WIT 2011 Debate

1. Old Cats Rock!
Why young people don’t know squat
AND
Actually THEY suck at startups

2. Who would you trust?
• Timothy in College • Bi Ying in College

3. Credentials Startup Success
• Timothy • Bi Ying
• 10+ under my belt.
• Shhh modesty • Well she has worked
prevents me from damned hard.
listing them here…..
• OK here’s one – a
small online travel • That would be …
agency from the one?
Seattle area

4. These Guys Know Startups
“Research that my team conducted, ”…Younger CEOs are probably easier
based on a survey of 549 entrepreneurs to push around. Wet-behind the ears
in high-growth industries, showed that and inexperienced, young CEOs are
the average founder of a high-growth probably far more likely to sign
company launched his venture at age 40. onerous term sheets out of sheer
We also learned that these founders are gratitude for getting funded. Old guys
likely to be married and have two or know better than to sign a term-sheet
more kids. They typically have six to ten loaded with a nasty double-trigger
years of work experience and real-world option acceleration that would consign
ideas. They simply got tired of working the founders to indentured servitude
for others and wanted to rise above their for years after a liquidity event.”
middle-class heritage.”

5. There’s More
• ….entrepreneurs in their late 20s and early 30s did create the most new
businesses, as usual. But the under-35 cohort made up just 19.1 percent of
"total entrepreneurial activity,“ Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor,
• ….between 1995 and 2005, when venture capitalists were plentiful in Silicon
Valley, the 20-to-34 age bracket produced fewer companies than older age
brackets did. The average age of a tech startup founder was not 19 or 27 but a
respectable 39. And there were twice as many entrepreneurs older than 50
than younger than 25. Kaufman Foundation
• …older… better at actualizing their business plans, finding adequate funding, keeping
their young companies going, and creating new jobs. Young people might start more
companies. But check in a few years later, and it is the older entrepreneurs' companies
that are still around Kaufman Foundation

6. Who would you trust?
• Timothy Now • Bi Ying Now

7. Success in Startup land is…
• Pure Intellectual • Experience
Horsepower • Context
• A great freekin’ idea • Understanding
• Customers • Passion
• Contacts • Patience
• Money • Cojones
• Luck • Hard Work
• A great team

8. George Bernard Shaw
YOUTH IS A WONDERFUL THING.
WHAT A CRIME TO WASTE IT ON CHILDREN.

9. timothyo@t2impact.com aka @ProfessorSabena
PEACE AND LOVE