my name is Sergio Marrero and today I’m
going to talk about building startups
and and more specifically I’m gonna
share a little bit about my journey talk
about my research that I started at the
Harvard Business School and the Kennedy
School of Government focused on startup
factories that these organizations
accelerating the pace of innovation and
launching new ventures into the world my
journey started launching an
organization focused on creating a
mobile app that delivers job training on
your mobile phone and we brought
together an all-star team between
Harvard and MIT we got into a global
accelerator program called startup Chile
and we went down to South America work
several months launched a venture that
application didn’t get the user traction
that we expected we didn’t agree on
where to move forward and eventually
ended up winding that down and it was
through that experience through
surviving that experience that I’ve
become obsessed with how do you
streamline the process in launching new
startups and bring them into the world
and I’m gonna share a bit of that with
you today as an engineer I believe every
problem has multiple solutions and so I
focused on how to how to outline a
process and really help early-stage
entrepreneurs and companies launch new
ventures my journey started how first at
an innovation and design firm where we
did user research in the field we turn
those into insights we turn those
insights into concepts and and really
going through the design thinking
methodology if you’re familiar with it I
also put the theory to practice I focus
it on reinventing the men’s wallet made
an alternative that was super thin made
of cork instead of leather and and going
through that understood that the design
thinking process was great at developing
concepts but not really from going from
concept to company so to understand what
it takes to make that next leap I worked
in venture capital and these are firms
that invest in winning startups and to
understand the milestones and metrics
that they use with the intent of baking
that into the creation process and it
was from that point that I took a step
back
and and made a framework for myself to
understand the whole startup journey so
to share with you now when you’re
starting an organization there’s first
the zero to one and this is what Peter
Thiel he’s a well known investor
invested in face book talks about
bringing new ideas to the world next
there’s this one to many and this is the
messy phase that the start-up team is
finding a repeatable process it starts
to begin to make money and and they
become sustainable
then there’s the many to scale and this
is what large companies are good at
where they are they are taking the
product and they’re bringing it out to
different regions and different
populations
it was goat going through this research
that I was exposed to these companies
that were going through this process at
nine to ten times faster than normal
you’re talking about where it takes an
entrepreneur one two three years maybe
even more to go through the first
process they were going through this at
they were doing this in in a few months
and and it was it was really incredible
so there we go so I called these
entities startup factories they were
companies that were launching new
ventures quickly into the world also
known as startup Studios company
builders and foundries and these are
some of those organizations that I
looked into and I looked into the people
the processes the technology the
business models you know what do they
actually do to accelerate this pace and
you’ll know some of these organizations
they’re all very different
some create digital products some
physical some focus on new technologies
such as blockchain but in the end they
had these secrets if you will or these I
call them keys to acceleration and I’m
going to share a few of them with you
today those keys to acceleration really
are gonna fit into four main categories
focused on the team how the team worked
the structure of the startup factory and
the environment they created for these
ventures so first they had these four
capabilities of deep expertise within
the team business tech design and
research and I like to think of it as
you’re building your startups and
startup teams every person is a you know
you’re building your League of
super-heroes each person has a
superpower you should know
and actively talk about what they are
and and these are some keys to that tech
so that somebody can build it design so
that they’re making sure that it
interacts well with the population
you’re trying to serve the hound is the
sales you need to close sales and and
make money or your startup will not
succeed and the researcher is really
focused on understanding what the world
wants and iterating on that and while
this expertise was not necessarily
within just the startup team but also
within the studio another thing that
they did is they had a founder that was
there from the beginning and at least
through the the product market fit face
and I’ll explain why this this was key
is as you’re going through the process
of building something putting out to the
world testing and learning the they call
it the Lean Startup methodology you’re
collecting learnings and as you’re
collecting all this knowledge and
experience and the startup hits walls
you need a that’s identifying new
patterns and new ways of moving forward
and that’s key next early-stage startups
these found startup factories are
co-creating with ventures so today if
you imagine every startup as a child
that exists in the world the entities
that are designed to help them talk
about accelerators investors incubators
all adopt their children they go through
hundreds and thousands of applications
and cherry-pick the ones that they want
to help startup factories were slightly
different they were working with
founders before they even started a
project so that they were on the same
page identifying what they should do
next next they involve investors early
in the process they cut down a process
where the the founder that usually takes
hundreds of hours and several months of
pitching to investors and trying to get
them to invest and brought it down to a
single day in several hours it was
pretty amazing
also one trick they use as they
co-located the investor in the same area
as as the startup team so that they can
some lots of questions to tap into their
expertise and and this eliminated
administrative updating and and
sometimes board meetings another thing
they did is they experimented fast too
so that they learned as quickly as
possible to give you a sense of that
this picture is not of a calendar of
what’s taking place over the course of a
month this is a breakdown of what’s
taking place over a week broken down
hour by hour and that’s how quickly
these teams were testing next it was
important that these startups if you’re
creating them in a startup factory are
independent as soon as they showed early
signs of product market fit there were
active users and paying customers they
filed as a separate legal company even
if it was one two three people in the
same building and the the reason that
was so that they can get used to being
independent and also accept outside
funding if someone wants to support them
and I relate this to a high if you think
about everybody’s working every be is
working in a common thread but the B can
go off come back build in a different
direction and even go build a new hive
and it’s important that startups are
given that same independence next if
you’re creating different types of
ventures a sharing ownership it really
aligned and specifically equity really
aligned with founders taking risks and
to share a little bit more about that
there were startup factories that were
innovating they were just copying what
was out there right and they didn’t
share a large portion of equity but if
they wanted to be disruptive if they
wanted to create a new market they it
was more likely than not they were
sharing a majority of the ownership with
the founding team it to incentivize them
to take those risks next they created
communities of shared ventures in the
same place so so to share a little bit
more about incubators and accelerators
they usually have a group of startups
come in they train and then they leave
right and there’s no knowledge that’s
passed on from generation to generation
these places were slightly different
they had teams that were located
side-by-side in visiting this this
startup factory was hard to tell who was
on which team but the amazing thing that
happened
is is as startups grew they would
naturally learn from one another there
was a lot of serendipitous communication
and then also the startup factory itself
developed an unfair competitive
advantage they had so much knowledge on
particular industries or particular
technologies that it was hard for others
to compete and last but not least
startup factories are part of an
ecosystem they don’t exist in a silo so
they had relationship with companies
with investors with with universities
and the only time that this was
different they didn’t exist on their own
was in developing countries where the
startup factories were actually the
nucleus and the very beginnings of their
entrepreneurial ecosystem so these are
just a few of the key accelerators that
I observed in studying startup factories
and the big idea that I wanted to share
with you today is we can accelerate the
pace of launching new ventures and more
easily bring startups into the world and
the organizations and people that take
on this challenge will not only
out-compete as they go into the future
they will have the opportunity to shape
the world thank you [Applause]