Leap and Do Work You Love
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.
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 peter@juangreatleap.com, along with an explanation on why you’d be a good choice.
(know anyone who might be interested in this? forward and share!)
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…
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 lofty dream we scarcely scratch. Soon, we may begin to tell ourselves it’s exactly that – just some crazy dream.
I remember when I first realized I wanted to share my experiences as a startup founder and entrepreneur, I wanted to write a book. It was my lofty dream, and it was so hard to start – I felt I had to have the whole book concept crystalized in my mind before starting. The sobering moment came when, after 3 months, I realized there was no progress with what I was trying to do.
So I decided to just start.
I got a free wordpress account, read a bit about blogging, and just wrote my first post. Then the name just came to me – Juan Giant Leap. But then I realized precisely what I am writing about now – the leap doesn’t need to be GIANT to be GREAT.
I thought that precise nuance was important. So, even if I thought Juan GIANT Leap had the better recall, I went with GREAT.
And so Juan Great Leap was born.
Instead of worrying about starting, just start.
No need to put distracting pressure on ourselves.
Some practical ways to start simple:
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.
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:
Yep, you have to present something very convincing to get them to say yes. I had to go through dozens of rejections before I was able to perfect my pitch and talk my first partner into investing their time and money in me.
As a veteran recruiter coming into startup life, I thought this would be chicken feed.
Then I realized just how much help a brand name like “Chikka” helped me in recruiting when I was in corporate. Or how an actual office helped (and how a pseudo-office-home arrangement doesn’t help). Or how a recruitment budget helped.
I had to learn to use other strategies to help me.
If my 2013 self saw my 2006 self doing the investment pitches I did before, this is how my 2013 self would react:
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The lifeblood of any business. When my co-founder and I decided to split responsibilities for STORM during its first year, I took on the responsibility of being the “pitchman.”
After 7 years of selling for my startup, its really been only in the last few years (and I’m a pretty confident guy) that I can say to myself “I CAN DO SALES WELL.”
Prior to that, I was grasping at straws. I didn’t know what worked and what didn’t. I really learned about selling through trial and error. (I am hopeful you won’t need 7 years to get a knack for this.)
I’ve now heard literally hundreds of startup pitches, if you combine the pitches I’ve heard facilitating Open Coffee, hearing individuals out during Startup Saturdays, observing in Startup Weekend, and attending other startup-related events.
Here’s an observation:
Often, the best idea doesn’t get the best opportunities.
If you go to the next Startup Weekend for example, this is something you can quickly observe if you listen to the pitches: if you just rely on the idea’s merit and block out the pitch (you can do this by writing down all the ideas as they are pitched, try not to judge, and then when the pitching stops, you can go back to your list and then judge), you’d see a discrepancy between the ideas you find interesting and the ideas that actually get chosen by the participants.
So much depends on the pitchman and how he pitches.
And you know what? Collectively, I think we need a lot of work on our pitches.
(I just remembered someone I was talking to about this who was saying: “it gets worse when they think they’re awesome…and they’re really not.” This is partly why I keep saying self-awareness and humility are two very important traits to develop as a founder)
After conversing in Startups Unplugged, Maoi Arroyo (no relation to the former president) and I agreed that our interests dovetailed and we needed to work together on…something.
During a recent meeting at the Hybridgm office in AIM, Maoi mentioned, “Maybe we could do an event on how to do the right pitch, targeting entrep…”
Ittookmeabouttwomilliseconds to say yes, realizing how critical addressing this gap was.
On May 25, 2013, we’re doing a seminar designed to teach participants what exactly the formula is on executing the right pitch, specifically for raising money and finding partners/recruitment.
It shall be held at the Fuller Hall of the Asian Institute of Management in Makati, from 1pm to 5pm.
This will be a paid event. Early bird rates (valid only up to May 15) are at P1000 for professionals and P500 for students (with valid ID).
Regular rates are at P1500 for professionals and P1000 for students (with a valid ID).
Here’s how the event will go:
1. Introductions
2. Keynote
3. Panel Discussion
4. Q&A
5. Post-Event: Real Pitching to Real Investors (Around a week after the Pitchcraft event, all interested participants shall be invited to do their pitches in front of real investors. This is the real thing!)
The keynote speaker for the event shall be Maoi herself. We’ll be announcing who the panelists will be soon enough.
I think Maoi’s the perfect choice for giving this seminar (I actually can’t wait to attend this myself). Her firm, Hybridigm, is a startup incubator specializing in biotech. She’s been helping startup founders hone their pitches for more than a decade now. (And if you’ve ever met her, you’d know it’s going to be FUN).
