Going Global, Customers and Crowdfunding: Day 2 Startup Grind 2014

Dave McClure

Post by Shannon Brown.

Highlights from the final day at Startup Grind 2014 were three very hot topics for entrepreneurs - going global, customer experience and crowd funding.

Traveller, entrepreneur and founding partner of 500 Startups, Dave McClure shared his insights into one of the most common question raised by most entrepreneurs - do we go global? Many people think that the US market is the best place for startups to generate the most profit, but this is not always the case. Dave’s advice is to assess the local market opportunity and the global market opportunity. Key tips to weighing up the decision:

Why you should not go global

  • Your local market is big enough for expansion.
  • There’s not many people competing locally in your chosen industry.
  • You’re not fluent in the language of the export market

Why you should go global

  • If you live in a tiny little country
  • A country like the USA is ‘extensive’, meaning there is room to expand.
  • All the investors are here (Silicon Valley)
  • All the platforms and partners that could be utilized as mentors are here (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Android, YouTube)

Dave has shared the slides from todays talk here.

Danae Ringelmann co founder of Indiegogo, spoke about seeding a business using crowd funding. Crowd funding is also a powerful platform for product and market validation. People fund ideas and products that matter to them.

Indiegogo’s mission is to decentralize finance.“ It is a much more level playing field, we can all shape the world around us”. But as Danae explains, “crowd funding still comes with a lot of effort and dedication, although it is a great platform to raise money it is defiantly not the easy road”

Angela Benton is the CEO and Founder of NewME Accelerator. Launched in 2011, NewME’s mission is to accelerate, educate, and empower under-represented tech talent around the world. Angela shared her tips on controlling the customer experience. A customer is not a data point, don’t forget to talk to your customers. Build the brand after validating the product market fit and keep the human touch to scale. Start ups have a tendency to automate processes, but shouldn’t underestimate the value of aligning core values with language and tone before doing this.

Thank you to all the guest speakers and the team at Startup Grind 2014 for an exceptional event.