More Than Money...

I have never seen venture capital as just financial service, sort of a more evil banking like some people do... When I think of VC it is for me always a tool for entrepreneurs... to help them reaching their goals... It may sound naive, but certainly I am not the only one... Sitting in a dark room, watching a parade of legendary VCs like Bill Draper, Dixon Doll, Pascal Levensohn or Tom Perkins, saying very similar things... 2009 Annual Meeting of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) just started - and I am there...


To make the long story short, the main message of the conference was that the venture industry is facing the worst slump since the dot-com bubble burst, maybe even in history... VC investment activity fell down by more than 50 per cent in Q1 2009, only 3 funds were raised in the same period, and there is not very optimistic outlook for the rest of 2009... IPOs litterally disappeared and currently represent only 13% of exits (compared to more than 50% in the 1990s)... Conference Chair Kate Mitchell (Managing Partner of Scale VP) started the conference with the following words: "this is a fantastic industry... we're just not feeling that fantastic right now", which speaks for the whole tone of the whole 2 days...


What I really admire about Americans is that the atmosphere was nowhere close to surrender or pessimism, quite the opposite actually - cheering and arousing, optimism and belief... Very much different from the Czech Republic and Europe actually... No bad mood, really...


At the very beginning of the conference there was an interesting discussion between Kate Mitchell and Mark Heesen (NVCA President) on the New Congress and Obama administration and their impact on Venture Ecosystem... Of course, a bit political issue, so we can question openness of Mark's statements, but he was not all just positive, so it may well be really true... Mark said the way he looks at it is that "the glass is three quarters full"... On the positive side, he feels Obama and his administration understand innovation, technology, Internet - actually he was to a large extent elected thanks to technology, also it seems there is a new mindset towards small business administration there... It seems that the new president feels the necessity to support innovations, put more accent to healthcare, cleantech, research in general - it seems science is sexy again (I guess that's true)... On the negative side, what might be a bit disadvantagous and limiting the performance is a lack of 2nd tier administration - mainly due to Obama being overcareful regarding lobbyists and people who have worked for any lobbying groups (which leaves a good portion of real experts out of the play)...

Also, one of the risks for the near future is possible tougher regulation of the financial markets which might hit the venture industry as well - although there is no reason why it should... Venture capital certainly is not an industry which would put the economy at risk... There is no leverage, no small savers, no mortgages for people who cannot pay them...

What I believe is very important and positive is that the venture industry is not coming to the Capitol Hill with any request for a bailout (unlike many other industries)... neither I suppose are NVCA representatives flying there in private jets... The message of VCs is fairly simple: "do what is good for the entrepreneurs, that will do for us"...

During the course of the 2-day program, the outgoing NVCA Chairman Dixon Doll (General Partner with DCM) introduced a 4-pillar plan to restore the Venture-Backed IPO Market... It is a plan aimed at both private sector (VCs, IBanks) as well as government (capital gains tax and other tax incentives, review of the current one-size-fits-all regulatory approach)... The 4-pillar plan is really a very interesting one and it could work... We'll see in a year...

What stroke me during presentation of the plan were the numbers showing how important venture-backed companies for the U.S. economy are - in a report to be released in May, Global Insight estimates that in 2008 public companies that have been VC-backed accounted for more than 12 million U.S. jobs and $2.9 trillion in revenues (21% of U.S. GDP)... No wonder that Pascal Levensohn (Founder and Managing Partner of Levensohn VP) says that he is in the business of creating jobs - which is one of the greatest descriptions of venture capital that I've heard...

As I was waiting for my plane to Boston on Monday, I spent some time with Mbali of South Africa as we were on the same plane... And she was asking me about venture capital, and she said "it sounds dangerous, almost evil"... No no, Mbali (and everyone)... Venture capitalists are not in this for money (at least the good ones)... We are in the business of creating jobs, fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, bringing efficiencies and solving needs... We are not bankers or brokers who only deal with money - there is more, a lot more...

Entrepreneurship, Russia, Pilsen, Social Media... and a lot more

My first day in Boston - after a long travel (4.5 hrs on the bus + 2 hrs waiting + 3 hrs on the plane to Chicago + 31 mins for changing the plane + 2.5 hrs on the plane to Boston = TIRED) I had only 1 meeting scheduled today... But as the afternoon got closer, I almost thought of call in sick and reschedule - it was really hot out there (again in mid 90s) plus my stomach didn't feel well (swine flu?)... But finally, I got up, walked to the North Station, took a train (first time in the U.S.) to Concord for one of the first meetings I was really not prepared for - all I remembered was that I was meeting with Firehouse Capital and that they had something in common with Yandex (the largest Russian Internet company with similar market share in the Russian market like Seznam in the Czech, but with over 25 million unique visitors monthly, $ 300m in revenues, 1800 employees and about $ 100m in profit)...

Luckily, the meeting was very informal and turned out to be one of the friendliest and most relaxed meetings so far... I met with the President of Firehouse Capital, John Boynton who turned out to be a very relaxed angel investor (or normal private investor, I forgot to ask...) and serial entrepreneur, with a long-lasting relationship with Russia and also a lot of business experience with the Czech Republic (well, it didn't quite work out for him in Pilsen then, but let's just say he remembers the $ 6m he could have made there)...

John was also the first one to question the "old truth" of VCs that a failed entrepreneur is better than a first-timer (see for example here)... It will certainly be an interesting discussion with professor Josh Lerner from Harvard who I am meeting next week...

Not only was this meeting fun, but also there are 3 concrete outcomes to be followed: (1) we will try to discuss potential cooperation between Yandex and Geewa, (2) John will connect me with Scott Shleifer of Tiger Global Management (who I wanted to meet for quite some time now), and (3) I will take a look at John's project which failed to raise capital and advise on what next... Oh, and one more: I will probably buy an iClub - product of one of John's companies - how awesome..

Leadership is when...

There was actually one "official" part of the Grand Canyon retreat - Sunday evening workshop to discuss our outtakes from meetings in the first part of the Fellowship... So pretty much what we learned about leadership and change...

I will not go into describing other people's views on this, let me just conclude that our discussion ended with drugs, their traffic to the U.S. (from Colombia) and possibility to legalize them as a way to solve the problem...

When I thought about what my 2 weeks in California gave me with regards to leadership, this is the conclusion: as pretty clear from my objectives and interests, leadership to me is very much connected with entrepreneurship, and I was really happy to spend just a couple of days in the most entrepreneurial ecosystem in the world... And I strongly believe, that what fosters leadership is the environment of not fearing the failure and not blaming for failure... And that also applies for ability to make changes...

Grand Hole

Bye bye, San Diego, time for the mid-term retreat which traditionally takes place in Grand Canyon - which, as Seamus expressed, is supposed to be a "pretty big hole"... So I flew from San Diego to Phoenix where I met some of the fellows (I won't describe the Hooters evening too much, let's just leave it at "they've got really great chicken wings") and on Saturday morning we took a bus over to the Grand Canyon...

