“It sucks to be the CEO of a startup that’s doing super well” said Stewart Butterfield’s, Slack CEO, earlier this year at the Startup Grind Global Conference, on the growth his company is witnessing – “the stakes just get higher and higher”.
It might sound awkward at first but in fact it doesn’t seem an easy job to be leading a startup that is often called the fastest-growing business app ever.
It all started by developing a flash-based online game called Glitch before pivoting toward communications, launching Slack on February 2014. Two years after, they have 2.3 million daily active users and in the last two months they added the same number of users they achieved in their entire first year.
Now that’s growth on steroids.
At this speed, it’s hard to guess which are the next milestones to be met (can Slack one day reduce the role of email to an irrelevant one?) but with this kind of hyper growth the pressure deeply increases and every challenge can get harder if you don’t have all the right people working with you.
Erin Griffith, Fortune writer, sat down with Stewart at the 99U Conference to talk about the challenges they’re facing right now, being their biggest struggle “to find the right people” – the team started with 14 elements, they’re 130 nowadays and they predict to be 250-280 until the end of the year.
“Every practice that we develop for how to manage becomes obsolete in 60 days.”
Here is the entire 20-min talk on how they scaled and their next challenges.
And yes, you can also be amazed by this infographic, shared by Slack weeks ago, on their two-year anniversary:
Talking to investors is usually associated to stress that may even include sweat pouring down your forehead, stuttering and feeling like you’re on your final judgment day – all contributing to the “myth” that all these meetings are conducted in a formal and tense atmosphere.
Actually it doesn’t have to be like that and at Beta-i we’re deconstructing that image: The Lisbon Investment Summit is the proof that to receive great insights on serious investments you don’t need serious meetings or formal talks. You will need to take it seriously.
On the 7th and 8th of June, #LIS16 is back with another two-day event where every attendee can talk with top speakers, in a casual ambience with a lot of unconventional surprises prepared for you.
Speakers & Investors
Speaking of top speakers and investors, we want to introduce you to all of those that have so far confirmed their presence so far in Lisbon, including:
Ragnar Sass: Serial Entrepreneur, Co-Founder of Pipedrive, a sales management tool with more than 100 000 users across 140 countries and Co-Founder of Garage48, a non-profit organization that promotes Entrepreneurship by organizing events in different parts of the world. He’s also a mentor with a focus on funding, hiring, traction and marketing.
Luciana Lixandru: Principal at Accel Partners, where she’s focused on early and growth stage investments in software, Internet and digital companies. Accel Partners has created an impressive portfolio in the las three decades, helping to build companies like Facebook, Groupon, Spotify, Dropbox and Rovio.
Saul Klein: One of the most regarded tech celebrities in Europe, Saul is an Entrepreneur, Investor and Operator. He was part of the original executive team at Skype, co-founded Seedcamp, Lovefilm International, The Accelerator Group and Kano between others, and also was a partner at Index Ventures and a board-member at Codecademy.
Meet here the 30 or so speakers already confirmed, stay tuned for the upcoming exciting news and reserve your ticket to the most relevant and irreverent Investment Event in Lisbon before they sell out.
Protechting Startups are bringing innovation in areas we can all relate to: the protection of people and their belongings, service, health and savings. Sohow are these teams building the tools that will change our daily routines?
This is the first of a series of three blogposts updating you on the latest developments of the startups in the Protechting startup accelerator program by Fidelidade/Fosun and Beta-i.
A lot of progress has been made so far in the program by the teams but the most important part still lies ahead as we’re just two weeks away from the final presentation. Mário from CleeBeen Technologies, Bart from Ectosense and Ridhi from Noxidity joined us for a quick status update on their learnings and milestones.
CleenBeenTechnologies aims to resolve one of the most predominant problems in hospital environment: bacterial/superbug and MRSA infections through an IoT technology that provides real-time information about the levels and hygiene processes at any hospital. By using CleenBeen’s solution, hospitals will contribute to a better infection controlled environment, reducing the resulting diseases (even deaths) and the associated maintenance costs.
Their initial focus was on hospital’-s’ bathrooms, where they applied their sensors to see if the hygiene steps we’re being followed correctly, controlling for example the time the water tap was open, if people dried their hands and if they had flushed the toilets, between many other metrics. But we all know how speaking with potential customers can radically change the way you build and implement your solution: Since they started talking with the head of the Infection Control department at the Beatriz Ângelo Hospital in Lisbon, Dr. Carlos Palos, they realized that instead hygiene control in bathrooms, their main focus should be the medical rooms where the patients are in direct contact with doctors, nurses and other staff elements.