I find that one of the VERY interesting inclusions here is the Post-Event. We figured, the best learning happens during ACTUAL pitches right? So what did we arrange? A real pitching event with real investors. You can get to apply everything you will learn form the Pitchcraft proper onto an ACTUAL pitching process. (If you think about it…this is AWESOME)
1. Send payment to:
BPI Account No: 0321-0230-61
Account Name: Hybridigm Consulting Inc.
2. Send a photo/scanned copy of the deposit slip to Angeli at angeli@juangreatleap.com
3. Angeli will send you an email confirmation (and an ultra-quick survey) to confirm your slot
OR
You could pay online:
1. Purchase the tickets online by clicking one of the buttons below:
RATE FOR PROFESSIONALS – P1500
RATE FOR STUDENTS (Students) – P1000
2. Send a copy of the Paypal receipt to Angeli at angeli@juangreatleap.com
3. Angeli will send you an email confirmation (and an ultra-quick survey) to confirm your slot
If you are an aspiring/current entrepreneur from ANY field, I suggest you register as fast as possible to reserve your slot (150 slots only).
Let’s make our pitches count, eh?
Pitchcraft: How To Develop a Killer Pitch for Raising Capital and Recruiting is being brought to you by
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with the help of our sponsors:
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.
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 insight, personal experience, and contacts to the one pitching. (You gotta see it if you haven’t yet.)
I think this is what makes the Juan Great Leap audience a bit different from other startup communities. Just on this version of Open Coffee alone, we had pitches for: a customer service consulting firm for front-liners, an essential oil which increases productivity, a crowdfunding site for volunteers, a published book targeting young entrepreneurs, a lactation consulting play on social media, a do-it-yourself online explainer video maker, a bazaar a unique social interaction app, and a consulting firm for boutique hotels. For someone with my need for different stimulus, this is like a kid in a Toys R’ Us.
Long story short, it’s also tremendous learning.
The 2-minute limit presents a nice quandary for presenters:
How do I get my point across effectively in two minutes?
Theoretically, pitchers are then forced to be ultra-EFFICIENT, cutting less-important details for the MOST important details.
I’m not so sure this is what happens though, as most people prematurely wrap up their pitch when the two minutes are up.
I think there can be VAST improvement over how most of us present their pitches. Pitching is a crucial part of the startup life. Entrepreneurs need to be effective pitchmen for so many different, crucial things – recruitment, raising money, sales, marketing, partnerships,etc…
This is something we need to improve. (more on this soon)
In the March 47 East Open Coffee, student Christian Go hitched with me going home. He told me he almost didn’t pitch, because he thought the first pitcher was sort of attacked. (basically people said the idea wasn’t too good)
Remembering what Christian shared, I started this Open Coffee by underlining two things. I told people that: a) they have to be extra-conscious of HOW they give their comments, and b) that ALL comments have to have some semblance of being CONSTRUCTIVE.
The resulting pitch rounds and feedback-giving were super. I think people took the two things to heart.
I do realize that there are some people who prefer the Western-style “tell it as it is in my face” method. But this is the Philippines after all, a reminder makes all the difference.
I commented on the JGL FB page that OPEN COFFEE getting too big for the venue. The March Open Coffee had 40+ participants. This April version had 50+.
From an idea I wasn’t sure would pan out,
(would people share? what if no one wants to be the first to pitch? would people give useful feedback)
I think it’s safe to call Open Coffee a success after 4 iterations.
Onwards to bigger and better versions. Thank you so much to everyone who keep on making it so!
More pics here!
(For those who are new to Open Coffee, it happens MONTHLY, with the next one coming out mid-to-late May. Stay tuned!)
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 how far are we from a being a mature democracy? Well, to fix the problem it’s not just a matter of a constitutional amendment or having honest government officials or organizationally trying to change things, I think it goes far beyond all that stuff. It gets down to the common tao, the man on the street. Same thing, when thinking about ourselves as part of a mature Startup Nation. The common man on the street does not think about business. He thinks,
How do I get mine?
Now, I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, but there are too many people in this country that aren’t able to fulfill what would be considered the basic luxuries of life. There aren’t too many people who are at a level, in which they can comfortably say,
I’m enjoying my life, and I have time to think about things other than trying to just make ends meet from one paycheck to the next.
As long as you have a society, in which majority of the people are trying to make ends meets, you won’t have the mentality to think about starting a business. Now, when I say business, I don’t mean a business, in which the guy is doing pasaloads or running a sari-sari store. I’m talking about a real business which will attract employees and grow into something substantial. But when was the last time you saw a locally made television show that featured this happening?
