Launchpad LA – More Details Revealed | Both Sides of the Table

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Full press release with more details is here. We will be selecting 10 startup companies to participate. There is no cost but you must physically be based in or move to Los Angeles for the 6 months of the program. Applications are due April 6th, 2010, the form is on the website and the Twitter address is @launchpadlad

When I kicked off Launchpad LA a year ago I had a few objectives:

Create an ecosystem where all Southern California VC’s had the chance to work together more actively outside of the boards on which we mutually sit
Find the best and brightest next generation of entrepreneurs and help them to be more successful
Encourage the most successful LA tech entrepreneurs who had previously started companies to get involved as mentors, instructors or just informal advisors
Help these companies get funded and let them know that if they stayed in LA there was an ecosystem to support them

It was inspired somewhat by a comment that Matt Coffin (founder of LowerMyBills) made at a technology event hosted by Jason Nazar. He spoke about his experiences in the dot com crash of the early part of the century where no VC’s would give him money. He had a pile of debt and covenants that made him vulnerable if the debt holders wanted to play rough. He was able to speak with a successful entrepreneur who told him how to restructure the debt (essentially by increasing their warrant coverage) and that was enough to seal the deal. The rest is history. He was able to raise money from a VC in Minneapolis called Split Rock, grow the business to over $200 million in sales and sell to Experian for nearly $380 million. I hope he’s OK with my telling this wonderful story as he told it publicly.

What if all the Matt Coffin’s in LA were spending time with the next generation of entrepreneurs and helping them through tricky times – ones that can determine the different between success and failure in a binary sense? John Morris from the Tech Coast Angels was encouraging me to do something similar. We connected. Launchpad V1 was born.

When we started I told everybody we would run the organization as a startup itself. I set out some simple objectives, picked 13 startup CEO’s, planned a series of events, spent time personally trying to coach people through their fund raising processes and waited to see where it went. We did a founder “eHarmony” where I matched the CEO’s with their chosen mentors and each one mapped to a one VC. We get participation from nearly every major VC firm in Southern California, which was magical.

How’d we do? On the funding, business creation, business development fronts I think we did quite well. 1 of the companies was sold (FlipGloss), 11 of the companies received funding, and one of the companies is profitable and has decided not to raise outside capital. The companies are listed on the website.

What did we need to improve?

We decided that V2 would have a more formal education program taught by real practitioners rather than just hosting discussions on topics as we did in V1
We decided to be less formal about the mentor / mentee relationships. This allows us to broaden the participants to include senior “captains of industry” that don’t have the time for formal mentorship
We will host “founder dating” events to help the CEO’s gain access to technology talent and vice-versa
We seek to get some office space to allow the companies to have a “crash pad” for part or all of their teams
We want to get more people from outside of Los Angeles to spend time with our companies. We already have commitments from many prominent people who we will slowly start to announce
We wanted to find some events where we could invite a broader set of LA’s tech entrepreneurs so we could widen the scope

I have decided to work closely with two very talented LA-based entrepreneurs to help me run the program – last year nearly killed me. Adam Lilling, founder of BiggerBoat (backed by First Round Capital and Tim Draper) and Pentagon Music (acquired by Virgin) and Joshua Roth (NTI acquired by Blackboard, Rent.com and Amuzu) are joining as directors to help with selection, education, mentorship, events and, frankly, general management. I still plan to be as actively involved but realized I needed the help of some talented LA based entrepreneurs. V2. I’m excited.

Share and Enjoy:

Daniel Kim

Mark, very exciting to see things like this happening in LA, sounds awesome. As an aspiring web/technology entrepreneur based in the OC, I am looking to network more with the tech and investment community in LA as there seems to be more folks who have "been there, done that" in my space. I am assuming launchpad is for up and running start ups in full operating mode. Since we are not at that point yet, I will definitely observe this group closely and hope to get in on launchpad V.3! Wish you and the team the best.