The weekend was great... First, because the fellows were altogether after what seemed like a long time, and second, there was no Internet connection in the rooms... So no emails, no blogging, no checking websites for news from home...

All the time up until Monday morning when we got on the bus again and headed for the Phoenix airport where we split to depart for our next destinations - in my case to Boston...

Angel?

Oh, I almost forgot... At the end of the meeting one of the more active members named Dan stopped by me (I was asked by Bob Fried, VP Membership who invited me to give an introduction to the rest of the group, so they know there are no insiders - at the end of the day I am a fellow angel) to exchange business cards (well, he forgot to give me his), but more importandly to tell me that he had no idea that in the Czech Republic there are angels or VCs...

I tried to reply more or less in a light and friendly way because I thought he was just teasing me... But he continued saying something along the lines that developing countries shouldn't need angels or VC just because they need to first build basic infrastructure and there is no space for innovation... So I kicked his balls and left... No, seriously, I made the mistake of starting a dispute on whether or not "emerging" (not developing) countries can or cannot be ground for innovations, and also about definition of angel investor - as he kept saying "in those cases angel investor is not suitable, but normal private investor"... I still don't understand, maybe just because his English was so bad, with strong accent... :-)

Angels drive Lexus'

I am sitting now at a Tech Coast Angels' (TCA) meeting... I was invited to one of their standard screening sessions which they hold every month, with usually 3 - 4 presentations of companies which already have a supporter among their members who has worked with them, prepared them for the presentation and also introduces them to the others... After a 15-min presentation there is usually a 10-min Q&A - and guess what, the entrepreneurs never talk back to the angels saying the usual (in the Czech environment) "no, no, we can surely handle it" or "you don't understand, Microsoft isn't able to do this"... Entrepreneurs very carefully listen to the question and then usually start with "oh, that's a great question"... Do you think it's lame...? No no, you're wrong...

After the 4 presentations (today there were 4), it is time for a working lunch, already without the entrepreneurs where members of TCA discuss each of the opportunities and at the end express their interest to participate in a post-screening meeting which is usually scheduled for the following week, which will start due diligence process and should lead to an investment...

I was happy to see 4 projects which I think are (to some extent) all investable, and according to the interest of the TCA members I believe that at least 2 of them will be...

And what about the headline...? When I came to the meeting, all I saw in the parking lot were Lexus cars of different models... Well, after the meeting was finished I saw some of the people leaving in BMWs or Porsches, but why wasting a nice headline, right...?

Watch your step...

I don't want to be rude or inpolite in any way, don't get me wrong... but what the heck is up with Americans and shoes...??? I am not a super posh person, and for sure not a fan of formal clothing (see my first posts about dress code at the League)... But I admit, I like nice shoes... Unfortunately, I haven't seen any here - or at least not on people's feet, or course if I don't count French and Germans who I met on the plane... Surprisingly, even men in expensive black suits and BlackBerries in their hands, when you look down, have just bad shoes...

There actually must be some sociological or psychological reasoning... Maybe they just hate their fathers and their shoes... Or want to sleep with their mothers and ugly shoes would help to get more attention...? Or is is one of those Europe versus U.S. things...? Well, I'm just an amateur, I better consult with Maria...

CONNECT yourselves...

My program in San Diego is very much rounded around the UCSD - University of California San Diego, so I thought it would be a bit boring after the Valley... But I was wrong...

San Diego used to be rather sleepy and not very dynamic and vibrant, and back in the 80s it was in a big trouble due to simultanous changes in local economy... and then a group of individuals, thought leaders, innovators and businessmen sat together and decided to do something about it... something to improve competitiveness of SD... initiate and facilitate communication between the universities and business... stimulate clustering of high-tech and generally of high value added sectors... ensure sustainability of the economy in SD and its companies... That's when CONNECT San Diego was born...

CONNECT is a non-profit organization with member support from research community and universities, the private sector, investors and government... Now, about 25 years after its inception CONNECT really is a conglomerate of activities, which include the Springboard program which helps companies to receive funding (there were over 350 companies which received investment directly out of the program, and over 1,500 companies which went through the program and at the end became successful in fundraising), research, several industry clusters (cleantech, stem cells etc.)... There are also activities which CONNECT initiated but were spun out later, like the Tech Coast Angels group or Global CONNECT network...

I spent the whole morning at CONNECT, meeting with the co-founder of Global CONNECT Greg Horowitt (who is also a partner of Victor Hwang at T2VC), met also Director for Program Partnerships Peter Thomas and Lada Rasochova of Rady School of Management (originally Czech who studied in SD and has lived there since)... It was very inspiring talking to them about linking Research with Talent and Money and how it works in San Diego... One of great quotes by Greg: "we don't consider it innovation until it goes through commercialization"... Czech academics should hear this - actually not just academics, majority of people just don't understand the difference between SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY or IDEA versus BUSINESS (examples at web site of Czech Dragons' Den - only in Czech, unfortunately)...

BTW, did you know that there was over 2 billion dollars of venture capital invested in San Diego last year...? FYI, San Diego county has just over 3 million people... Comparison to the Czech Republic...? Forget it - see my post from Stanford about the Czech stats...

My afternoon meeting was then with another guy with a UCSD business card, Raymond Smilor, Director of Beyster Institute which is the UCSD's institute for Entrepreneurship... And it was a great meeting - not only is Ray a passionate golfer, but mainly he is a guy with extensive experience from academic environment, trying for all his professional life to enforce entrepreneurship, tech transfer and commercialization, and... however unprobable it may seem... successfully...

And he also brightly discovered the problem in the Czech Republic - "if there is no leadership at the universities, it cannot be done", which unfortunately sounds simple but true... another thing that cannot be easily changed - too many inhibitors for such change and still no leadership...

When talking about role models and their necessity, Ray told me about the "Tall Poppy Syndrome" and he related it to Australia... Unfortunately, I know that syndrome very well, just didn't know the term - but will use it from now on...

I spent over 1.5 hours talking to Ray, and meeting him surely was one of the brightest points on my journey so far... Also, I got a copy of Ray's book: Daring Visionairies, How Entrepreneurs Build Companies, Inspire Allegiance and Create Wealth, with a signature - very much looking forward to reading it...

San Diego, baby...

It was a terrible flight by United - the plane was on time, we boarded, and then the unfortunate news came... The whole crew including pilots were women... Just kidding, that was not the bad news - that was that there is technical assistance necessary and the plane would be delayed by 5 - 10 minutes... It ended up being almost 2 hours during which we were sitting in the plane... And that I can tell you was stressful... So I got to San Diego after 11pm... But that was just because I had to be compensated for all the good stuff to follow...


I went to pick up the rental car, and this time I did finally get a convertible... Yay... :-) I checked in the amazing Grand Hyatt at the Seaport Village which was litterally minutes from the airport... And all the fun was just about to start...




BTW, San Diego is my third destination city on this trip... and it is again greatly walkable and very beautiful... I am really changing my view of the U.S. cities...

