Building a global business - by Vinny Lingham

By Vinny Lingham

Building a Global Business – Lessons learnt

Building a Global Business – Lessons Learnt

Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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Yola’s Successes in the Past 3 Years

Began with a vision to create easy to use website building software

Spun out of Clicks2Customers (incuBeta Holdings)

Started as a 5 person company in Cape Town in March 2007

Pitched to over 25 investors – locally and globally before successful

Raised over $25m to date from JSE-listed Reinet Ltd

>3.5 Million Users to date and growing rapidly – market leader

Currently employs over 60 people in 3 countries

All of the above is only made possible by working with amazing people! The team you build is critical!

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

My biggest success in the past year:

Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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Name: Kavin LinghamBorn: San Francisco, CaliforniaAge: 12 weeks old

Lesson learnt: Don’t lose sight of what’s really important in life!

Stage 1 – Friends & Family: Building a startup

Investment and timeline R3.5m investment via R&D in previous company

Spun out and rebuilt from scratch

Launched alpha release for R750K in 6 months

Raised extra R1.5m to get to Beta

Raised Series A of $5 million

User base: 10K

Lessons Learnt Get products out to market quickly – don’t be secretive!

Pitch to investors – have one person in the co-founding team look for funding while the rest work in engineering. Don’t get excited until you have a term sheet in writing!

Grassroots Attention (Blogging, Presenting)

Bootstrap

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Stage 2 - Series A: Proof of Concept

Investment: $5 million Establish offices in San Francisco

Get market traction

Prove monetization model

Targeted user base before next round of funding: 1 million

Lesson’s Learnt Going global is expensive if you don’t know how

Hiring cold is a tough strategy – referral hires are the best

Building a product team is critical for funded companies

Splitting engineering teams is very difficult

Making friends in the valley is tough

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Stage 3 – Series B: Growth

Investment: $20 million

Target user base before next round of funding: 5-6m users

Lessons Learnt Use analytics to make data driven decisions

Viral growth is critical

Focus on a target audience and serve their needs

Don’t give too much away for free

Excellent customer support can be a strong differentiator

Focus on ease-of-use / UX

Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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Inside secrets to securing investment

Great team

Good plan

Good networking

Great pitch

Good demo

Persistence

Passion for your biz

Show potential

Prove execution

Build products, not services!!!!!!!

Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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South African Technology Re-Investment Conundrum

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Dependent0-18 yrs

Student19-22 yrs

Career Focused23-33 yrs

Creating Wealth + Family Focused

34-53 yrs

Golden Age54-65 yrs

Retirement $$$66+ yrs

Dependent0-18 yrs

Entrepreneur19-33 yrs

Reinvestment34-53 yrs

Winding Down: Diversification & Conservative

Approach54-65 yrs

Retirement $$$66+ yrs

No $

No $

Entrepreneur's Timeline

Traditional Timeline – non-entrepreneurs

• Entrepreneurs who make money tend to give back to new entrepreneurs. • Post apartheid, entrepreneurs who are still in their 20’s and 30’s will be giving back

when they reach the reinvestment stage. There are not enough wealthy entrepreneurs in their 30’s in SA who understand tech, so the best is yet to come.

Interesting Paradox

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Wealth

Time

Risk Appetite

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• Generally, wealth increases over time, while the propensity to invest is low• Conversely, people take more risks earlier in age when their wealth is low

Why I moved to Silicon Valley…

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

Vinny in Silicon Cape

Vinny in Silicon Valley

Reasons to be in the valley

Building a global business

Depth of talent and skills (people who have been there, done that)

Networking

Fund raising

Being ahead of the latest trends (getting an iPad the day it comes out)

Conferences

Business Development

Acquisition – Liquidity… (which hampers investment in SA)

Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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Reasons to not be in the valley

It’s expensive in general, unless you bootstrap

Emerging market focus

You are not a good networker

You are very attached to your family and social networks back home

Your funding is very limited

You think you can be successful from South Africa

Modern telecommunications make it possible to be anywhere…

Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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How to get to the valley

Fly Emirates – they are by far the best value for money (via Dubai)

Setup an offshore subsidiary – and transfer across into it (L1x Visa)

It’s easier than you think – you just need to want to do it!

Total estimated cost to setup an office and move to the valley for a local Cape Town company: R100k

Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it…

Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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Why I’ll be back…

Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.

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Thank You

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Confidential & Private document. This remains the intellectual property of Yola Inc.