Daniel@piqqle
Ryan

The release says the application date but not when the program will begin. I'm thinking of applying but need to plan my life ;)
Ryan

Oops, just read your reply in the comments. Thanks Mark!
Micki Krimmel

Hooray, Mark! I'm so excited for this. Look out for an application from me and NeighborGoods!
Dave Viner

This is such a fantastic idea. I spoke with Josh Roth on Monday and I am excited that you are supporting this effort in LA. I look forward to seeing how Launchpad improves the entrepreneurial ecosystem in LA.

One thought/suggestion regarding the logistics is to have a "town hall" style gathering at the end of the V2 session, in which the mentors and companies can talk about the most useful portions of the program. Moreover, I think it would be very useful to have that gathering open to everyone. This would allow the Launchpad-graduates to express the value of the program, enable other entrepreneurs to see the value of the program in person, and to share a few of the best tips for everyone. When everyone in LA operates more effectively, then the ecosystem improves.

I've already referred one startup to the Launchpad. Let me know how other members of the LA community can help you succeed.
Ian

Hey Mark, Found your blog and subscribed after seeing your comment on StartupCFO.ca wrt to your recent "Fail Fast" post.

We are putting together a similar program on a smaller scale to the one you mention above. What we lack in captial resources we make up for in creativity. Have been doing team building (similar to founder dating) acitivites for over a year now with some positive results. Please feel free to get in touch if you are interested.
umairmufti

mark - congratulations on launching v2. i love what you are doing for socal business. my only advice is that you do a little more to publicize launchpad v2; v1 went underreported. it's a great resource and, unfortunately, i'm not sure that enough local entrepreneurs are aware of it. i'll do my part in spreading the word.
Guest

Loved reading this to learn more about it. One question I have is about confidentiality. It seems in submitting the business proposals and all, we are putting our trust and confidence in Launchpad LA that these will not be taken and used elsewhere. And what will happen to all submitted material if not selected?

Just wondering. Thanks!
Derek Adesso

Hey Mark - We just graduated from the Connect-Springboard (http://www.connect.org/springboard/) program down here is San Diego. We know John as well and I believe he was pinging some of our mentors about the process. I too would be happy to chat with you guys about the experience or any other way I can help. We benefitted immensely and I think its great what you are doing with Launchpad LA.
steveray

great choices with Adam and Joshua. Two great local entrepreneurs with great connections. Between the 3 of you there are now 2 degrees of separation between every LA tech startup and just about everyone else who matters. Bravo!!
premierinterns

This sounds exciting. I've been preparing a presentation for YC but now I might shift my focus to Lanchpad. It's mainly because our company is in San Diego so the move to LA wouldn't be too bad, unlike having to move to Silicon Valley if we were to get accepted in to YC.
Dmitri Leonov

Thanks Mark - I think this is exactly what we need to make So Cal even a better place to launch start-ups, and grow the much needed entrepreneur community down here.
Tony Karrer

Mark - this sounds like great stuff. A couple of quick thoughts:

a. If you need any help with mentoring from a technology standpoint, I'm sure that folks from the LA CTO Forum could lend a hand.

b. I love the idea of founder Dating. Are you going to invite folks outside of your enrollees to attend who are entrepreneurs? Again, likely can help you recruit folks to attend on the tech side.

c. I'm still not clear on how you plan to do broader events. Look forward to more details.

Definitely this sounds like it's going in a good direction and can help spin things up outside of the core group of enrollees. My parting thought is: please let us in the community know how we can help.
msuster

Tony, noted. Thank you. We will reach out and would love the help. Right now we're focused on company selection so our top priority is filling the top end of the funnel and the selection process. If you know great companies please send them our way. Beyond April 15th we'll start working on the broader programs and that's likely when we'll reach out.
awaldstein

I like this.

Branching out to bring expertise and mentors from other geographies to the group is smart and to good purpose.

