Universities Represent!

student entrep conference

I had an absolute blast early today with 6 awesome student leaders (sorry Angeli, you don't count anymore) talk about ideas on how to propagate the startup movement in campuses. Basically, the group introduced themselves to one another, ate doughnuts, and then the awesome brainstorming happened. There is one big plan the group is concocting (to be revealed soon). The next step is to get more universities represented in the next meeting, when more concrete details, will be decided on. The next meeting will be next Thursday (May 23) at 3:00pm (venue still to be decided on). If you are an entrepreneurial student who wants to help out in spreading the startup movement in your school, do … [Read more...]

How To Assemble Your Startup Entourage

entourage

(the following is a guest post by multi-awarded entrepreneur Maoi Arroyo) As a junkie of all things startup, I’ve always loved shows like Bloomberg’s TechStars. Whichever season you watch, these entrepreneurship-themed reality shows try to select the best teams as opposed to the best ideas. As Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, famously said:  “The view that good ideas are rarer and more valuable than good people is rooted in a misconception of creativity. If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they’ll screw it up. But if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they’ll make it work.” If there’s one thing I learned in the nine years I’ve helped tech-based startups … [Read more...]

Last Two Days for Early Bird Rates for Pitchcraft!

sign

Hey people! At midnight tomorrow, May 15, the early bird rate for Pitchcraft: How To Develop a Killer Pitch for Raising Capital and Recruiting will expire. For the content it provides (great speakers, killer panel, chance for real pitches in front of institutional investors), I think this is a great deal, so you might want to grab tickets now. You can do so here.  … [Read more...]

Juan Great Leap Calls on 5 More Student Leaders!

storm conference room

I'll be meeting around 5 student leaders next Wednesday, 4pm, at the STORM conference room, at Unit 602, Centerpoint Building, along Julia Vargas. The main agenda will be: 1) How to push entrepreneurship and the startup movement in universities 2) How to help student entrepreneurs   (Map here) Our conference room seats around 10 people, so there are 5 seats still free. I wanted to open it up to interested parties. Do you want to join this conversation? If you are an incoming undergraduate student, interested in entrepreneurship, and you're the type of person who gets things done, then you might want to join us. If you are interested, please do send me an email at … [Read more...]

May Open Coffee Is Now Brewing! Sign up now!

JGL OPEN COFFEE2

WHAT: MAY OPEN COFFEE WHEN: 930am-12:00 noon, Saturday, May 18, 2013 WHERE: 47 East Co-working Compound (47 Esteban Abada, Loyola Heights, QC) Inviting ALL entrepreneurial-minded people: young or old, newbie or veteran to join this month's edition of OPEN COFFEE. This event has been outdoing itself every month we have it, so I'm pretty excited to see what this month's version will  offer. Don't you miss it! Sign up here now! Here's how the last one went... … [Read more...]

Just Start.

just start

I think sometimes we overestimate what it takes to "start" - especially for those of us who are first-time entreps and don't exactly know what were doing. (welcome thought: I suspect most first-time startup founders fall into this category - everyone starts out feeling stupid) Perhaps we're thinking: "Oh gosh, I need to raise a million bucks." or "I need a technical co-founder who has a 3.8 GPA in computer science." or "To do this I need to resign from my job and risk everything! Need to prepare." or "I need to win one of those startup contests!" You know, if we always think this way, we might never come to the point when we think we're ready to start. It will end up as just some … [Read more...]

What is PITCHCRAFT and why you NEED to attend it

pitchcraft logo

In my 10 years of HR work prior to becoming a full-fledged entrepreneur, I did an awful lot of presentations and gave a ton of job offers. I thought I was pretty good doing these things, so when I made my leap into entrepreneurship, I thought to myself: "Hey whatever 'selling' I would need to do for my startup I can probably do preeetty well!" Well, I was in for a rude awakening. Pitching is Everything in Entrepreneurship It turns out, selling (or pitching in startup parlance) is absolutely critical in startup development. ALL the major activities in doing a startup involved pitching: Finding Co-founders: Yep, you have to present something  very convincing to get them to say yes. I … [Read more...]

Open Coffee Postscript

open coffee april

I had another awesome time last Saturday morning at the April Edition of Open Coffee. Here are some of my thoughts and observations on now holding four of these formatted mixers. 1)  The Sharing Continues to Amaze Me My colleague AR told me that she plans to write a thesis about how the growing Filipino entrepreneurial community is debunking the notion of Filipino crab mentality. You can see this is in action in Open Coffee. In the pitches, you will see people will share business plans, ideas, and plans to people they do not know. (and unlike in "formal" pitching venues, there is no "prize" save for the learning. What's magical is that the audience reciprocates - sharing their own … [Read more...]

The Software Guru: On Refuting Peter, Premature Startup Culture, and Change for the Next Generation (Part 2 of the Joey Gurango Series )

The Software Guru, Joey Gurango of Gurango Software

In one of his blogposts, Peter, refers to the concept of the Argonaut from the book, Start-up Nation. What are your personal opinions on the contribution of the Argonaut to a Philippine Startup Nation?  Joey: I think the Philippine Startup scene is about 10 years away from being labeled as mature. A lot of my colleagues, maybe including Peter, might say that we’re on the cusp, about four years away from being a mature startup scene, I don’t think so. I actually don’t agree with some of the assumptions  [Peter] is making on the Philippines as a Startup Nation and the impact that you can make on it. For me, it’s almost like saying that the Philippines is a mature democracy, but … [Read more...]

How to Use Consulting as a Bridge Between Corporate and Startup

stepping stone

I had a great lunch meeting today with a very talented friend who's been working in corporate for nearly two decades already. During that span, he's built impressive credentials and has worked on different projects in his chosen corporate function. "I'm at that point Peter where I'm at a crossroads in my corporate career. If I leave my company now, I can apply for department head in another firm, but then what? I'll be looking at a future of just jumping as department head from one company to the other?" (I was at that same crossroads before, so I could really relate to what he was saying.) A common friend of ours who was managing her own lucrative consulting practice was asking him if … [Read more...]

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