Definitely extremely valuable feedback that most of times only experts can give you.
The CleenBeen team was “lucky” to have met Dr. Carlos Palos as one of the Coaches assigned to the Protechting program –as soon as they met each other they knew that implementing a pilot at Beatriz Ângelo Hospital was the next big step, and they’re working on the final legal issues to start the pilot.
Their main challenge right now is to “teach” their algorithm to learn the five steps for hand-Hygiene made by the World Health Organization (WHO), the fifth being the most tricky one: How to control the hygiene process of somebody who enters a medical room, without having close contact with the patient but who still needs to clean his hands before leaving the room.
Ectosense leverages mobile technology to measure and analyze the user’s sleep quality in their home environment. Analyzing the user’s heart rate using third-party devices as well as recording other inputs gathered through your mobile device, the app determines the presence of disturbed sleep in a similar way the physician would do it.
“Lisbon is a nice and cheap city to live in and the main reason we applied was the sponsors because they’re right in our industry and also the direct-level access we have with experts through Beta-i and Fidelidade/Fosun. That in any other way would be really hard to reach.”
Again, expert feedback at Hospital da Luz was one of the key moments of the program since it allowed them to validate the features they had planned and start defining what to prioritize. They also had a really relevant time with Marcelo Lebre, Lead Developer at Faber Ventures, who help them structure their IT architecture.
Noxidity, a new Internet-of-Things enabled (IoT) technology that predicts and facilitates the maintenance of corrosion, is now focused on interviewing larger companies to gather as much input as they can while developing the prototype.
For example, many of the utilities companies have sub-power stations in remote locations that easily corrode. With Noxidity’s technology, the companies will be able to keep track of the corrosion levels in real-time from their offices, saving money and time. The team also secured a really relevant advisor, the President of the European Federation of Corrosion, Dª Fátima Montemor.
In Lisbon Ridhi found a growing Startup ecosystem, where people and businesses genuinely want to help, high quality talent is easy to find and where the quality of life is a tremendous plus point.
With two weeks to go and so much work to get done the pressure on the startups is rising but their contagious motivation and drive will definitely boost a killer presentation on the final day. Freddie Mercury would clearly define the goal for these two last weeks: From singing “Under Pressure” in the middle of the show to a “We Are the Champions” overwhelming performance in the end.
What does managing music artists have to do with investing in Tech Startups?
Regarding talent, can we look at music artists the same way we see entrepreneurs?
“I think the common denominator and the one word is ‘hustle’”
Troy Carter made his name in the music industry, promoting Hip-Hop artists and concerts and he was the one to discover and launch Lady Gaga’s career. Later on, he started to apply his learnings into the tech industry, early investing in Startups like Uber, Lyft, DropBox, Warby Parker and many more and creating his own fund, CrossCulture VC.
Here is a 20-min enlightening talk between Troy Carter and Mark Suster (entrepreneur and VC) about the ability to “spot, nurture and mentor talent”, the relevance of conquering the first users (“The first 50 super fans”), how to go after the product/market fit, the importance of a narrative in marketing and the role luck plays in success.
The video was originally posted at Mark’s Blog Both Sides of The Table, where you can read all the highlights from the talk.
Customer Development can help you take the right steps.
Have you ever had this great idea that can make you barely sleep at night with all the excitement?
“It’s a great idea but what if I’m not thinking clearly?” Hmm.. Well, if all your friends loved the idea too probably it will work out, right? And if your mom also thinks it’s a “cute” project, now that’s the final proof it really is the time to quit your job and start working night and day on your way up to success, right?
Wrong. Probably you’re not asking the right questions.
You’re secretly looking for accomplices that share your enthusiasm, and when people unconsciously notice what are you looking for with those questions, they have a natural tendency to agree. They want to see you happy, but that momentary happiness can lead you to follow the wrong direction and come to an end where you’ve built something just for your own use.
Rob Fitzpatrick is the author of “The Mom Test”, a book on Customer Development and how to ask the right questions to your potential customers. He has also been an entrepreneur for the past 10 years, a Y-Combinator Alumni and developed different products, some of them used by major brands like MTV and Sony.
Rob is coming to Lisbon (April 11) to give a Masterclass on “How to talk to your customers” at Beta-i, so make sure you don’t miss the chance to learn the right steps to take when you finally have that amazing idea (or if you’re already struggling with customer feedback).
Ticket Includes Rob’s book On Customer Development
to have met Dr. Carlos Palos as one of the Coaches assigned to the Protechting program –as soon as they met each other they knew that implementing a pilot at Beatriz Ângelo Hospital was the next big step, and they’re working on the final legal issues to start the pilot.
