The Bloomberg Empowered Entrepreneur Summit: Building the Next Billion Dollar Business will bring together the most innovative entrepreneurs with other entrepreneurs, investors and potential business partners for an afternoon of discussions about starting, financing and growing your business. This event will follow the morning “TechStars Demo Day”, when entrepreneurs selected by TechStars will...
[read more] The Bloomberg Empowered Entrepreneur Summit: Building the Next Billion Dollar Business will bring together the most innovative entrepreneurs with other entrepreneurs, investors and potential business partners for an afternoon of discussions about starting, financing and growing your business. This event will follow the morning “TechStars Demo Day”, when entrepreneurs selected by TechStars will present their business idea to hundreds of angel investors. These afternoon sessions will focus on growth companies and will feature interviews with leaders of these companies, during which they will share their stories of how they weathered the financial crisis, found ways to grow their businesses and maintained (or evolved) the core principles upon which they originally founded their companies.
Agenda
DAY 1 | Thursday, April 14th, 2011
1:00 pm BLOOMBERG HELP HELP DESK OPENS & PARTICIPANT CHECK-IN
1:30 pm WELCOME & OPENING REMARKS
1:35 pm FINANCING THE NEW TECH START-UP: FROM ANGEL TO SERIES XYZ
New York City has become a hub for start-ups. How are venture, angel, and PE investors viewing the start-up environment and support network in New York? Where are early-stage and later-stage entrepreneurs going for financing? How much are they getting and what does it cost them? What are the expectations for returns? What is driving the new tech boom in NYC?
Speakers:
Paige Craig, CEO and Co-Founder, BetterWorks; Angel Investor
Chris Fralic, Managing Partner, First Round Capital
Amish Jani, Managing Director, FirstMark Capital, LLC
2:00 pm CHASING THE BILLION DOLLAR VALUATION
What does it take to scale a start-up? At what moment is a midstream shift in strategy and operations necessary? What is the tipping point? How do you bring your company to the next level? Where are the next billion dollar ideas? What markets are growing most aggressively?
Speakers:
Moshe Koyfman, Principal, Spark Capital
Nicolas R. Perkin, Co-Founder and President, The Receivables Exchange
Joe Zawadzki, Chief Executive Officer, MediaMath, Inc.
2:25 pm THE FOUNDER’S SYNDROME: THE HUNT FOR TALENT & THE POACHING WAR
As the economy rebounds, technology companies are battling over engineers, designers, computer scientists, and executives who can stay ahead of changes in the industry. The competition for talent is especially fierce among social media and other Internet companies as well as computer systems manufacturers. How do you attract talent in this environment? What happens when the company’s growth outpaces headcount growth? What happens when the team you started with needs to bring in the team that can take the company to the next level? How can you shed the founder’s ego to embrace new management? How do you sell the job to tested talent with track record? How do you know who can deliver? How much does the founder need to step aside and how much do they need to stand their ground?
Speakers:
John Dillon, Chief Executive Officer, Engine Yard, Inc.; Former CEO, Salesforce.com
Jose Ferreira, Founder and CEO, Knewton Inc.
Michael Lazerow, CEO and Founder, Buddy Media, Inc.
2:50 pm WALL STREET’S TECH RUSH
Speakers:
M. Adam Oliveri, Managing Director, Private Company Market, SecondMarket
Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group
Additional Speaker to be Announced
3:15 pm HOW SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS DRIVING SOCIAL MEDIA MODEL
Speakers:
Joel Babbit, Co-Founder and CEO, Mother Nature Network (MNN)
Charles Best, Founder and CEO, DonorsChoose.org
S. Coppy Holzman, Co-Founder and CEO, charitybuzz Inc.
Jalak Jobanputra, Director of Investments, Omidyar Network
Interviewed by:
Rachel Sklar, Editor-at-Large, Mediaite.com
3:40 pm THE NEW YORK TECH STORY
What are the elements that separate New York Start-ups from Silicon Valley? What kinds of businesses can only take root in New York? What is driving the start-up culture here? How are entrepreneurs leveraging the local support network?
Speakers:
Lauren Leto, Chief Executive Officer, Bnter; President, Texts From Last Night (TFLN)
Aslaug Magnusdottir, Co-Founder and CEO, Moda Operandi
Jon Steinberg, President, BuzzFeed, Inc.
4:05 pm EXITS: STAYING PRIVATE, GOING PUBLIC, OR SELLING OUT
2011 has been called a bumper year for tech IPOs with LinkedIn, Groupon, Pandora, and Skype in line to go public. M&A activity in the tech space is on the rise. How are entrepreneurs assessing their exit options? What are the best exits for founders and investors? How are entrepreneurs cashing out early?
Speakers:
Ben Lerer, Co-Founder and CEO, Thrillist.com
James W. Montgomery, Founder and CEO, Montgomery & Co., LLC
Albert Wenger, Managing Director, Union Square Ventures
Interviewed by:
Jonathan Erlichman, Markets Reporter, Bloomberg Television
4:30 pm ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS THE ECONOMIC ENGINE OF RECOVERY
Now it is patriotic to be an entrepreneur. Help create jobs! Build new revenue streams! Help the U.S. compete in the global innovation race! It’s not only what you can do for the economy, it’s what Uncle Sam can do for you. How is Washington incentivising new business? What is the assessment of the Treasury’s Small Business Lending Fund? What is the administration’s interest in Silicon Valley and how are they helping to spur tech innovation?
Speakers:
Howard Lindzon, Founder, Lindzon & Associates; Creator, Wallstrip, StockTwits and Biltmore Venture Partners
Seth W. Pinsky, President, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC)
Gary Shapiro, President and CEO, Consumer Electronics Association; Author, The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream
5:00 pm CLOSING REMARKS & CONFERENCE ADJOURNS
