iLab Scramble Talk | Rough Draft Ventures - Harvard Innovation Lab

Class #2September 10, 2013

DIVING IN & STARTUP HUSTLEHow to get your foot in the door.

Peter Boyce II | @badboyboyce

Peter Boyce IIInvestor, General Catalyst PartnersCo-founder, Rough Draft Ventures

Founding Director, HackHarvard & HCVPApprentice / Boston Director / Partnerships, Skillshare

Harvard College, Applied Math & CS ’13

What We’re Seeing• Weekly pitches | across all Boston schools | investing $1-25K

• design-centric | mobile | tools | front-line (ex. bitcoin)

• University-focused (you’re the target customer)

• eCommerce & payments

• On-demand convenience / service

• Career / recruiting / professional

• Disrupting / Displacing archaic industries: health, K-12

• Crowdfunding & collaborative consumption

• Hardware ‘renaissance’

Then vs. Now

What’s changed on campus at Harvard? In Boston?

What It Takes To Be A Student Founder• Team: scaling & growth via talent

• Product-focused: idea --> validation, integrating feedback

• Vision for the road forward: milestones, timeline

• Always be learning: product, people, reading, experiments

•Questions to ask yourself:

• How much time can I allocate to this?

• What metrics / scenarios would lead me to....

• What skills do I have? What skills do I need to develop?

• What’s my unfair advantage? Secret-sauce?

Resources for Student Founders• Locally: Rough Draft Ventures, DRF, Intelligent.ly, GA

• Accelerators: YC, DreamIt Ventures, Bolt, Techstars Boston

• Space: Harvard iLab, Koa Labs, Workbar, CIC

• University: hackathons, professors, competitions, dining hall!

•Community & Online:

• Learning: Blogs & Twitter, HackerNews, Skillshare, edX

• Events/Network: Scrambles!, unConference, CoFoundersLab

• Stay Informed: Greenhorn Connect // BostInno // VentureFizz

The Student Advantage

✓ .edu email address✓ Lighter commitments✓ Wide-open imagination✓ ‘Reality distortion’✓ Customer / Learning / Network density

Joining a Startup

Team | Operational Experience | Responsibility | Risk Profile | Learning

‘Come Together Like Voltron’

Reading

Relentlessly Resourceful - Paul Graham

http://www.paulgraham.com/relres.html

Reading

How things get done - Sam Altman

http://blog.samaltman.com/how-things-get-donel

The Road Forward• At the Scramble this weekend:

• Make new relationships

• Take ideas & translate them into MVP’s / validation

• Get out of your comfort zone: biz <-> product <-> tech

• Sustain the momentum:

• Get out into the Boston tech ecosystem

• Find new online learning sources & at your university

• Identify + reach out to mentors & collaborators

Have an epic

Scramble!

Say hi:[email protected]

@badboyboycepboyce.com

(slide design inspiration by @jackrmcdermott)