YouTube co-founder looks for his next success…

An Ar

ticle from StarTribune –

St. Paul Central grad Jawed Karim talks about launching start-ups, being an entrepreneur and Silicon Valley.

Many university students spend summer break painting houses, backpacking through Europe or spending some quality time with Madden 08. Jawed Karim is scouring the Twin Cities for the next YouTube.

The St. Paul Central High School graduate and a co-founder of the popular YouTube video sharing website recently launched Youniversity Ventures, a firm that provides venture financing to Internet software start-ups by college students and first-time entrepreneurs.

Karim, a 29-year-old Ph.D. student at Stanford University, is believed to be worth tens of millions of dollars or more. He is a founder of online payment processor PayPal, which eBay acquired in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Four years later, Karim received $65 million in Google stock when the Internet giant bought YouTube for $1.65 billion.

He started Youniversity last year with Kevin Hartz and Keith Rabois, two Stanford grads and partners at Sequoia Capital, the high-powered Silicon Valley venture firm that invested in Google, Apple, Oracle and Yahoo. The three men will invest $50,000 to $300,000 of their own money per company. To contact Karim, e-mail him at jawed@youniversityventures.com.

Karim chatted with the Star Tribune about first-time entrepreneurs, taking risks and why people in Minnesota need to get out of the convention center and into the coffee shop.

Q Who is Youniversity Ventures targeting?

A We feel that the [college student] segment is underaddressed. There is not a lot of attention given there, even though there is a lot of innovation coming out of that space. People may be working on something that is very useful but they may not know how to take and translate that into an actual business. There are [venture capitalists] but they serve a segment that is a little bit higher up. If you go to a VC, you are expected to have a fully polished business plan.

We want to be involved in a much earlier stage. We act as almost co-founder for the first six months. We just enable the team to get off the ground. … We work on a very informal basis. We will coach people along if it falls into our area of interest [Internet software], even though we don’t make an investment. We are working with a lot of companies right now, even the ones we are not investing in.

Q How did you become an entrepreneur?

A It’s very difficult to get started. The best advice I can give is to learn by example. I was surrounded by other successful entrepreneurs. And I did a lot of reading.

Pick a company that you admire and find out everything about it: who’s behind it, how they got started. For me, the companies were FedEx, Best Buy, Oracle, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google. I just knew everything about how they got started. I was just trying to emulate the companies I was interested in.

Q What’s the difference between being an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and in Minnesota?

A Silicon Valley has a lot of noise, a lot of hype. People are very excited about all of the Facebook stuff, Facebook applications. It’s just been a huge hype over the last year when actually … there isn’t really that much value. It’s just a bubble. It’s almost a distraction.

Whereas here, there is certainly less activity. But at the same time, you don’t have these bubbles of nonsense out here. Things here seem a little too formal. I think that it’s inhibiting productivity.

People in Silicon Valley will just get together and shoot around some ideas or program something together. Here, we have to go to a specific conference to meet people.

Q It seems that people in Minnesota are much more risk-averse than in California. Why?

A It’s a cultural issue. In California, you see everyone taking lots of risk. So comparatively to them you are not taking that much risk by doing a start-up because everyone is doing it. Whereas here, when you do a start-up it’s like: “Oh, my God! Like, I’m doing a start-up. No one else I know is doing a start-up, so I am taking a lot of risk,” when actually you are not but it’s compared to everyone else. The local culture might discourage risk.

Q What will it take to spark innovation in Minnesota?

A In Silicon Valley, what really helps is that people are always working together. You see people hanging out all of the time. Even people from competing companies are talking about stuff. It’s that interaction that creates the motivation to do something. Here people are more separate. They don’t interact as much.

What it’ll take is much closer collaboration in a much-less-formal environment. But in Silicon Valley, people network all of the time — on the street, coffee shops, dorm rooms, garages.

A new reason not to commute: Startup gives freelancers, entrepreneurs a chance to work in downtown Santa Cruz

A truely inspiring article from SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL – Two city leaders and a prominent attorney are trying to stop what they see as an exodus of talented workers from Surf City to Silicon Valley and make life more pleasant for those workers and others in the process.

Mayor Ryan Coonerty, 34, city Economic Development Manager Jeremy Neuner, 34, and attorney Caleb Baskin, 32, signed a lease earlier this month to open NextSpace in the former County Bank Building on Pacific and Cooper streets. They hope to sublet the 10,800-square-foot office space above Pacific Wave Surf Shop to entrepreneurs who want to work independently, but crave companionship.

For around $200 per month, freelancers, entrepreneurs and home office workers can have access to Wi-Fi, couches and tables and reserve a conference room. For $1,000 per month, they can have their own private office with a lock on the door, overlooking downtown.