A step forward to help innovation...with an innovative program.
davidkpark

It's great to see entrepreneurs turned into VCs (we won't hold that against you) and entrepreneurs giving back to the startup community! As an academic (fellow at the applied statistics center at Columbia University) and entrepreneur (co-founder of MeeGenius) I'm working with Chris Wiggins (professor of applied physics and mathematics at Columbia University) to launch a product/prototype pitch competition for NYC college students. Our goals are to showcase NYC college tech talent, put an end to business plan competitions (please no more 5 year financial projections), and lay the foundation to build great entrepreneurs as opposed to business plans. I would love to get your thoughts on this. If you have 5 mins for a quick phone conversation that would be great. Thanks again for giving back to the startup community!
msuster

Sure. try to call me in the offices. Might have to catch me serendipitously. Quick headline: I want great entrepreneurs with interesting ideas AND great financial models. I'm a big believer that with no financial model you haven't figured out your strategy. But ... great financial models with no entrepreneurial skills is a disaster.
davidkpark

Thanks! I'll will try and catch you at the office. I completely agree that you want the entrepreneur to think about a revenue model. My objection with 5 year financial projections in business plans is that it doesn't get the entrepreneur to focus on the critical and necessary steps one needs to take to start charging customers and generating revenue. I would like to see them build a prototype and discuss how they are going to iterate like hell to get product market fit (a la Ellis' Pyramid or McClure's AARRR!) and then have a more realistic revenue model.
msuster

I actually think both approaches are flawed FWIW. Launch and iterate like hell to get product market fit is the SV mantra these days, I know. But too many people are building FNACs (features, not companies) because they don't take the time to research their markets, understand the dynamics and model whether they COULD build a viable company. I think this is lazy. Similarly, I have no interest in a 5-year model. I like to see 18-24 months of MONTHLY projects with specific focus on revenue assumptions and how their costs build. This can tell you a lot about the realism of the founders and whether they understand competition, substitutions, customer spend assumptions, etc. I think the "out years" (3-5) are mostly for investors to understand "how big can this become." While less valuable to me, I GUARANTEE you that 80% of investors will want to see this. So to not teach it goes against what they'll face in the capital markets.
davidkpark

This is great feedback and agree that we don't want to develop "lazy" entrepreneurs. The competition is still in it's formative stages, but my initial thinking is for all the students, before writing a line of code, is to (1) understand what type of market they are in to see if it's about market share or market adoption, etc. (2) talk to potential customers to see if their product solves their current (or latent) problem and (3) how much their customers would be willing to pay to have the problem solved (of course, this is Blank's Customer Development Model). Thanks for helping us shape and improve the competition.
dongooding

David - I'm heading into academia to run a business plan competition (at least that's my current plan) and would like to hear more of your thoughts. My perception is that the issue isn't the competitions per se but the judging criteria - competitors respond to the incentives and directions given (what a surprise!). Mark, hope you don't mind me using your board to connect... I'm at don.gooding58@gmail.com
msuster

No prob! I'll all for people connecting in this forum.
jasonspalace

yeah Mark, idk how i could ever diss home! if Matt's not ok with you sharing the story, that's too bad, this entrepreneur is inspired...and the irony is debt accrued through startup failure (Loan4Loan) attempting to build something better than LowerMyBills (of which tech still DOES NOT exist, lol)!

in LA we have the weather, the beaches (and an unparalleled bike path extending from Redondo to Malibu), 1 Wilshire for the rack junkies, and if you plan wisely with location you can avoid a commute (believe it or not). once you've earned it, playtime in Hollywood is no joke!

thanks for the heads up on the program, LA is a city where proximity is a bitch for networking locally, this program is bound to put new blood on the map!
David Murphy

Very exciting stuff. I'm curious: what is the approximate timeline for V2 (start/end dates), and are you still targeting relatively advanced-level startups (alreadygotten some seed funding or successfully bootstrapped and built something interesting, but looking to get VC funding)?
msuster

Will start April 15th and run for approximately 6 months. Only funding requirements are sub $1 million in funding and not having raised institutional VC in the past.

Launchpad LA – More Details Revealed

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