Ростислав Чайка “Raise money in Silicon Valley: Mission Impossible?”

How to raise money in SV ?Rostyslav Chaykawww.rchayka.com

Meet Rostyslav Chayka

●Lviv Startup Club since 2009●Lemberg Tech Business School●StartupLine.com.ua●Startup Consultant

SF Bay Area

8 milion people

2nd most Fortune 500 Companies in the US

NYC - SF Bay Area bilionares

1 milion in IT

35 000 potential unicorn founders

Most expensive area in US

Who should try?

Global product

US customers

Ability to move to SF Bay Area (at least 40-50% time)

Why ua teams have chances again?

UA people do not understand US market

Software eat the world

A lot of derivatives

UA people do understand technology landscape

Digital lifestyle is the same

$5m-$10m projects are not interesting

Hardware and some B2B project are slow

Succesful UA startups

Doomed to fail ua global startups

B2C services / solving direct customers needs

Fast growing products

B2B targeting over $100m valuation

Mainstream new tech

Option #1: Incubator

TOP incubators: YCombinator, TechStars, 500Startus

Industry incubators

3-5 months in SF Bay Area

Work hard

Target big stories

Option #2: Ninja

Adoption

Education

Industry expertise

Early customers

Partners

Investors

Tip #1: Good American English

Read, write, communicate, deliver presentations

American english is not english :)

Local slang, idioms, jokes, proverbs

Tolerance go immigrants and mistakes

Tip #2: Integrate to business culture

Be smart:) understand what you are doing

Goal-oriented

Time-saving

Meaningles ignored

Manipulations are funny

Openless to opportunities

Locals are helpful / other immigrants are rude

Easy to share information & connect

Tip #3: Focus on your industry

Bad news: Generic events are senseless

Good news: There are tons of industry events

LinkedIn

Facebok

Quora

Incubators / Accelerators / Coworkings

Tip #4: Build your network

Store connections

Communicate regulary

Ask about connections

Be proactive

Help people :)

Tip #5: Persistence

Be local :)

Keep contact

Able to meet

Expenses

Airflight: 800$ - 1000$

Appartments: 350$ - 1400$

Transport / Car: 500$ - 900$

Food: 300$ - 1500$

Events: 200$ - 10K$

Contacts

FB / LIn - Rostyslav Chayka

+1 (408) - 650 - 23- 70

+38 (050) 522 - 88 - 75

www.rchayka.com

[email protected]