The concept, which was pioneered in San Francisco about three years ago, is simple: human beings are, by nature, social creatures. So even when they work alone, they like to be near other people, Neuner said. It also gives those who spend their days online at LuLu Carpenter’s coffee shop a legitimate office in which to meet clients and hold meetings.

Those who choose to work at NextSpace “are getting a membership in a community,” Baskin said.In addition, bringing together those who now spread out at cafes around town could help spawn new ideas, which might lead to new local businesses. That effort is crucial, organizers say, in a city that has seen its tax base shrink over recent years and its light industry all but disappear.

 

“Talent, ideas, capital, it’s all here,” Neuner said. “Two people with a rolling white board and a cafe space down the road becomes a company.”

In addition, the men said, companies with a lot of employees who live in Santa Cruz — such as Google or Apple — could rent out a few work carrels or a private office in NextSpace downtown instead of having those workers drive Highway 17 every day.

“We wouldn’t have done this unless we knew there was a demand,” said Neuner, who will drop from full- to part-time work with the city’s Redevelopment Agency once NextSpace officially opens Oct. 1, to spend more time on the new business. Over time, he could work for the city on a contract-only basis as he increases his hours at NextSpace.

The business is not considered a conflict of interest for Coonerty, as council members typically hold a full-time job outside their work as elected officials. However, he would not be allowed to vote on anything related to Neuner’s employment or awarding him any contract. NextSpace likely will not do any business with the city, Coonerty said.

Redevelopment Agency Director Bonnie Lipscomb said she supports Neuner’s venture, and that it will fit in well in Santa Cruz.

“It’s exactly the type of business we should be supporting in the downtown,” Lipscomb said. “It’s fulfilling a need in Santa Cruz.”

The lease for NextSpace began this month, and some workers could begin moving in next week, although no contracts have been signed yet. Construction needs to be done before the grand opening this fall.

Membership options will include a “cafe” membership, where workers can drop in with their laptops and cell phones and use the NextSpace Wi-Fi while sitting on a couch or at a table. Those with “carrel” memberships will have a reserved desk where they can store their stuff, and those with a private office will have a locking door. Memberships run between about $175 to $1,000 per month, depending on what type of space a worker wants.

In addition, those who need help creating a business plan or finding investors for a startup should be able to consult a panel of experts the men expect to have available to their clients, they said. NextSpace is already helping to sponsor a freelance “boot camp” this weekend, which about 200 people have signed up for.

The three men said they plan to make money on the membership payments and other services, like hosting meetings for outside companies who want to hold a retreat in Santa Cruz. Each has contributed around $15,000 of their own money to get the business going, Coonerty said. No city money was spent on the business.

The effort continues in the tradition of Santa Cruz NEXT, a group started by Coonerty and Baskin in an effort to get young Santa Cruz residents, many of whom drive over the hill to work, invested and involved in their community. Over the past year, the group’s hundreds of members have sampled wine and food from eateries around town while learning about local artists, housing issues and the city’s planning department.

As a result, more young people are showing up at City Council and other public meetings, and volunteering on city advisory boards, among other places.

Raising venture funding for Startups…

Amity Innovation Incubator (AII), aiming to foster entrepreneurship, conducted a day long workshop on “Raising venture funding: Bridging the last mile,” at Amity university campus, Noida. The workshop brought together entrepreneurs, start- ups looking for fund raising for their existing or new ventures.

While inaugurating the workshop, Aseem Chauhan, chief executive, AII, emphasised on the importance of the understanding of the concept of venture funding for the start- ups and the perspective of the investor before a start – up goes to a venture capitalist for raising funds for his/ her venture. He also announced that good companies at Indian Angel Network would be given an opportunity to be incubated at AII and raise finds.

The workshop comprised of stimulating and interactive sessions , with titles, including, “The essence of venture funding- is venture funding for you?- Understanding what it holds for your venture” , “Is your start- up venture worthy?- Difference between being a good company and a fundable company” and “Raising venture funding- an investors’ and practitioners’ perspective” . These sessions were followed by “Company showcase session” in which venture funded companies presented their perspective on what made the deal work and sustaining good investor relations.

The eminent speakers for the workshop included venture capitalists like: Ajay Kapur, SIDBI Venture Capital, Ranjit Shashtri, PSI, Devangshu Dutta, Third Eyesight; Rahul Chandra, Helion Ventures, Rohit Agarwal, CEO, techTribe; Sameer Guglani, Morpheus Ventures, Mukul Singhal, Canaan Partners, Abhishek Sinha, EKO and Ankit Maheshwari, Instablogs. These venture capitalists are said to have funded the start-ups and directors of investee companies.

The workshop was attended by over 100 start – ups including Infoaxon, XTV, Route Guru, EKO, Wildnet Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Sopra Group, Span, Gets India, Vinculum Partners, Cognizione Consulting and Solutions, Netsutra and Turtle Animation Pvt Ltd.