TiE’s flagship chapter in Silicon Valley kicked off TiE’s 20th anniversary with a bang on Friday 18 May 2012 – alongside FaceBook’s much-anticipated IPO – as if to say, ‘we’re back, baby!’ with the subtlety of the Terminator.

While there was some carping about the lack of a ‘pop’ of FB shares on their first day on the NASDAQ, VC legend Tim Draper (pictured) was in no doubt this was a great debut and the next 3-5 years would see even more growth and success in the Valley, if the ‘Draper Wave’ is any guide.

The upbeat mood kept the 3,500 delegates to TiECON 2012 – entrepreneurs, VCs, angels, service providers and even corporate sponsors such as SAP – excited and bullish on their prospects. Keynote speeches by SAP’s CTO Dr Vishal Sikka and MIT’s Professor Anant Agarwal were topped only by Sam Pitroda – advisor to the Indian Prime Minister – and Tim Draper’s keynote song and (Bollywood) dance routine!

Four major streams of parallel sessions - Mobile, Social, Cloud and Entrepreneurship – as well as many others kept delegates engaged over the two days of the event.

Panel participants in the Mobile stream included veterans from Norwest, Ericksson, Mayfield and Greylock who were expertly facilitated by TiE Charter Member hosts such as Raj Singh, CEO Tempo AI. The ‘freemium’ business model was seen to be most effective but securing ongoing subscription fees to replace one-off download sales was the challenge, even for leaders like Zynga. ‘The challenge of ‘discovery’ for apps across many platforms harked back to the early days of the Internet - when website discovery was finally addressed by Google search. The use of embedded performance analytics to get insights into the user was considered essential to success in this competitive space.

The Social stream debated Gaming and whether FaceBook was a ‘necessary evil’, but concluded FB was the lighter fluid that could propel others to offer even more tailored user experiences, providing user authentication, data and distribution as a platform. Companies like Identified were creating a way for professional job-seekers and employers to better leverage the information on LinkedIn. Manu Rekhi of Inventus Capital believed enterprises were still looking for tools to optimize social interactions and budgets across all channels to improve their outcomes and ROI. The feedback loop inherent in social networks was seen as critical to their success.

Both aspiring entrepreneurs and those on the journey packed the Entrepreneurship sessions to hear partners from companies such as Google Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Silicon Valley Bank on raising money. Entrepreneurs such as Gary Swart of ODesk and Greg Woock of Pinger shared insights on going global.

In assessing entrepreneurs, Tim Draper – who was an early investor in HotMail founder Sabeer Bhatia, Skype and Baidu China - looks for problem solvers taking on big problems, iconoclasts, clever business models and even black swans. 28-year old Aaron Levie, Founder of Box has raised over $160m and advised college students to drop out of Harvard if they could try out a bunch of ideas when still at school. Levie was confident of tackling much larger competitors (like Google Drive and Dropbox) by dint of their speed to market (e.g. with iPad apps) and niche market focus (larger business clients demanding enterprise security in a shared resource).

Young people and high school students were inspired by veteran TiE Charter Member Vinod Khosla who advised them to challenge conventional wisdom – and their parents! Panel host Sakina Arsiwala described the shock and horror of her peers when she decided to quit Google to start her own venture and of being vindicated when recently acquired by Groupon.

Veteran as well as young women entrepreneurs counseled the women delegates over well- attended lunchtime panels. Julia Hartz who co-founded EventBrite with her husband Kevin, spoke of the challenges and advantages of such close partnerships. VC Anne Winblad was frank in her assessment that male VCs never funded husband-wife teams due to concerns about a breakup affecting the venture! A young lawyer striking out on her own questioned why other women were often less helpful than they could be and demanded more from other women, with the panel suggesting personal rapport and trust were prerequisites to getting competitive women to collaborate and win together.

With the interactive sessions punctuated by networking opportunities over breaks, meals and evening drinks, business cards were exchanged at a furious pace! The TiECON mobile app brought out the online commentators and the leaderboard ‘gamification’ drove social commentary with TiECON trending on Twitter.

A sumptuous banquet and flashy entertainment - complete with dancing girls and celebrity singer – brought the conference to a close on a high note, leaving no doubt that the Valley is once again celebrating entrepreneurial success and TiE is a key contributor.
 

Copyright © 2012 The Indus Entrepreneurs