Leaving Silicon Valley

It had to come, I am leaving Silicon Valley today... Checked out the Half Moon Bay Lodge (after a lot of packing, hate it), said good bye and headed towards San Francisco where my last two meetings were supposed to be...

The first one was really accidental... I noticed on Facebook (remember, one of the hottest companies in the Valley) that my friend Roman Stanek, one of the most successful Czech entrepreneurs (and the only "Silicon Valley-like") just came to San Francisco... I first met Roman when he started NetBeans (he sold it 2 years later to Sun Microsystems), actually he was the speaker at the first First Tuesday Prague event which I organized back in 1999... After NetBeans he started another company, focused on web services and SOA, Systinet and sold it 4 years later to Mercury (just before HP bought them).... And also, it is the guy I lended 500 crowns back in 1999 so he could buy drinks at Lavka - so I can be saying that Roman borrowed money from me before he became rich...

Anyway, so when I learned that Roman was in SF, I had to at least see him for a coffee - who knows when will be a good time to meet in Prague, I thought... Well, what turned out during the coffee was that Roman was actually moving over to SF... A bit of a shock before leaving the Bay area... Why should I care...? Well, Roman is one of the few Czechs who's walked that path, made it happen, took an innovation, idea and turned into a business worth a 9-digit figure in dollars... And it would be great having him back home as a role model for the wannabe entrepreneurs, someone who made money, yet from scratch, with no frauds or cheats... We should be able to keep such guys at home, not giving them reasons to go to California... Shame... Well, at least he bought me a latte (BTW most probably the best latte in California - make sure you go there)...

Off to my very last meeting in the Bay area - a guy who I met through Yoav Leitersdorf, his partner in YL Ventures Rob Goldberg... Rob is a very interesting guy, who previously served as a Managing Director of IdeaLab, the famous incubator in Pasadena, CA, and now works with Yoav as well as his own company CrossRoads Ventures... We had a very informal chat about slowing down the investments in this economic environment (which I didn't agree with) and then mostly about his close cooperation with Zynga, one of the most dynamic and successful companies in online social gaming (another one is SNG) - and actually one that my investee Geewa was looking at closely, unfortunately they (unlike Zynga) lost the window of opportunity and their current social networks activities are just me-too... When I learnt Rob worked with Zynga, all I wanted to find out was whether there could be a chance of cooperation or even acquisition... We'll see - let's just say there will be a follow up...

That's it, bye bye San Francisco, you've been very good to me...

Incubated by a VC

Today I only had one meeting and quite frankly, I was pretty happy - had to do plenty of other useless stuff like go to the post office and send books and materials as well as gifts (especially for Max) to Prague (pretty expensive thing here), get a haircut, meet one of my partners in Credo Ventures who came for a conference in SF, et cetera...

But the meeting which for the last time brought me to the Sandhill Rd turned out to be a very interesting one... I met Susan Mason, General Partner with ONSET Ventures, one of the older VC firms in the Valley with over $ 1b under management and over 100 companies backed since 1984... Their motto is helping transform great ideas into successful business, and that means they try to work with the entrepreneurs even before they start the companies - and actually, one of the modes they are used to operate in (and actually do about 6 - 7 deals like that per year) is so called pre-seed... If they like the idea, but there is no business plan, or business model picked, or management team in place, they can offer simply a loan up till $ 750k, invite the team in their offices ("ONSET Incubator") and make the assignment to work with the team to verify the product / technology, finalise business plan or even line up executives to complete the management team... If everything works well and the team delivers what needs to be delivered by the time they promise to deliver it, ONSET converts the loan into equity and makes additional investment, even finds a co-investment partner... Very interesting and inspiring model, definitely worth thinking about...

What I also liked about ONSET was that they always aim to co-invest, invest in consortiums... In their view it's not about competition or having all the future profits for themselves, but about having more parties involved and more smart people at the table... Absolutely agreed...

Finally, a bit of numbers for today - Susan mentioned that ONSET receives about 4,200 business plans every year, out of which about 300 teams are invited to talk to ONSET, out of which about 6 or 7 they decide to invest in... Definitely a totally different world... In the Czech Republic I get probably 300 emails / exec summaries every year, but only like 1 of 10 makes it into a "business plan stage"... So I have to be looking for the suitable companies myself and convincing them to start thinking big and expand with external financing... Probably funny for Sandhill Rd VCs...

S as in Stanford

"... so I was invited to speak at Stanford the other day...", that surely is a catch phrase, isn't it...? Well, I am now entitled to use it from today on... But let's start from the beginning - for some time already I have been in touch with professor Burton Lee from Stanford's School of Engineering, I believe we met on LinkedIn... Burton is generally very interested in exploring European Entrepreneurship and he created a weekly series of lectures (which actually serves also as a class Mechanical Engineering - ME421) where he invites interesting people around entrepreneurship in Europe... Interesting thing here in Silicon Valley...

And this time, because I am in the Valley, Burton also invited me to say a few words on innovation and VC in the Czech Republic... Quite funny for me because 1) this time the event was focused on Finland as one of the partners is Finnode, 2) the main focus was supposed to be on universities (not my favourite topic)... Anyway, this was what it was, and I was certainly not to lose my once-in-a-lifetime (well, who knows) opportunity to be able to be telling to people the first sentence of this post... :-)

Anyway, I should also mention the other speakers - I was happy to meet two Finnish guys (again, it was a "Finnish day"): Jouko Salo of Tekes/Finnode introduced the agency and mainly their Silicon Valley presence... The second speaker was then presenting a Finnish startup with global ambitions - I don't remember exactly what makes them so exceptional because a part of the presentation was a video... and it didn't work... which took us about 7 mins to discover (a lot of trying and silence) and so he just lost my attention... But I believe the company, apart from their silly domain MultiTou.ch (it is called MultiTouch), is very interesting, with ability to produce very large touch screens...

The best part of the event was the following - Burton was lucky to get as another speaker professor Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli who now teaches at UC Berkeley (another famous university in the Bay area), but before that he was an entrepreneur - he founded and managed Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys... two huge names from the EDA world, actually I believe they are now the largest two EDA companies in the world...

Professor Sangiovanni talked about innovations and innovativeness in Italy - and I actually found many similarities to the Czech Republic situation... Undeveloped ecosystem, rigorous univeristies' environment, lack of entrepreneurship, lack of innovation in corporations... One thing different in Italy to the Czech Republic is the growing activity of venture capital in Italy (which unfortunately we cannot say)...

Professor had some very interesting remarks and points, let me briefly pick a couple of them:
- funding from the government usually rather distracts the market instead of stimulating it,
- top-down approach in supporting entrepreneurship and innovation cannot work,
- how can anybody even think that some governmental activity can enforce innovation,
- too much VC also destroys innovation as if there is too much of capital, too much crap gets financing, too many "me-too's",
- studying MBA is interesting, but never leads to innovation; just a lot of talking about it...

Very interesting gig, really...

