Venturers Club

Team• Members: Currently active – Matteo Franceschetti

• Matteo is an Italian born and raised serial entrepreneur. In 2008, Matteo founded a group in solar energy in Italy, which he then expanded to Romania, South Africa and the United States. In 2011 he sold the Italian branch to a multi-billion dollar European fund, and moved to New York to focus on the expansion of the American renewables market. He has an extensive passion for developing businesses and it is for this reason that he has also ventured into the fashion and tech space, by mentoring and investing in startups eager to succeed.

What is Venturers Club?

• VenturersClub is a new community of entrepreneurs that collaborate to speed up their dreams.

• With or without previous business-building experience, entrepreneurs can find in Venturers Club a network of resources and connections to help them further their dreams.

What is Venturers Club?

• The community is based online, in a website where members find four main resources: o Cofounders matchingo Startup pitching contest opportunitieso Events directoryo Wiki – with organized and curated information to help you develop your

business

Market and Market Size

• We identified our Market to be the ‘Startup World’. To begin with, targeted towards tech startups/entrepreneurs.

• Estimated Market Size – It is hard to estimate exactly how many startups are out there, or how many entrepreneurs or individuals are thinking of starting a business in Tech.

• Some interesting data on this*:o The Silicon Valley startup ecosystem is 3x bigger than New York City, 4.5x

bigger than London, 12.5x bigger than Berlin, and 38x bigger than Boulder.o The Silicon Valley ecosystem has proportionally 22% more companies that

make it to the scale stage than in NYC and 54% more than in London.

*source: http://blog.startupcompass.co/the-rise-of-startup-ecosystems-silicon-valley

Market and Market Size

• More interesting data:

• In the Efficiency and Scale stages, Silicon Valley startups create 11% more jobs than NYC startups and 38% more jobs than London startups. (http://blog.startupcompass.co/the-rise-of-startup-ecosystems-silicon-valley )

• In Australia: Startups could contribute $109bn to economy by 2033: PwC (http://www.zdnet.com/au/startups-could-contribute-109bn-to-economy-by-2033-pwc-7000014316/)

Customer Research• First video approximation with potential customer:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XeVT4LkNSqU

Survey• Venturers Club created a

survey to further the exploration of potential customers and understand if the idea is taking shape in the right direction.

• We received over 30 responses to the online survey.

• http://goo.gl/ew8te

Insights from Customer Research

• After interviewing and surveying many entrepreneurs from different backgrounds, the following assumptions have been proven and or discovered, and have reshaped the course of Venturers Club:

o Entrepreneurs in Europe find it harder to raise considerable initial capital, than entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley:• On average Silicon Valley startups raise 2-3x more money in the first 3 stages of

development: Discovery, Validation, and Efficiency. But in the scale stage, compared to Silicon Valley, New York City startups raise 27% more money and London startups raise 30% more money.*

o Startups in NYC and Silicon Valley find it relatively easy to connect with people they admire and/or are thought leaders, and thus receive insights and mentorship. For this reason, they don’t consider ‘Lack of Mentorship’ as a high ranking issue.• The Silicon Valley and New York City ecosystems have more helpful mentors than

the London ecosystem. Silicon Valley companies have 46% more helpful mentors than companies in London.*

*source: http://blog.startupcompass.co/the-rise-of-startup-ecosystems-silicon-valley

Insights from Customer Research

o Startups in Europe and other emerging tech startup markets, find very different obstacles than those faced by startups in the US.

o NYC entrepreneurs find it much harder to pair with a technical co-founder. For this reason, they select “Lack of human capital” as the main issue they face when developing their startup.• Silicon Valley founding teams are 34% more likely to be technical heavy

than founding teams from NYC. Whereas NYC founding teams are almost 2x as likely to be business heavy than Silicon Valley founding teams.*

*source: http://blog.startupcompass.co/the-rise-of-startup-ecosystems-silicon-valley

Insights Shaping our Model

• After the customer research we understood that the following adaptations needed to occur:

o Our market of focus will be Tech startups – or startups with a heavy tech component in their model – based in NYC• Seems like startups in NYC need much more help than those in Silicon Valley

o Second market to target – Europe• The reason to not target Europe at the beginning is just because of the team’s location

o Startups need much more help finding co-founders with the proper skills, than finding other resources such as to go guides, etc.• In the end, this has proven that our Wiki section can be avoided, at least as a part of our MVP

o Treating the platform as a Club is important for potential members – this was learned during in person interviews• People want to feel a part of something exclusive and curated, a community where they can trust

everyone who is a member.

Insights Shaping our Model

• Important insights about NYC startup ecosystem, shaping our decision of what will be on the platform:o Global capital for women tech entrepreneurs, with 18% being female.o Companies monetize earlier, with a higher ratio of paying customers. Even though that may o mitigate risk, it may also limit the startup’s ability to be highly disruptive.o Startups in NYC employ as many people per stage as startups in Silicon Valley. However, in the

efficiency (stage 3) NYC startups have twice as many employees as SV.o NYC is the second largest ecosystem for software startups in terms of absolute output.o Strong emphasis on consumer startups and subscription models.o NYC has a funding gap, with 70% less funding than SV in the second stage before product

market fit, probably due to a lack of super angels.o NYC entrepreneurs are 10% less likely than their peers in SV to go full time on their company

before reaching Product Market Fit.o There are 34% fewer serial entrepreneurs proportionally compared to Silicon Valley.o The target market size of NYC startups is 58% less likely to be over $10 Billion as compared to

SV startups.o NYC startups are 17% less data driven than SV startups.o NYC is more consumer oriented, with 35% more startups focused on consumers as their

primary paying customer, and 35% less focused on SMEs as their primary paying customer.o Startups in NYC have 16% fewer mentors per company compared to startups in Silicon Valley.

• *source: Telefonica, Startup Genome: http://cdn2.blog.digital.telefonica.com.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Startup-Ecosystem-Report-2012.pdf

www.venturersclub.com