In comparison to the typical US sitcom, how often do you see the TV characters start a business? Just the other week I was watching The Office and one of the characters in The Office was going to join a startup. It’s a common thing there [in the U.S.], but I don’t see that in the mainstream media here [in the Philippines]. If anything, you see some big business man who is corrupt, greedy and oppressive to his employees doing anything to make a profit. I believe that’s the common man’s perception of a successful businessman. We have to change that first. It’s going to take a while…many years…
Joey: Changing people’s perception about entrepreneurship. In all the things we’re doing, what Peter’s doing, what I am going to do as part of our advocacy with the Software Industry Association, and TechnoNegosyo. All of these efforts when you get down to it is geared towards changing people’s perception. We want to show people that pursuing a career in entrepreneurship is viable.
Right now, what the masses understand are celebrities. The most popular figures in the country are celebrities or politicians.
But you talk to the common man about who the most popular business man is and they’ll probably say MVP or the Ayalas. If you ask them about a regular businessman, not part of a conglomerate or oligarchy, who started a business… you ask them who started Jolibee… they wouldn’t know. This is the type of rags to riches story that our culture doesn’t promote.
Yes, and it starts with your generation. It starts with the people who are in their 20s. It will take a whole bunch of successes and more people learning about what theses successes do to make this movement happen.
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 how far are we from a being a mature democracy? Well, to fix the problem it’s not just a matter of a constitutional amendment or having honest government officials or organizationally trying to change things, I think it goes far beyond all that stuff. It gets down to the common tao, the man on the street. Same thing, when thinking about ourselves as part of a mature Startup Nation. The common man on the street does not think about business. He thinks,
How do I get mine?
Now, I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, but there are too many people in this country that aren’t able to fulfill what would be considered the basic luxuries of life. There aren’t too many people who are at a level, in which they can comfortably say,
I’m enjoying my life, and I have time to think about things other than trying to just make ends meet from one paycheck to the next.
As long as you have a society, in which majority of the people are trying to make ends meets, you won’t have the mentality to think about starting a business. Now, when I say business, I don’t mean a business, in which the guy is doing pasaloads or running a sari-sari store. I’m talking about a real business which will attract employees and grow into something substantial. But when was the last time you saw a locally made television show that featured this happening?
In comparison to the typical US sitcom, how often do you see the TV characters start a business? Just the other week I was watching The Office and one of the characters in The Office was going to join a startup. It’s a common thing there [in the U.S.], but I don’t see that in the mainstream media here [in the Philippines]. If anything, you see some big business man who is corrupt, greedy and oppressive to his employees doing anything to make a profit. I believe that’s the common man’s perception of a successful businessman. We have to change that first. It’s going to take a while…many years…
Joey: Changing people’s perception about entrepreneurship. In all the things we’re doing, what Peter’s doing, what I am going to do as part of our advocacy with the Software Industry Association, and TechnoNegosyo. All of these efforts when you get down to it is geared towards changing people’s perception. We want to show people that pursuing a career in entrepreneurship is viable.
Right now, what the masses understand are celebrities. The most popular figures in the country are celebrities or politicians.
But you talk to the common man about who the most popular business man is and they’ll probably say MVP or the Ayalas. If you ask them about a regular businessman, not part of a conglomerate or oligarchy, who started a business… you ask them who started Jolibee… they wouldn’t know. This is the type of rags to riches story that our culture doesn’t promote.
Yes, and it starts with your generation. It starts with the people who are in their 20s. It will take a whole bunch of successes and more people learning about what theses successes do to make this movement happen.
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 he wanted to pursue the same. It was something my talented friend could establish easily. He then thought of talking to me to get more feedback on making the leap.
I said:
“Ah. I think one point to consider is the decision to go into consulting or pursue a startup. They are different things.”
Having been involved in both consulting and startups, I know first-hand how different they are.
A consulting practice centers around the skills and reputation of the Consultant. The ensuing organization is built to extend the reach of the consultant.
For example, from time to time, I still agree to HR Consulting engagements with some firms. They pay me for my HR expertise. If I were to build an organization around this “service,” it would involve creating a support structure around me so I can maximize my contribution – admin people to ensure I don’t get bogged down, a junior consultant to help on the ground with projects, etc…
This is of course, a GREAT thing. I know numerous people who have created either solo consulting practices or consulting firms who have employed 2-3 people, even more. These people are immensely satisfied and do not worry about money anymore.
If you wish to scale though, and make a splashy startup, it probably would not be through a consulting practice, as a consulting practice does not scale. The consulting practice organization is built around the consultant’s particular skill. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, there is only so much that you can do to extend your reach.
While a consulting practice is built around the consultant, a startup’s goal, on the other hand, is usually create a repeatable, sustainable business – or in other words, to make itself operationally independent of the founder.
