Wireless leaders of the future were among an audience at panel session for competitors in a global investment competition at the University of Texas at Austin Thursday in which past winners and successful entrepreneurs shared wisdom from behind the front lines of business.
At the entrepreneur-focused Texas Venture Week, hosted by the McCombs School of Business’s Texas Venture Labs, student competitors and investors listened as panelists from uShip, Bigfoot Networks, Phurnace Software, Qcue, eVapt, and MacuCLEAR spoke of the pitfalls and opportunities of entrepreneurial life beyond MBA programs.
Most of the speakers focused on fundraising concerns, advising the audience to keep term sheets simple, get to know their investors, and prioritize a focus on building products and attracting customers.
Panelist Ranjit Nayak, founder of cloud subscription management company eVapt, lamented mistakes he made as an over-eager recent graduate. “It was a mistake to raise money right after Moot Corp. (now know as the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition.) We should have gone the bootstrap route.” At the time, Nayak’s company was chasing huge markets when they should have just focused on a niche and worked up from there.
Mike Cubbage, founder of game networking firm Bigfoot Networks, stressed the importance of knowing potential investors. He said that many venture capitalists in the Silicon Valley, for instance, are only interested in deals with big-ticket starts-up like GroupOn or Facebook that will look good on the front of their prospectuses. “It’s a herd mentality because these guys all want to go to the same cocktail hour and talk about these deals that are super hot.”
The panelists also emphasized the importance of staying humble and working hard. “I’m sure you’re all terribly bright, but there are lots of other bright people outside of this room. So you need to keep [investors] interested,” said Phurnace founder Robert Reeves, pointing out the sometimes it is a good idea to take a funding round while it is available. “Don’t get too big for your britches – just take the damn money.”
One of Austin’s biggest recent successes in the Internet space, uShip, celebrated the role of universities in fostering entrepreneurship. He said he looked at his MBA as a two-year incubation period after which he planned to launch his company. “Now is the time to do it for those of you who are in school. There is no better time because you are surrounded with tremendous resources.”
Nayak supported that comment by saying a study period offered the perfect opportunity for experimenting.
Would you like all your dreams to come true? Follow Marc Speir on twitter @truthorcon.
