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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
0
• 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.