This year’s Entrepreneurship Association Conference at UCLA Anderson School of Management was a celebration of the momentum around the Los Angeles tech and entrepreneurial scene...Silicon Beach. Several keynotes exemplified the energy in Southern California, with Sean Rad from Tinder, one of the hottest startups in LA, Kelly Perdew, winner of the Apprentice 2 and local advisor, investor, and entrepreneur, and Mohanjit Jolly, a Bay Area venture capitalist at Draper Fisher Jurvetson to represent the growing presence and respect LA has earned in the global entrepreneurial community. The Conference, whose theme was “The Evolving Entrepreneur, also featured an educational mission. A case competition, sponsored by AT&T, showcased Anderson student solutions to an enterprise Big Data business challenge and the Fast Pitch, a perennial favorite, featured many student-driven business ideas. With over 500 attendees, 52 speakers/panelists, 12 Fast Pitch teams, 6 product/business demos, and three Case Competition presentations, this was the best year ever (Complete bias – I was a co-director of the conference!).
The day was filled with conversation around idea generation, raising capital, product entry strategy, industry trends and general career advice. Some key highlights were:
Be Bold: “When there is opportunity, jump,” Jolly, DFJ
Passion is Paramount: “Do it for the right reasons,” Sean Rad, Tinder….and, “Attitude is contagious and inspires people,” Kelly, Perdew, TargetClose.
Be Focused: In order to avoid being broadly mediocre, it is important to prioritize your core market first, become a dominate player, and then start thinking about expanding to adjacent markets, (discussed in the Crowd Economy panel).
Information Matters, Not Data: “’Quantified Self’ sucks…it’s just counting. What’s going to be revolutionary is ‘Understood Self’,” Cavan Canavan, CEO Focus:TRAINR.
Know Your Context: “You have to understand the context of the world around you. Lebron James knows every player and every team. The geniuses know the context and how they fit into it so they can tell their story,” Jason Crilly, NearWoo.
We also got a peak into the Oculus acquisition by Facebook “One of the single moments I will never forget was stepping into virtual reality … wow … game changer” –Eytan Elbaz, Scopely.
See you next year!
