[Panel Discussion] Mentorship, Investment and New Funding Models
Jeffrey Paine from Founder Institute started off the discssion on investment at echelon 2010 with the usual introductions and the first question, how does operating an incubator in Asia differs from The Valley and how failures can be minimized?
Dave was quick to answer that we should instead focus on maximizing failure where it will quicken the learning curve and achieve more. It looks like its the survival of the fittest theory for Dave, letting things run its course.
Talking about China, Chris explains about the almost non-existant seed fund scene in the country. With promising human capital in China, Innovation Works is setting out to build an incubator to tackle this problem. His take is that investment models should be versatile, as startups are, in this ever-changing environment. Joi explains on the hierarchy system in Japan where sub-companies are not expected to out-perform their parent company. A different story when we talk about smaller startups being more versatile and efficient than larger giants, and therefore being able to outdo them. Joi also explained his views on the incubator environment and how they are significantly different from other parts of the world before being interrupted by Dave McClure and an interesting East meets West argument ensued. Follow our live stream to try and catch the investors taking it out on each other.
Saeed’s brought out his somewhat controversial opinion on how incubators can make money through real estate, data centers and events while using this platform to meet entrepreneurs and invest in accelerating their ideas. By maintaining a positive cash-flow on these sectors, it allows incubators to focus on the investment arm and identify the next big idea. On the other hand, Jouko’s opinion still lies heavily with what Grow VC does, crowd funding. He believes that the incubator environment can be open, allowing anyone to invest in a potentially successful startup.
Question of the day: Why build a business into an incubator? Provide them the services they need to build up faster, for free.
Given that he made the statement on earning from incubator facilities, Saeed took the bullet by saying that he does not like an entrepreneur who can not pay rent. His defense was that a free model and subsidies does not churn out successful startups. It seems like Plug & Play believes in the stick more than the carrot. A point that seems valid when talking about preparing startups for the real world, we have seen it all. Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft do not play nice.
With the general consensus that there is not one-size-fits-all investment model, it would be wise to say that the panelist should agree to disagree, given their diverse backgrounds.
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