Notes from Startup Summit - April 24th, 2012

Speaking opportunities in Birmingham: Venture Club, TEDx Bham, Innovation Depot, LaunchPad. CTS - Flexible workspace for startups. Ask for help at Universities - plan this out Need all yes employees Notes from Will Pearson - Founder of Mental Floss Condensed Knowledge book Med School in a box, Law School in a box Blurring the line between education and entertainment The mental oss content is social, sharable...people want to talk about it! It creates a chatter and buzz @mental_oss Let the audience show off - they create t-shirts Notes from Jason & Ben - Mongo DB you dont have time to manage people the middle kills - yes, no, and maybe - kill no and maybe Have a short list of potential employees Push to nd leaders, aim really high when looking for employees - look to shake employees out of corporate jobs such as Southern Co, Coca Cola, etc. Everything will always be in a state of disaster! Dont expect it to get better for a while. Mibrary Dreams: Scaling: 10,000,000 users x 1/100 get a job off the network x $8,000 Mibrary fee for each one = $800,000,000 in revenue a year. GradesFirst - monthly infrastructure costs less than $2,000 a month. Mibrary Dreams: Scaling: rst year - 5 employees x $40,000/year x 1.5 years + $15,000 in infrastructure costs = $300,000 Will Pearson, Founder of Mental Floss would be a good potential board member. Score - Bham elder biz folks Hiring There are 3 rules to customer development - qualify, qualify, qualify Look for investors with connections, who can help you make your rst important hires, etc.