Coplex: Master Plan, Part Un
The format and simplicity of Elon Musk’s recently-released Master Plan, Part Deux blog post is nothing short of inspiring. The (literal) reach-for-the-stars attitude Elon has motivated me to do the same for Coplex. After all, if you don’t dream big, don’t expect to achieve the unimaginable.
After honing in on my entrepreneurial artistic talents, I created this, my “Coplex Master Plan, Part Un.” (Thankfully, that’s the only word I remember from French class in high school.) In the next 10 years, we look to accomplish the following:
1. Build a world-class Startup Accelerator that is at the forefront of this decade’s innovation.
We love how Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars are enabling entrepreneurs around the world. They’ve created world-class brands and set the standard for what makes startup accelerators great. Not only that, they’ve helped support and build thousands of startup communities around the world.
They’ve designed and built their programs around the “technical founding team” and provide the skills and resources that these teams need to build a successful companies. They help technical teams become software entrepreneurs.
At Coplex, we provide a platform for non-coding, industry expert founders to start new tech companies. We see a gap here where millions of capable entrepreneurs from around the world aren’t getting what they need to turn their ideas into new tech ventures. By building a world-class, “new breed” Startup Accelerator, we can make a very big impact on the innovation that happens over the next 10 years.
2. Enable a new type of technology entrepreneur (The New Entrepreneur).
In the next 10 years, every company in every industry is going to be a technology company at its core. However, we strongly believe that you do not need to be a coder to start a tech (or software) company in today’s world. Despite popular belief, the tech startup founding teams need don’t need to resemble what you see on HBO’s Silicon Valley.
In fact, only a few of the “unicorns” today were started by technical (coder) founders.
We believe that many of the tech startups solving the really big, hairy, and difficult problems of the next decade in industries like food, energy, and medicine won’t be solved by coders, but rather a new type of entrepreneur.
There are millions of subject-matter expert founders (with experience running companies) around the world. They’re outside of SF and they aren’t in their 20’s. Way too many of these people don’t have the opportunity to play in the tech startup game despite having:
- Deep understanding of their respective problem space,
- Strong connections in their industry (their first customers),
- Sales experience, and
- Experience running and operating a business (albeit, not always a software/tech company).
We will be the platform to enable The New Entrepreneur (non-coding, industry expert founders) to start incredible new companies around the world.
Some examples of non-coding founders we’ve empowered:
- Frank, the oncologist. He was a partner at a successful oncology practice in Phoenix, which was acquired by a large regional hospital. After many years of experience, Frank realized a big problem in the space related to matching cancer patients with available clinical trial programs. Frank wants to solve this problem with a new software startup but didn’t know where to start since he isn’t a coder.
- Cindy, the veterinarian. She founded a very successful pet hospital in the southwest. After years of experience in the space and lots of work to build herself up as one of the most well-known practice owners in the country, she realized a massive problem: vet practices don’t have a reliable system to use to run their practice. Although she didn’t have the technical skills to develop the solution, she had the industry expertise to co-create it.
- Diana, the swim instructor. We worked with Diana to take her local swim school business, Aqua Mobile Swim, to an international scale by pivoting her business model to a SaaS offering. We built her first SaaS platform and took her concept from idea to revenue. Today, her multi-million dollar business is in over 25 states in the US and Canada.
3. Build the conduit between The New Entrepreneur and their startup communities.
A big problem with our existing startup communities is that they tend to attract the coders, the hackers, and the first-time founders. The groups don’t tend to overlap with the subject-matter expert founders that have previous business experience. However, being part of the local startup community is critical for The New Entrepreneur. Equally, the younger entrepreneurs can often benefit from their mentorship, connections, and sometimes even capital.
By pulling in The New Entrepreneur into the respective local ecosystems, we can help to build a more diverse and effective local startup community. Additionally, just like with 500 startups and Techstars, we can be the conduit to connect our local startup communities together via the Coplex brand.
4. Raise the bar for venture capital returns with The New Entrepreneur.
VC fund performance (on average) is shit. Fortunately, the higher caliber funds are returning a consistent 20%+ IRR to their investors. Even accelerators have proven to work if done right, as Y Combinator has shown well over a 100% IRR for their investors.
Part of the reason that average fund IRRs are racing towards 0 is that supply (capital) has been increasing in venture funds but quality deal flow doesn’t exist to meet the available supply.
However, deal flow is being constrained (especially in software) because of accelerators, early-stage VCs, and even Angel groups filtering out founding teams who aren’t coders. The startup world is leaving a lot of great new venture opportunities on the table because it’s become the “accepted truth” that you can’t start a new software/tech company without a coder on your founding team. By expanding the universe of deal flow in the industry, we know it can create increased quality deal-flow at the early and later stages, effectively increasing available demand globally to better match supply of capital.
In short, the Coplex Master Plan for the next 10 years is:
- Build a world-class Startup Accelerator that is at the forefront of this decade’s innovation.
- Enable a new type of non-coding, industry expert entrepreneur (The New Entrepreneur).
- Build the conduit between The New Entrepreneur and their startup communities.
- Raise the bar for venture capital returns with The New Entrepreneur.
I hope you enjoyed my only real outlet for creativity. It’s been really fun doing this vision stuff — the sky’s the limit. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read Elon’s Master Plan. Between his and mine, you’ll hopefully have the inspiration to craft your own grand plan for changing the world. The CEO and co-founder of meQuilibrium put it best, “By aligning your efforts with something bigger than yourself or your own achievements, you infuse your efforts with passion and purpose.”