And my presentation...? I believe slides should be available soon at the EEITL web site, as well as part of the event on video... Just a quick note replying to Alberto's point about VC in Italy... During his presentation I looked up statistics for VC in the Czech Republic in 2008... Total money invested in VC and PE (so including buy-outs) was € 57 million... Out of this number the total invested in seed and startups was ZERO... Total invested in growth: € 16 million in 3 deals (out of which 1 should be "my" INVIA.CZ, the other two I really don't know)... Oh My God...

Facebook...? Again...? Or still...?

In my last Friday's post I wrote that Tesla Motors seems to be the hottest startup in Silicon Valley... Well, today I accidently came across this topic in a meeting with one of the top VCs and he, after a couple of seconds of thinking said: "I think it would have to be Facebook"... I almost fell off the couch (oh yes, in some hippy VC firms in the Valley you actually sit on a terrace with couches)... Does he mean THE Facebook that was hot a year ago...? THE Facebook that was voted the world's most overrated company in 2008...? That is really surprising... Either this VC spent a couple of months on vacation, or I must be missing something... So who is really the hottest startup...? From my discussions with people it really seemed Tesla was the one, but isn't it just in wrong people I met...?

I did a bit of searching and surveying people and I found 3 candidates, let's see who they are:

Tesla Motors - well, not exactly fresh startup, with almost $ 200m of angel and VC funding, but with them actually delivering the cars and revealing the sexy sedan, those guys are surely in press and talks...

Facebook - oh yeah, they still get a lot of coverage and it seems that they succeeded in building and now maintaining momentum... and, oh yes, the user base is still growing madly...

Twitter - but it seems Facebook is no longer as hot as Twitter... Yup, the microblogging app, simple and easy is really hot - Ashton Kutcher reached one million followers (maybe), Oprah tweet in her show, ... a lot of traction...

My personal guess is that Facebook is less likely to be the one than the other two, but again, that's me... What would your guess be...? (please, leave a comment if you have an idea)

But, let's remember, sometimes not even a search on Google or 2 weeks talking to people in Silicon Valley can reveal who the real "hottie" of the industry is...

And also, let's remember that sometimes even the hottest startups become huge disappointments...

(added 2 days later) Well, actually I almost forgot one company which shouldn't be missed out here... Not exactly a startup either, but certainly something people here in the Valley know about and talk about a lot... I have mentioned it already twice in this blog alone... And the mysterious company is ... Plug and Play Tech Center...

And VCs again...

Today temperatures were supposed to hit 90 degrees fahrenheit (32 degrees centigrade), so I was extremely unhappy to get into long pants, shirt and jacket this morning... But I had to - although dress code here in the Valley is a lot less stuffy than in Philadelphia (God, I still remember the dress code), I was to go to 2 big SandHill Rd investors and didn't want to be inpolite...

My first meeting in the morning turned out to be also potentially most interesting... I met one of the prominent tech lawyer Mark Radcliff, Partner with DLA Piper - and as it turned out, next to extensive experience in startups and venture capital, he also understands European business and next to others works for a family office based out of Germany which also invests in venture capital funds... So I told him about Credo Ventures and we agreed to follow up... :-) Mark was also the first person who said that he didn't have any doubts about technical skills, technology savvyness and creativity, but he had serious doubts about the business abilities of Czech entrepreneurs - and he expressed his concerns whether or not there is a market for early stage venture capital at all... Very interesting, and we'd better be prepared to answer this...

My next VC to meet was recommended to me by Phil Wickham, another Kauffman Fellow and the only thing I knew about him was that he is focused on investing in IP-based ventures... A bit out of my focus, but networking still counts, was my thinking... But the meeting turned out to be a very interesting one - Vlad Dabija, Managing Partner of IgniteIP is a very interesting VC... Originally Romanian computer engineer, Vlad came to Silicon Valley some 15 years ago, worked as an engineer, then venture partner with CMEA and then started his own software company which raised venture capital, to be finally (unsuccessfully = for not a lot of money) sold to Google - and their code was actually a base for the Chrome, so a bit of wow for Vlad... After his GreenBorder experience he went through the Kaufmann Fellows Program and decided to start a new venture firm, but actually a very different firm from the ones on Sandhill Rd; Vlad decided that he would invest in technology and IP, with the aim to sell it again as technology and IP... No investments of $ 10m with the aim to build and sell the company for $ 100m+, but simply find a good IP, invest $ 1 or 2m and then facilitate its sale or licensing... No need to care about building the company, marketing, sales, infrastructure, awareness, customer care, ... ... Pretty sweet model... I think I will be in touch with Vlad, and there actually might be opportunities for cooperation as most of scientists and innovators in the Czech Rep really cannot build the company, but sometimes the technologies they built might be worth trying to sell... Totally different model than the traditional VC, but interesting for sure...

Finally, I went back to Sandhill Rd to meet with Sujay Jaswa, Senior Associate with NEA, one of top early stage VC firms which actually is not very well known, although they made some very nice investments and they currently manage over $ 11 billion... With Sujay we had a very good discussion about trends in the industry, impact of the crisis and hot startups... :-)

And my next stop was Stanford... I was speaking there...

Sunny Sunday

What a beautiful day today in the Bay area... Temperatures in upper 80s (close to 30 centigrade), sun shining madly, beach, ocean, ... well, what else do I say... So I just hanged out in the beach, went also to the golf course (but it was full all day, of course) and in the evening - I went to see an NHL Playoffs game of the brave and magnificent San Jose Sharks against the stupid Annaheim Mighty Ducks...

Unfortunately, Sharks lost... It is hard to win when there is really only one line there which plays actively (the one with Czech Milan Michalek - #9)... But again I realised how Americans can enjoy watching sports - it was all just so easy, polite, cultural, compared to ice-hockey in the Czech Rep where all the hardcore fans just want to start a fight with the other team's fans... Also, the HP Pavilion Stadium in San Jose is great - over 18 thousand seats but still every seat is pretty close to what's happening on the ice and gets a great view... So the only bad news was the guy sitting next to me, shouting "Come On" all the time - he should learn some more phrases though...

Sleepy Saturday

Today I only had three things planned: sleep long, meet Burton Lee for lunch and finally go to Gilroy to the Outlet Center... First was easy and after some a.m. emailing I went off to an Italian place called Mezza Luna in Princeton (just 2 miles north of HMB) where I met Burton, we talked a bit about European Entrepreneurship and leadership and Silicon Valley and importance of its ecosystem to innovations...

And after lunch I went about 60 miles to Gilroy to do a bit of shopping, as my shirts are no longer "fresh" and also I wanted to send something small also back home to Max and his mom... Shopping in the U.S. is just soooo much cheaper than back home, so I spent there 3 hours and bought plenty of stuff... and all the time I was thinking how great it is to have invested into a startup enabling Central European shoppers to shop in the U.S. :-)

I fell in love...

... should my wife feel our marriage is in jeopardy...? No no, I just fell in love with a new car... Bye bye, Mercedes CLS, you're old news... And here comes Model S... Never heard of it...? So go ahead and read...

