June 22 at Bain Capital Ventures Sri’s 5 Steps to Entrepreneurship and the Future of Retail

Last month at Bain Capital Ventures SF, we listened to Sri’s and Jamison’s stories in startups and entrepreneurship.

Our speaker extraordinaires:

• Srinath Sridhar, Co-founder & CTO of Onera.com
• Jamison Hill, Principal, Bain Capital Ventures (BCV)
• Host: Minh Ha Pham, xoogler Singapore

Discussion:

• Entrepreneurship: Onera’s story
  Sri was an EIR at BCV, working closely with Sahil, then an associate. With great synergy, they were able to create a product and sign paid clients within 6 months. Onera is fully funded by BCV.
• Before Onera, Sri was at Google, Facebook, Bloomreach, and has experience working in very early startups. He discussed a 5-step plan to validate a product idea:

1. Step 1: find a space, for example, portfolio management
2. Step 2: talk to people in this space (eg. portfolio managers), who will be your customers, and ask them about their problems
3. Step 3: solve their problem
4. Step 4: build a product
5. Step 5: bring the product to the customers

• Jamison added that it is important to find your “white-space” and comparative advantage. What is your unique insight/talent/advantage that no one else can bring to the table?
• On fundraising: Jamison compared early stage investors to spouses: nobody gets married on the first date. Founders should get to know their Seed/Series A investors early, as they are the main advocates, who are in it for the long run. He also confirmed the importance of team in early stage investment decisions: probably 90% at the seed stage, and 70% at series A.
• Future of retail: the panel thinks that Amazon will likely be more dominant, but there is still space for niche products which can create a more personal relationship with the consumers.

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