accelerator program and the first Pan-European accelerator. We’re absolutely committed with relaunching Spain and we’re on a quest of Death or Glory for it. And we’re not alone, an awesome vibrant entrepreneurial community stands behind us, most of the top investors in Spain do aswel, and last but not least we have affiliated with Kauffman Foundation (ultimate global organization in entrepreneurship research and promotion) as part of their Global Partner Network.

Our colleagues at Madrid Emprende have decided to back us in this project, hosting it in their awesome facilities at Madrid International Lab.

The first edition was a blockbuster. 65+ participants, top-notch guest speakers and startups. But the 2nd… it’s gonna be even cooler. Ran by the Tetuan Valley Squad Team, it will offer precious insights into the process of investing in internet startups to investors throughout Spain.

This edition will also count with fantastic guest speakers. Investors such as: : Jose Miguel Herrero (Big Sur Ventures & La Netro), Mario López de Ávila (Nodos en la Red), Iñaki Arrola (Vitamina K & Coches.com) and Gerardo Morales (Canary Venture Partners & SODECAN). Entrepreneurs such as: Antonio Sáez (Gigas), Francisco Javier López (Timpik),  Vaibhav Puri (Taggito), Mariano Torrecilla (Linkovery). And pitching startups: Zoomry (Byron Stanford), DoctorDoctor (Matthieu Heusch), and Arbitratio (Guillermo Vicandi

From the creators of Tetuan Valley Startup School:

Startup Spain Angel School

When? 22nd March 2012, 9.30 am – 6.30 pm

Where? Madrid International Lab, c/ Bailen 41, 28005 – Madrid

How? Sign up here

Who? Program by Okuri Ventures, sponsored by Madrid Emprende

Why? You might make a fortune while investing in the internet startups, and change the world while you’re at it

Mooore info

If you’re interested in learning more about our next fund and would consider investing, write us to: nast [at] startupspain [dot] com

If you want more info check out: StartupSpain.com

And if you want to keep keep up to date on programs, events, gossips and poker nights for Business Angels and Investors sign up here: bit.ly/AngelNews

 

@StartSpain #AngelSchool: 101 Investing in Internet Startups (Powered by @Zoomry)

Posted by admin on 14/02/2012 None comments

Howdy friends!

Nast Marrero, here! Last week we launched Startup Spain‘s first program: the Angel School. Our take is: it’s been a great beginning for Startup Spain. We had more than 60 attendees of which more than 2/3 were potential investors.

This is an unusually large display of interest in the Spanish investment arena, where most events see no more than 20 or some participants maximum. Mentoring Angel Investors to better navigate their deal analysis is a keystone in fostering ITC startups in Spain. The program was a real marathon: 10+ hours of training (don´t worry we let them stop for lunch ;) . Thankfully, our first group of graduates proved to be up to the challenge, taking advantage of all the different elements of the day.

Missing from the program were the typical made-up miracle cures and formulas. We strived to keep the content practical, following the Tetuan Valley Way with hands-on exercises and significant mentors’ experiences

The event was hosted @ the awesome facilities of Madrid International Lab and kicked off by Iñaki Ortega, Director of Madrid Emprende, and one of the main forces behind Startup Spain. In his opening speech, Iñaki brought up the importance of joining private and public efforts to facilitate and develop entrepreneurial activity, and the key role those efforts will play in the long-run global competitiveness of Spain.

Two roundtables with rockstar speakers cherry-topped the program: one from Investors already Angel Investing and another from Entrepreneurs. Each of them gave invaluable insights on what it is they look for, value, and ask during an early stage investment.

The investors’ roundtable was moderated by our very own Alex Barrera (co-founder of Tetuan Valley & CEO of Press42), and formed by:

On the other corner, moderated by Ricardo Fernandez (director of Step One Spain), the entrepreneurs’ roundtable formed by:

Both roundtables aimed to give participants a overview of the ecosystem, showcasing startups from their seed stage through founders that have already made an exit, with similar ranges of experiences coming from the Angel investors, from managers that were just launching their first investment through those who have been in the game for a while.

Given the success and the of the program and the importance we place on such event to foster investment culture we’re already iterating on the feedback from the first event to run a LEGENDARY second edition of Startup Spain Angel School on March 22nd. Wanna get your tickets? Check here!

We had the pleasure of following all the twitter interactions of the event through Zoomry, now in it´s beta stage. The product is awesome and if you check #AngelSchool Social Media @ AngelSchool.Zoomry.com… You can see for yourself they’re up to something big!

You might want to check the slides of our presentations in our slideshare or check the pictures in our flickr group.

Thank you for reading… Bestest!