TechCrunch Disrupt

Observations from Zach Boerger & Ben Gilbert

Douglas Leone - Sequoia

•Why the world is how it is, how it’s changing, and your role

•“Solve problems that are your own”

•1988 - avg. founder 45. Now 25.

•More “application layer” than “technology layer” now

YC Office Hours•PG - “gets” an idea instantly. Cuts it

down to simplest form

•Launch ASAP: “What are you waiting for?”

•Who are your users?

•Why would someone use you over the other guy?

•Need one sentence explanation

Peter Thiel & Max Levchin

•Technology innovation is at a standstill

•Risk-taking atmosphere has declined (think NASA inspirational speeches)

Vinod Khosla

•“Cool dozen areas”: data reduction, big data, using machine learning to figure out user preferences, “emotional” apps, education, health, empowering people

VC Panel

•Arrington - “VCs should get out of the way until startups really need $$ to grow”

•Real value = mentorship

•Pros/cons of being in SF area

•Arrington dissent

Ashton Kutcher

•Shockingly amazing

•Investing = witch-hunt for magic ideas

•“Wealth chases revolutionary people, not the other way around”

•“Only invest in things I’m passionate about”

Eric Ries, Scott Cook, Kevin

Systrom•Don’t be small/cheap; be fast & deploy constantly

•Iterate on what your users want

•Constantly assess if a pivot is needed (Instagram)

•Focus on “love metrics”

•“Don’t fall in love with your solution”

Kevin Rose

•Digg - “I hired a whole bunch of engineers rapidly to scale. That didn’t work, and it’s my fault.”

•Now, hiring “Swiss Army Knife” engineers

John Doerr

•Investing in founders

•Investing heavily in green-tech/energy

•Government/economy needed for these

•$23B invested in companies started in last 12 months

Angels Panel• Funds between $20M - $50M

• McClure - 10/mo, Conway - 3/mo

• Background/pedigree = leverage

• Only want to work w/ VCs who can take company to next level

• Conway - bootstrap as long as possible

• Arrington calls BS

• Market, product, team, customer, revenue = $1M each

Battlefield Day 1

• Tonara - “Kindle for sheet music”

• Farmigo - bringing fresh farm produce right to users

• OpenBucks - use gift cards to pay online

• CakeHealth - Mint.com for healthcare

• Bitcase - “infinite” storage for PC

• Shaker - Facebook social discovery game

Battlefield Day 2•Trello - Joel Spolsky. Team

productivity management tool

•Meexo - rethinking online dating. Mobile. “Reverse social graph”

•JiffPad - increasing healthcare understanding. Gorgeous iPad app.

•myLanguage - Star Trek universal translator

Themes

•Launch quickly

•Iterate

•Figure out what really matters in your company

Conclusions

•We are not far behind

•Hiring like crazy

•Frenetic pace

Full Notes

•https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i7-1WVafh4WAr9TmB_ZF_eJJvuDKJopGpGoWI5cnT0w/edit?hl=en_US