Tag Archives: VC

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

Posted by Nast Marrero 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!

Elevator pitch sucks

Posted by Dapedro on 09/11/2010 2 comments

These series of guest posts are written by the teams attending the Tetuan Valley Startup School 2010 Fall edition. This post is from the control+ad team, formed by David Pedroche.

Every one tell you that you have to write an elevator pitch. When I think about it one image comes to my mind, I see my self talking with a woman and you saying “estudias o trabajas?”.
There is only one situation where you are going to be close to a business angels two minutes, and that is when both of us are peeing and this is NOT the right time to talk about business. We have to take us seriously if we want to look serious. Today it’s easy to get a  5 minutes presentation at an investor forum, there are enough forums where you can reach them.

We are not begging for tips, we want to share a business. They need us, in the same way we need them. The first impression we make on a business angel will define our relationship, if we don’t speak to him face to face no one will take us seriously. Our relationship with venture capital has to be win/win situation.

It’s so important to look confident and professional when we talk to a BA.  They not only test our products and ideas, they will also test our negotiations skills. In the same way we negotiate with them, we will negotiate with our providers and customers.

Venture capital needs ideas and the hard work of the entrepreneur if they invest in a project.  Entrepreneur that at some point don’t want to continue will make the VC  loose his money.

We have to put one clear idea in our minds “money isn’t more important than projects”.