It was an amazing adventure! We are really happy and grateful for all the great people and experiences we had the chance to know during the event.
We are even happier we came back with our Award.
But let’s start from the beginning of this second day of the Opennemas adventure at the Top 100 Red Herring Europe.
8:30 am Keynotes Roundtable and Presentations start.
First Alex Vieux set the scene with another great introduction.
“In our sector of tech economy” he says “we are not part of the economy, we are the economy. Technology defines any industrial sector that exists, from manufacturing, to healthcare, to advertising, etc.
This means a huge potential, all jobs will transition to their digital version. Like in the flights business were we have seen the shift happening in the last 10 years.
- We have crossed the limit of over 100% penetration of mobile phones.
- SaaS (software as a service) is no longer an issue, we can work with internet connection and we do not need to download much.
- The Unicorn companies deal was quite an amazing thing to watch, but what does it tell us?
- Companies can grow faster than before. We need to grow faster to be remembered.
- Companies need to be solid in execution.
There is a self correction that is happening. In US people are expecting the after nuclear scenario, so recommendations would be:
- Raise money now.
- Do not spend the money.
- Visualize profitability steps. There will be a time when profitability will be considered over growth. Be profitable in 2 quarters, not 6.
- Create a brand. Grow reputation, maintain the quality of the brand, because this is your ultimate legacy.”
9:00 am
We go through Lessons Learned where Takeway.com and Optimal Plus CEOs share their war stories.
Very interesting insights from 2 different businesses in 2 very different markets.
9:45 am
OurCrowd Founding Employee and Director of Special Projects also share his experience in a keynote fairly titled “What an Incredible Journey”.
During the coffee break we have the chance to share opinions and ideas with more and more colleagues, the atmosphere is upbeat and a bit more accelerated than the first day. It seems that the ice has been broken and now conversations flow with even more open mind and direct attitude, it is wonderful, in 15 minutes you can get and give so many inspirational feedback and it looks like we are all part of a same “team”.
11:00 am
We are back to the conference room for the last 2 sessions.
- Managing Growth
A really interesting roundtable session about dealing with growth in a company.
Summary:
- You need data wherever you are and at anytime. You need numbers. You run by numbers. Measure everything.
- Careful with management team, make sure all managers challenge you, make sure they can deal with pressure, make sure they are team players.
- Your managers need to be people who know, your business is not a school. Managing growth requires experience.
- Careful with attitude of people, do not hire young people that have an immature attitude and do not hire experience people that are resistance to change.
- Finding the right strategy to grow is way more difficult than founding a start up.
- Strategy should be planned on a long term, but with many many milestones in the short terms.
- Be transparent. Give relevant people relevant data. Opinions do not matter, only data do.
- Decide fast execute faster. Do not procrastinate, every day costs you money. Speed is a very important successful factor in the technology business.
- Go to conferences, get fresh ideas, go out, learn something. Take a day off to learn something new.
2. Great expectations?
IPO is neither the best exit for a company nor the only one.
Founders need to think: do they want money they have to give back or they want to sell take the money and either continue working or start a new adventure?
Businesses have to decide DNA of the company and opt for selling it or running it for cash flow.
In the last few years there has been a fantastic trend of better CEOs, better ideas, more data driven, more companies created through though time with better results, more risks and more opportunities.
1:30 pm
The presentations of participants start again and we assist to some of them.
Then the tension is too high and we decide to go check one last time on our presentation.
Of course we are ready and excited, and we feel the pressure.
5:00 pm
We enter in the room, all the wonderful people we had the pleasure of knowing during the past 48 hours are there to support us.
The judge from Red Herring are there too.
The presentation goes great, we enjoy it and we can tell the crowd is interested and engaged.
Everything goes really fast, we receive nice questions, we answer and that is it.
We are satisfied and feel proud.
We seat down and participate to few more presentations to support and make feel comfortable our new friends/colleagues.
6:00 pm
All the presentations have been delivered and we can finally indulge in a glass of spumante with our Red Herring newly created team.
7:30 pm
Cocktail party is over and we are called to the Ceremony & Dinner for the Red Herring Europe Top100 Award Winners 2016…