Today I went to Tesla Motors (for Czechs, this company is in no sense related to the funny old manufacturer of TV sets and "popular" walkmans - although it still exists, and is owned by my dear friend Enda O'Coineen), it's a car manufacturer... Why did I then go to Tesla Motors, a car manufacturer - during my fellowship I am not very interested in corporations or "old" businesses (not to mention those who receive governmental subsidies)...?

Well, truth is that these days the hottest startup in Silicon Valley is just not another Internet or software company, but this San Carlos-based startup... Yes, right, unlike the Detroit guys, Tesla Motors is not even 6 years old and it already raised about $ 170 million in equity financing from guys like Elon Musk (founder of PayPal), Sergey Brin and Larry Page (founders of Google), Jeff Skoll (former President of eBay), plus numerous VCs like DFJ or VantagePoint... Now you're probably starting to see why this company is soooo sexy... But that's not all - part of the magic is that Tesla is the first manufacturer that only builds fully electric cars - no hybrids, just electric cars which are environmentally clean, quite, friendly, and yet they make it to a range of over 240 miles without charging and can do 0 - 60 miles in less than 4 seconds... It even made it to the TIME Magazine's cover page and Best Inventions in 2006 and 2008...

And actually, I went to Tesla Motors showroom in Menlo Park (just minutes from Sandhill Rd.) in a Tesla Roadster - as Richard Pivnicka has one (# 209) and yes, he was the one to introduce me to Tesla...

So when did the magic happened and how I fell in love...? Well, in Tesla's Menlo Park showroom I saw the new model they are working on - Model S... And immediately I new I wanted it... The design is just so brilliant and clean... And it will have even better range and efficiency... And it will seat 7 people... Just perfect...

The only downside really is that they will start delivering them in 2011 and they already have over 800 reservations - I better be quick or I won't make it into the first 1,000...!

Finally Friday...

Today I was supposed to just have three meetings which made it quite a relaxing day - and in the morning I learnt that my afternoon meeting was unfortunately cancelled because Lisa Zhang of Intel Capital who I was supposed to meet had to go to Mumbai, so even more relaxing...

Started off with a breakfast with Vlasta Pokladnikova, this time more focused on Sequoia and discussion on how I could contribute and what I would like to speak with them... Basically, I told her it would just be great if Sequoia looked a little bit at the Central & Eastern Europe, and even better if they had a partner there who would be their contact point - and of course, vise versa... I don't know if there will ever be anything out of it, but who doesn't try, doesn't lose...

And after breakfast in University Ave, Palo Alto I rushed to go to Richard Pivnicka - Honorary Counsel General of the Czech Republic in Silicon Valley... I have known Richard for a while but only through emails and my friends' stories - he is basically "our man in the Valley" (or "Silicon Man" as one Czech newspaper called him), he runs CzechTech and tries to promote the Czech Republic and Czech companies whenever he can... And now I was supposed to go to his house in Woodside (nice residential part of Palo Alto) to pick him up...

The house is just BEAUTIFUL, not visible from the street it opens up as you drive the little sandroad, and it has two flags on it - Czech and Slovak... It almost feels like Czechoslovakia again... I will have to remember to show this to Sheamus, Bruno, Mohammed and Camilla, they will be rolling on the floor laughing... And so will Mihai... :-)

Richard gave me a quick tour of the house (including a wine cellar) and garden (including a vineyard), introduced me to his wife Barbara who is the Slovak Honorary Consul (that's how the flags come to place) and then he took me to lunch with his new car... a Tesla Roadster which was just delivered to him 2 weeks ago - and one with a number 209... More about Tesla will be in the next posting...

During lunch we discussed all the different stuff about supporting Czech entrepreneurs to come to Silicon Valley, even just for a couple of months - sort of on a scholarship, but also seriously trying to create a bridge for startups and SMEs who could aspire for something more than just Czech (and maybe Slovakia)... Richard is a bright guy and although his main experience comes from real estate and development, he understands the "Silicon Valley business" and also has some pretty cool contacts (I should have known earlier that he is in the same club as Tim Draper or Larry Sonsini, dammit)...

But we agreed that we'd stay in touch as our passion is very similar - helping Czech entrepreneurs to succeed (Richard in the Valley and altruistically, I just in general and with profits in mind)... Very pleasant meeting, indeed...

Finally - Golden Gate Bridge

My last today's meeting was neither in Silicon Valley nor in San Francisco, but actually a couple of miles north of SF, in San Rafael which mainly gave me the chance to cross the Golden Gate Bridge...

At the meeting with a Czech Simona Musilkova who is the head of GSI Funds, I learned about the efforts to create GSI Funds as a vehicle to fund establishment of self-sufficient communities based on self-sustainability on energy, food and also friendly atmosphere (whatever it means) - sort of felt like ecofarming which is getting pretty big in Europe, but plus the own energy source as an add-on...

I must honestly say that I didn't quite get how such things could work on a commercial investment model (VC-like) as I am afraid there is just too much will and personal interest than just the "filthy" desire to make money... But who knows, maybe Simona will find her way to make it happen - she surely does have experience from hedge funds and raising money from VC/PE guys, so she may find the recipe...

But as I already mention, maybe also due to the fact that I was tired, the best part of the trip to San Rafael was the Bridge... Such a monumental piece of man's work, such a proof of human skill, craftsmanship but also persistance and stubbornness...

I just love it...

Potential Partner in the Valley?

In the afternoon Phil Wickham arranged for me a meeting with one of the Kauffman fellows, Victor Hwang, one of the fellows who actually started their own firms - in Victor's case T2 Venture Capital... They focus on investments in early stage companies that spin out of academia and government - interesting model counting with a lot of IP and talent, and still hoping for enough entrepreneurship in such spin-offs... I don't believe such model would work in this pure form in the Czech Republic, but I am pretty sure there is huge potential with such focus...

Victor was actually the first VC I've met here in the Valley that openly started discussion about potential cooperation with Central European-based firm like Credo Ventures...

Also, Victor is not only a Kauffman fellow, but he was also awarded a Marshall Memorial Fellowship by the German Marshall Fund, which is a program for emerging transatlantic leaders... I should check it - although I have doubts it could be as great as the EF, it might still be worth a try...

I should be receiving more information from him soon (it was a quick meeting), so I will make sure to make a posting here...

VCs all the way...

My first meeting was actually a morning event, SVASE's VC Breakfast - and I was very surprised that there are events in Silicon Valley that start at 8am...

Anyway, the event took place at Townsend and Townsend and Crew (pretty boring accountants), main guest of the VC Breakfast was Dan Scholnick, Principal with Trinity Ventures... And he was really fun and inspiring to listen to - first he gave us all an intro to Trinity, they currently have their 10th fund of $ 300m, investing in early stages... Dan himself started off as an early employee of a startup called Wily and than he founded his own mobile apps company, before he went "to the other side"...

One of the key messages Dan gave in his intro was advise to startups: "If you want to raise money and you are ready for it, go ahead and take as much cash as you can (and VCs will give you)"... When asked about dilution, valuations and equity level for founders he said something which I absolutely agree with: "Don't be concerned about valuation and dilution at the entry of a VC... If you succeed there will be a lot of opportunities to negotiate at the time of an exit"... Very much true, I wish more entrepreneurs had this approach, it would help many of them to success...