If you take me out of the equation in STORM, for example, STORM would still exist. It would still make operate. Of course, a lengthy separation would have ramifications on long-term strategy and growth (I hope), but unlike in a consulting practice, taking the founder from a working startup doesn’t mean it tumbles like a house of cards. (independence is the goal, obviously – taking a founder out of an early-stage startup is a wholly different matter).
In a startup, the product or service offered is SEPARATE from the founder, the founder BUILD the product. In a consulting practice, the product IS the consultant.
So, for those who are interested in doing a startup, and have garnered a signifiant amount of skills and experience in a particular corporate field – here’s one strategy you can do:
Use the financial stream and flexible hours of your consulting practice to build your scaleable startup idea on the side. Then, as your startup makes revenue, you can spend less and less time on your practice and more and more time on your startup.
Take my good friend Karen Yao, who was one of the entrepreneurs in Startups Unplugged. Like me, she built for herself a corporate career in HR. Then she jumped into a consulting career. During this time, she built Congruent Partnerships – first as a vehicle to extend her consulting practice, but then recently pivoting towards a more scaleable startup idea: HR outsourcing services for SME’s.
The thing is, the jump from corporate to consulting isn’t such a HUGE leap as jumping headlong into a startup. For one thing, you will be using the same expertise you were using in corporate – so work-wise, it will be a very comfortable shift. The only difference is that the payment just isn’t through salary anymore, it shall be though project-based contracts. Moreover, it’s a good transition – you are already getting exposed to some of the elements of managing a startup: client work, accountability, finances, managing your own time, etc.
Since you manage your own time, you CAN NOW allot some time during the week to work on your startup without giving the startup the whole burden of paying for your expenses. This is crucial. One of the big challenges of doing a startup is running out of money. Running out of money basically means you run out of time to work on your startup.
Leaning on your consulting practice is a way fund your startup product development. You can extend your startup runway significantly.
If you choose to work on a startup which is RELATED to your consulting practice, then that’s a HUGE win-win scenario. Your consulting meetings are not only monetary opportunities, but now also double as pertinent data-gathering and validation activities for your would-be startup.
If your consulting clients are your target customers for your eventual startup? That will be super! You can ask them crucial questions like, “What do you think of this product?” or “Would you buy this product?”
If you make a quick visit to Karen’s site, you’d find that congruent has three product lines: consulting, outsourcing, and solutions. I remember when Karen first started Congruent – most, if not all of her clients were in the consulting business. Gradually though, as the consulting line paid the bills, she began building her outsourcing and solutions lines. Nowadays, she is less dependent on her consulting line. Pretty soon, I’m wagering she will have to make a decision: do I let go of the consulting line?
We started STORM pretty the same way. When we started back in 2005, we had no actual product and an undeveloped market. We only had a product idea – flexible benefits.
For us to buy time to both develop the product and educate the market, we made money by going into consulting – we started offering organizational diagnosis to corporate clients. This actually became a profitable business line, which kept us afloat for a few years while we were developing our scaleable product. After some time, our flexible benefits line started making money. Soon, it made more money than our consulting line. Recently, we changed our name from STORM Consulting to STORM Rewards, fully making the transition by dropping our consulting business and offering a pure product.
This is one strategy you can do – you can create a consulting company immediately and course your consulting revenues through this entity. Then when you’ve developed your product, you can easily do a quick pivot.
Your financial books will look better, too.
If you are planning this sort of stepping-stone strategy, one mistake is to focus too much on the startup leap, forgetting that the consulting leap needs to be taken very seriously.
It is far from automatic that you can transition from corporate to consulting. You have to have led a great career in your function. You have to be REALLY GOOD at what you do. If not, then no one will pay you. You have to have distinguishable expertise in your craft and you have to have the knack of selling yourself well. You have to consciously develop yourself as a consultant.
Also, plan it out.
If you already know, for example, that it will be your last year in corporate before you take the consulting leap, THEN BY ALL MEANS USE THE YEAR TO TRY TO FIND A MARKET ALREADY. Send feelers to other consultants in the same field if they have extra work you can do. Do free projects on the side to build a credible portfolio. Network and announce your plans to possible clients. Hustle.
So, if you find the startup leap daunting, perhaps you can do an easier leap onto consulting first, before taking on your ultimate startup leap. It’s a very very viable stepping-stone option. I’ve seen HR practitioners build HR firms, brand managers create marketing consulting startups, finance guys doing finance firms, and so on.
Might as well as be you.
Typically, most of the slots for open coffee get scooped up 2-3 days prior to the event. This time, half of the slots are already filled, with a full 10 days before the event. So if you want to attend, don’t walk, RUN to fill this form up. Remember, the April OPEN COFFEE event will happen at Bo’s Coffee at Bonifacio High Street at 9:30 am on the 27th. See you there!
JUAN GREAT LEAP 