Category Archives: roundtable

@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!

The Entrepreneurs Unleshed

Posted by admin on 16/11/2011 None comments

These post covers INSEAD Entrepreneurship Roundtable, hosted by Tetuan Valley on 10th November 2011. Keynote speech by Prof. Joe Haslam (IE Business School): “Are We Overdoing Silicon Valley?”. This post is written by Tetuan Valley collaborator Nast Marrero.

We had the pleasure of hosting a great event at Tetuan Valley last week. A keynote speech was given by Prof. Joe Haslam and there was a roundtable for INSEAD MBA Alumni, moderated by Jose Miguel Herrero and Carlos Dexeus as a special guest.

The Silicon Valley Way

For the first hour our speaker, Joe Haslam, talked about the nature of clusters, and how they affect competitiveness. There are many initiatives in Spain (and many other areas in the world) trying to reshape the local competitive and productive ecosystem. Most of those projects focus on doppelgängering the Silicon Valley way. Policymakers and their consultants try their best to build clusters around hot industries (mainly knowledge industries), building tech centers (research centers, universities, technology parks,…) and facilitating venture capital and business angels relationships. But this formula, somehow, pumps uncompetitiveness to the systems they try to fix.

Silicon Valley embodies the paradigm of technology and innovation: it has top class universities, research centers, dynamic venture capital firms and it’s the Meca for the most talented entrepreneurs. But at the same time it’s culture is somehow insular and homogenous. Success in the Valley requires submission to its mainstream and its cluster culture.

Clusters syndicate players around an industry in a certain region. They help those players to cooperate and strengthen through internal interaction and privileged information. Yet communication technologies enable different interactions and bulldoze the walls of those cluster strongholds, breaking down their competitive edge.

The next era competitiveness probably relies other open communications and global networks, far beyond the cluster strongholds. In a nutshell, “Silicon Valley will not be disrupted by its copycat, but by whom operates such a way that SV is unable to emulate“.

Are We Overdoing Silicon Valley?

Round Table: How do we unleash the entrepreneurs

After Joe’s keynote attendees engaged in very interesting discussion about the keys to foster entrepreneurship in Spain.

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Of course, the culture of failure was one of the first topics to arise. A cultural demonization of failure prevent many people from daring to launch their projects. It’s a recurring topic, yet it’s embedded in the national culture, a condition that needs to be superseded in an entrepreneurial society. Entrepreneurs should have front page coverage so their stories really catch on in the general public. It is unfortunate that Spain has world class entrepreneurs such as Amancio Ortega, yet him an others are largely unknown outside of business environments. Quoting our college José María Cobián: “Entrepreneurs should be treated like heroes by the media“.

Later on, Jose Miguel Herrero shared some inspiring insights on venture capital. Investment culture is still very conservative in Spain, but there are few private initiatives leading the way to bring together investors and guide them through more technological and sophisticated investments. Big Sur Ventures, Altex Partners, Cabiedes & Cabiedes, and (of course) Okuri Ventures make some of those inspiring examples.

At last, but not least, Carlos Dexeus spoke about some of the key characteristics he looks for in a founding team when he’s analyzing an investment: “A founding team has to be conformed by complementary members. They have to build a project that will demand from them a number of skills to execute the most diverse tasks. On the other hand there has to be a total commitment with the business“. Finally, there has to be some degree of obsession or passion or however you want to call it. Entrepreneurs must have a deeply rooted need to make their project come to life. That need will lead them through the desert, it will be the fuel that makes them endure and succeed in what everyone else thought impossible.