Large part of the event was dedicated to startup participants to give their pitches and then listen to Dan's feedback... In general I must say I retained back my self-confidence when I heard his feedback - it was a lot more like what I would say in his place (unlike yesterday at the first SVASE event)... Interesting how even in the Valley VCs differ in views and opinions... That's good - I have to lose my ideals of the Valley and get it back from the pedestal... It's in the process now...

After the VC Breakfast I headed to Draper Fischer Jurvetson (known as DFJ) where I was supposed to meet with the Director, Elizabeth Clarkson... I actually helped to arrange this through DFJ's Managing Director Don Wood who I hosted in Prague beginning of last year when DFJ first came to the CEE region to inspect the grounds... And funnily enough, Don was also the first person I ran into when entering the DFJ building...

BTW, one funny thing... Although I am not too "Japanese" about taking photos, on this trip I just try to have my camera with me at least sometimes - and today before going to DFJ it almost got me in troubles... When shooting a photo in front of DFJ, a big car with almost even bigger security guy came to me and the guy asked me "what's your name?", I was a bit shocked, so I replied "Ondrej", then he said "well, Ondrej, get your ass out of here, no more pictures, I have your license plate number"... Sounds funny, but it was really not that funny, explaining him that I actually do have an appointemnt scheduled and that was touristy what I was doing... Anyway, got the photos, here they are - as you can see, I wouldn't make a very good spy...

Educating VCs - another fellowship...?

In the afternoon I had a meeting with a guy who actually helped Leigh to arrange some of the meetings, so I was very much looking forward to meeting him - Paul Wickham, CEO of the Center for Venture Education which administers the Kauffman Fellows Program... As I discovered, Phil didn't know much about the Eisenhower Fellowships, but maybe because he learned that the both organizations share similar goals and visions, he was so eager to help (also he helped me with a couple of more meetings later this week and next week)...

KFP was created in 1994 in cooperation with leading VCs to identify emerging leaders in venture capital, and enable them to personally develop, network and ... It was (and still is) a very innovative way to expand the talent pool in venture capital, and this way actually help develop and finance more innovative companies and entrepreneurs...

Every year a group of about 25 people gets selected and spends 2 two years being coached, mentored and enabled dialogue and networking with their peers and role models... KFP alumni led investments in overall volume of about $ 6 billion in 417 companies (which generate annualized revenue of over $ 15 billion and employ nearly 43 thousand people)... Out of the Fellows, 37 are general partners in their VC firms, 7 started their own firms and 6 are CEO/Founders of VC-backed companies... Wow, what a track record...

Point is Kauffman's goal was not just creating successful VCs, but also creating leaders with understanding and passion for entrepreneurship, venture building and actually making a positive change in the world...

I will be actually thinking about applying for the program - that's how impressive my meeting with Phil and learning about the KFP were... And at the end of the day, it is my goal to be a successful VC and leader with ability to drive change...

Plug'n'Play - part Two

As already mentioned, I scheduled two meetings at Plug and Play Tech Center (PnP) which according to people I've met up till now is the new rising star in tech business incubation in Silicon Valley... It only started in 2006, when Saeed Amidi and his family spotted the opportunity in seed and early stages of tech companies (well they might have spotted earlier, they were one of the early investors in PayPal) and they decided to create this venture-type of an incubator... The two people I met today were Saeed Amidi (again) and Maud Pasteuraud (again)...

Comparison to the U.S. MAC is very difficult as they are totally different - PnP is very venture oriented, buzz- and ecosystem-creating type, privately owned and very for-profit run; USMAC on the other hand is supported by the City of San Jose, it is non-profit but also aims at providing services, not just space (but there is not as much focus on creating an ecosystem there)... First impression is almost not comparable - PnP is buzzing, hectic, busy place with a super duper new technology for visitors' badges, whereas USMAC seems almost sleepy, with one friendly woman at the reception which brings the bottle of water in 10 mins (in PnP there are drinks and coffee everywhere for grabs)...

I really spent too little time in both places to judge which model works better or worse, I must say that I was pretty impressed with Chuck who runs USMAC, but I was impressed and excited about the whole Plug and Play (including Saeed) - at the end of the day, PnP is something that I had in mind when I co-founded Incubator 2.0 in the Czech Republic back in 2001... I strongly believe that there should be the environment and ecosystem to stipulate the startups, I believe there should be VCs, bankers, advisors present there, on the other hand I am a huge admirer of track record, competence and depth - and am not sure if those things are just not something PnP don't have which may appear to be the strongest flaw in the model... Many bubbles have already burst...

Saeed insists that there are more companies applying to come to PnP than there is space -
I am just not really sure about it... The model somehow gets in conflict - they are selling space (actually for higher than market price) and at the same time they screen the entering companies... Is it sustainable...? Clearly, PnP was very expensive to build (with a $ 4m data center under the ground), so it has to return the investment... Can this be done through equity participation when they only take 1% (if they don't invest more cash)...?

Another thing stroke me about Plug and Play's approach - as I mentioned, they work as a venture incubator, so they take equity and some of the incubees actually receive further funding from them (or actually their VC arm Amidzad Ventures)... The issue might be in "some"... In my view there could potentially be a conflict of interest there and I wonder how Saeed and PnP handle such conflict...

Also, from my perspective they accent too much working with European governments, trying to set up Pavilions for countries, subsidiesed or fully paid by the countries... But what in my view usually happens when government gets in the way...? Wrong companies get selected, wrong people decide about things they don't understand and a potential lose-lose situation is born... Plug and Play does not need governments, they need to maintain the momentum, build track record of successful companies (depends a lot on selection) and pipeline of newcomers (but perhaps not in cooperation with the governments)...

Just my 2 cents... At the end of the day, huge admiration and respect to what they have built over the last (only) three years, and good luck for another 33...

Maud and Saeed promised to send me more info on conditions for setting up a Pavilion and also cooperation with VCs... After all the concerns I expressed it is for sure that whenever I will be considering a Silicon Valley presence for any company, I will be looking at PnP (as well as USMAC) as one of the possibilities... Might be really a great kick-off for a certain types of companies and entrepreneurs...

SVASE

During preparations for the trip a couple of people advised to meet with the SVASE - the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs - www.svase.org, and I was very much looking forward to meeting them and seeing one of their events... I was happy enough that one of SVASE events took place just today evening - First Impressions event... And just before it I also met with the President & CEO, Chris Gill (BTW, British guy who came to the Valley some 15 years ago)...

Interesting stats that Chris gave me was that there are about 400,000 engineers in the Valley, out of which about 20,000 want to be entrepreneurs; there are about 6,000 business plans flying around out of which just 350 received A-round financing last year (and about 1/3 were first-time teams); about 70% of the startup teams come from outside the U.S. (immigrants)...

Time passed quickly, so it was time to go to the First Impressions event... The format was pretty usual - starting with networking, then 10-min presentations by startups (usually looking for funding) followed by a 5-min Q&A with a panel of 3 VCs / Angels... Today the panelists were Joel Yarmom (Draper Associates), Max Shapiro (Keiretsu Forum) and John Cornwell (SandHill Angels)... It was very interesting to see the event - to see how much better Americans are in networking and starting conversation (I was the passive one compared to them), to see how much better we are in logistics... And also, how better they are in presenting their pitches, and how much similarly stupid some ideas for startups are... :-)

And to be frank and open here, I am happy to say that TUESDAY Business Network which I founded and managed for a while back home would do greatly in the Valley...! There are just so many things we are doing similarly to SVASE, and although they are bigger, it is not such a huge (Prague - Valley) difference: they have 11,500 associated members out of which 850 are paying individual members... Yeah, they run about 10 events per month, but most of them take place at sponsor locations and are rather small...

Just to make sure here, I am not trying to be rude or inpolite or even brag about TBN, I am just uncontrollably happy to see that if TBN was here, it would do a great job - and yes, I truly believe it... So congratulations and thanks, Petro, Nikolo, Kristyno, Katko, Daso, Ivane... :-)

I gotta an office in Silicon Valley!

Today, my second day in the Valley I only have 2 meetings and 1 event to go to... So I also have time for driving around and looking at all those famous brands on buildings and houses...

My first meeting in the morning is with Chuck Erickson, CEO of U.S. Market Access (formerly known as the Internetional Business Incubator)... I'd already read his paper on incubation (check it here), so I had a lot of practical questions on how the US MAC really works... It seems one the best models for an incubator really is the hybrid between the real-estate model and consulting/services model - and focus helps (so does public money - US MAC was founded and is sponsored by the city of San Jose which still aims to attract highly potential tech companies from abroad to come over to San Jose)... There are currently over 60 clients with US MAC, most of them are present in the center, minority are virtual clients (pretty sweet service BTW)... And at the end of the meeting Chuck offered me an office to lend next time I'm in the Valley, just so I don't have to work from a hotel room - very sweet, I might actually take the offer...

Don't fear failure!

Silicon Valley really is a unique place, no doubt about it... But people have been questioning how it is possible that it remains such a unique place for such a long time - remember it was created in the 50s, more than half of century ago and still it is THE place...

I believe, outside the tradition and role models, instant flow of new, hungry, entrepreneurial immigrants, excellent infrastructure and a lot of VCs present in Silicon Valley, there is one more amazing thing here... and that is that the Valley DOESN'T CARE ABOUT FAILURE... "so what, you messed it up, what's gonna be next?" is the Valley's approach...

No wonder this is undoubtedly the single most entrepreneurial area in the whole world when nobody here fears failure... They all are ready to take as much risk as there is... And remember, with higher risk there is also space for higher reward... Wow... Second day in the Valley and I'm still high... :-)

First Day in the Valley...

What an exhausting day... but so very interesting and inspiring... I will try to keep this post short, I may come back to some of the things from today later...

Started off quite early, I was supposed to meet my friend George Haber down in Santa Clara where his latest start-up Cresta Technologies is based... Last I saw George in Bucharest, Romania and the main thing that struck me today was how quickly George and his venture are moving ahead, towards what George believes will be a "billion-dollar-company"... Well, it may well be - he was the first one to build a DVD software for PCs and now he aims to build a frequency/region/broadcaster independant receiving chip + software and sees a lot of future in it... Currently raising $ 10 - 12 million, so what was also interesting was to learn about this fundraising in the economic crisis (2 of the VCs he presented to actually asked him for a job)... At the end of our meeting George took me to a fabulous little Thai restaurant which I will just never find again alone (red curry was fabulous)... And on the way I first really enjoyed the spirit of Silicon Valley - we passed office buildings of Yahoo!, Symantec, AMD (pretty empty and quite), Intel... well there were more, but now after the whole day in the Valley I'm starting to be used to it... :-)

My first "real" meeting then was originally supposed to be with Guy Kawasaki - a man I discovered back in 1999 or so when I got to a book How to Drive Your Competition Crazy... Also, Guy was our main inspiration when we with Roman Stanek came up with the BOOTCAMP for Entrepreneurs back in 2000 - at that time I even emailed with Guy to see if we could use the name BOOTCAMP and his opening presentation of Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs (the link goes to an updated version, haven't found the original)... Unfortunately Guy was unavailable (which was announced in advance), so I met with Bill Reichert who is Guy's partner and Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures (previously Garage.com)... But if you want, check Guy's and Bill's presentations - see http://www.garage.com/resources/...

I spent almost 2 hours talking with Bill, and the meeting brought me a lot of interesting insights into the current pace of early stage investing in the Valley and comparison of entrepreneurship in the Valley (and U.S.) and in Europe... Also, Bill brought up pretty interesting case studies of entrepreneurship enforcement in Taiwan (I should ask Sean about this), Singapore and Israel (of course)... Also, to my huge surprise Bill showed me an example (actually two) of very positive governmental regulation leading to (a) improvement of entrepreneurial activity in a market, (b) saving energy which at the end of the day is a win-win to all... I will be thinking about the discussion and might write about this a little later...

After Garage I was invited to an invitation-only dinner hosted by Stanford University and Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale by Burton Lee (professor at Stanford)... The dinner was very interesting, with about 25 people around Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley & Europe (European Entrepreneurship is Burton's interest), including Uli Fricke, Member of the Board of EVCA and Managing Partner of Triangle Venture Capital Group based out of Frankfurt, Germany and Saeed Amidi, Founder and President of Plug and Play Tech Center... I am seeing Saeed on Wednesday morning, so more to come - let's just say for now that meeting Saeed has probably been my most interesting experience so far in the Valley... Plus the food at Plug and Play was excellent - not a big fan of lamb and duck, but the shrimps and salad were terrific...

Half Moon Bay

It took me pretty much the whole day of travelling to get to my next destination... Silicon Valley... I checked out the Union League at 10am, took a cab to the airport, flight at 12.25pm to Chicago, then 2.10pm to San Francisco (delayed) to arrive in SF at around 6pm (almost 11 hours from leaving the League)... Got a rental car and concluded in Half Moon Bay which is about half way between San Fran and the Valley...

The next two weeks are supposed to be the main part of my fellowship, so let's just wait and see...

Bon Voyage, Fellas

Friday night is traditionally reserved for a Bon Voyage party at the EF, although this year's party was somewhat different that the previous ones - because of the economic situation EF's Vice-President Dan Geisler and his wife Christiane decided to invite everybody to their apartment (beautifully located on the roof of a building on Church Street in Philadelphia's Old Town) for Pizza & Beers... And it was (at least from my perspective) great - informal and friendly... and pizza was great as well...

And as this was our last evening in Philly before we depart for our next destinations, we had to go out for drinks, of course... Location: Cuba Libre, Program: Jamesons & Dancing (believe it or not), End: 2am-ish (after we went out for "one last drink" at the Chris' Jazz Cafe with Camilla, Bruno, Sheamus and Mohammed)... Great finale of the great first week...

Opening Seminar III.

Final day of the Opening Seminar was pretty short... In the morning there was another session on Leadership, linked more directly to our Fellowship objectives and ways to achive them... Session was facilitated by Bob Halperin, 2002 Eisenhower Fellow and currently Chief Education Officer at YPO (www.ypo.org) - I will have to check with the Czech YPO members if they know him...

Bob divided us into groups of 7 or 8 (by Program Officers), and facilitated a couple of exercises which should have led to more understanding of our own objectives, and learning us to ask questions...

Our group picked a name "Chameleons" (my idea) - first because the group was so diverse and colourful, both in terms of backgrounds, countries as well as focuses, and second because Camilla was chosen to be the moderator... :-) And I actually believe we were the best ones (or one of the best), not just because when there was a final voting by all participants, we had 3 questions out of the final 10 selected (there were 5 groups)... Voila... (BTW, group with Sheamus and Bruno was called the Dancing Queens and the group with Mohammed and Mihai was called Philly Green Bananas - LOL)

Finally, Bob Halperin gave us 3 asignments for the Closing Seminar at the end of May:

1. Bring back an artefact (something tangible)
2. Bring back (or send) a picture which will be a symbol of the journey or the U.S.
3. Prepare an Action Plan for the Board or CEO

Getting worse from 1 to 3, but that's logical I suppose... Excellent workshop by Bob...

Opening Seminar II.

USA Fellows joined us this morning at the Opening Seminar, and it was certainly a good thing... Their handicap however turned out to be in the absence of any time to meet before the Seminar, so they were very surprised about all the joking and teasing going around amongst the MNP Fellows... But it didn't last too long and they became a part of the group (almost, of course)...

A part of the morning program was a Speed-Dating-like workshop aimed to getting to know each other - which felt a bit strange between people who already spent two nights with each other (like with Mohammed or Maria), but as the questions for each speed-dating session were different it ended up like a very cool exercise plus we got to quickly meet the USA Fellows and learn at least a bit about them...

Afternoon started off with a leadership workshop facilitated by Dr. Michael Useem, Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (http://leadership.wharton.upenn.edu)... one of the best leadership workshops I've been to, with excellent examples from practice - at least the exercises with Lou Gerstner and Roy Vagelos (and maybe also the Angela Merkel, even though I don't believe she makes a good leader) I will have to bring to one of future BOOTCAMPs back home...

Generally, what could be the basic outcome from the workshop is that the most important points to be included in a checklist for leaders, sort of a Leadership Template, are the following:

• Vision and Strategy
• "Honor the Room"
• Confidence and Optimism
• Communicate your Character
• Give Message "so it sticks"

Michael also recommended us a couple of readings, out of which I like this one the most: Bill George, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership (check it on Amazon)... I already bought it for my Kindle2...

In the evening we all gathered in La Viola West restaurant (just across the street from La Viola East - funny) for a reception, which (needless to say) was followed with drinks - with a very passionate discussion on regulation and economic crisis, its roots and ways out with two USA Fellows, Kevin and Michael...

Opening Seminar I.

So our official program started - the first day of the opening seminar... Although I already met a couple of fellow Fellows, it was amazing hearing all of their introductions... Such a diversity and colourfulness of the group...

What we did was we sent out to the EF guys a photo (one photo) of ourselves, and this morning we got to introduce ourselves and also describe the photo and explain why we picked it... Really good stuff...

Also, what really struck the EF staff (oh yes, they got to introduce themselves as well, although without a photo - which might actually be a good idea) was how friendly we became as a group in such a short time...

At the end of the day we went out to The Pew Charitable Trusts (www.pewtrusts.org) for a panel discussion on Civil Society in the U.S.... And although non-profit sector is not in my focus and I don't know much about it, it was very interesting...

The Enterprise Center

Today only one meeting, but a very interesting one - a group visit to The Enterprise Center (TEC) in West Philadelphia (http://www.theenterprisecenter.com/)...

The Center's President is one of U.S. Fellows (she went for her fellowship to Eastern Europe in 2002 - and she was also in the Czech Republic), it's an energetic woman named Della Clark, and even during the short visit we had the chance to see her enthusiasm and competence...

TEC was founded in 1989 by Wharton's Small Business Development Center to offer a comprehensive system of incubation and accelaration of businesses... Over time it re-design its focus - first, TEC won a bid and became the Minority Business Development Center for Pennsylvania... Also, over time TEC moved from the very early stage incubation to a business acceleration model - when TEC only accepts businesses which are already up and running, with annual revenues of at least $100,000...

It seems that TEC has been very successful, with annual revenues of $6 million, staff of 20 and over 100 companies in acceleration (clients)... When asked about the single most successful case of incubation/acceleration, Della mentioned a woman who came to TEC some 15 years ago, with huge financial problems, 2 kids, no house, no car, almost with no hope... But today this woman is running her own business which has a 7-digit turn over, and is self-confident and happy... I agree that this sounds like a fabulous story, and I am happy for Drella...

More info on TEC web site...

Inventor of Dimmer Switch

Today I had the very first meeting organized by the EF - a visit of a company called Lutron (www.lutron.com)... To be frank and open, I have never heard of the company before - and it's probably not just because my focus has been just different... As it also turned out during the visit, Lutron only started to sell in Europe a couple of years ago, and are still not too strong there...

However, the most interesting thing about the company is that it was founded back in 1961 by Joel Spira who at that time invented the very first solid state dimmer switch (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimmer)... I got to meet Joel himself who is in a great shape, both mentally and physically, and it was a great discussion we had - not just about the lighting controls market and possibilities to market those in Central Europe, but also about Prague (where he has been), energy, global warming and politics... Great experience...

Orientation

So I spent the whole morning today at orientation with Leigh Cohen (my Program Officer) at the EF House... I met some of the staff - president of the EF John S. Wolf (former Assistant Secretary of State), Vice-President Dan Geisler, Director of Alumni Diane Shoemaker and others... Everyone has been very nice to us...

Also, I met first Fellows as well - Mohammed from Egypt, Aysha from Bahrain and Sheamus from Northern Ireland...

I received practical things like a PDA, blue sheets with program for the next couple of days, EF business cards, credit card etc., but the coolest thing I got was... a key to the EF House... Yes, with becoming a Fellow I actually received a lifetime access to the EF House, which supposedly belongs to all of us... Cool...

Welcome to Philly

So I'm in Philadelphia... Arrived on the 2nd April and surely it was a tiring journey - almost 11 hours from Prague to Atlanta and then hour and a half to Philadelphia, but after 2 hours spent queing to get through the controls and additional 2 hours waiting for the delayed flight... So here I am, almost 20 hours after I left my Prague apartment... The Union League of Philadelphia - or actually the Inn at the League - is where I'm staying... One of the oldest clubs in Philadelphia... A bit stuffy, with a dress code even for breakfast, but impressive in another way... You can check http://www.unionleague.org/...