In this keynote presentation, they will discuss the key terms that often arise in fundraising term sheets and shareholders agreements, and how they can be negotiated.  In particular, he will cover how founders and investors can use different clauses to protect themselves and how deals can be structured to ensure the stakeholders’ interests are aligned to ensure the long-term success of the company.

– CHARLES TO & JUSTIN POLLAK

Companies today have more choices in their capital raising journey, you are not just limited to VC’s, with the emergence of the JOBSAct in the USA.  Raising capital from the exemptions that allow you to go beyond family and friends, VC, the general public 233 Million Americans.  This allows entrepreneurs to be at the helm of their journey of their companies.  For investors, they are provided an opportunity to participate where in the past they were left out.  Having the right infrastructure to allow this is key for the entire process to be successful. KoreConX empowers everyone in the private markets.

– OSCAR A. JOFRE

Every entrepreneur creating a start-up has an excellent idea. The founding team want to solve the problem they are addressing.

Most stat-ups fail because they failed to get funding. This is a fallacy.

Start-ups fail because their path to profitability failed. Not their idea. They relied on funding to validate their business. Funding should be used to scale. Revenues and profitability validate (a minimum viable product) – from this comes success and funding to grow faster. If the answer is “but I can’t develop without funding” it’s a bad idea but most likely this financial problem needed more thought.

Breakeven revenues and profitability keep founders in control of their businesses as funders fight for their attention and the best terms. Seeking funding while loss making puts the funders in control.

Seeking funding instead of a path to breakeven is the seemingly easy path until it fails. Spending 20% more time figuring out the way to the harder, tougher revenues and breakeven saves hugely increases your chance of success. The experience and support of others hugely eases the path to working out – how to become breakeven faster.

– JONATHAN SHAW

This presentation hopes to offer communities outside of traditional venture hubs a roadmap for creating prosperity from scratch. In the process we hope to illustrate our model of capitalizing startups to lever economic development resources, create jobs and increase income all within a budget that costs less than a traditional warehouse.

As context, gener8tor contracts with investors and government partners to create prosperity in communities outside of traditional venture hubs. By focusing on underinvested communities gener8tor has had to adapt the accelerator model to thrive in a from-scratch environment.

This presentation highlights the lessons learned from working with over 500 startups across 24 cities to ensure that each startup founder had the same level of access and support as a startup in a large metro. And describe how we created profitable funds that imported $25 of growth capital for every dollar we invested while creating jobs and raising incomes across our footprint.

– JOE KIRGUES

Learn about what is an SBA loan and how these government sponsored loans can be used as a viable capital resource to support the launch of a new business, to acquire an existing business, and for strategic succession planning strategies. Get a better understanding on the inner working of SBA loans both pro/cons and when to identify if an SBA loan would be the best loan product for your specific transaction and industry.

– What is an SBA loan?
– How can an SBA loan benefit and support a business that needs to raise capital?
– Discussion on how best to access SBA loans and for specific types of transactions and industries
– Discussion on how deals are structured for Start-ups, M&A and Succession Planning transactions

– REGINALD HEARD

While it’s getting easier to raise capital with the evolution of crowdfunding and the other forms of financing available today, the truth of the matter is that the rules have not really changed. Hence why many founders still find it difficult to raise capital. The key questions of who, how and when are still fundamental for getting those checks. This presentation will explore these questions, helping founders determine the appropriate financing for their startup stage.

– HENRY OGBUAGU

One of the many mistakes founders make when pitching to investors is selling the product even before they are ready for investments. This presentation will highlight some of the best ways to pitch to investors from the pitch deck to team to traction and most importantly storytelling that can captivate investors and make them interested to hear more.

– HENRY OGBUAGU

Crowd financing is an emerging fintech innovation for increasing revenue and making products more affordable through the power of community. Crowd financing, also called “Collaborative Community Payments”, helps customers finance their product or service purchase by getting financial help from family, friends and co-workers to raise enough money to complete the transaction. In his talk, Daryl Hatton will discuss the impact that crowd financing will create in the industry including empowering organizations looking to innovate their business models by leveraging customer word-of-mouth marketing.

– DARYL HATTON

Describes the relationship between investors and startups and how to the navigate through the complexities resulting in a successful outcome.

– ROMAN KIKTA

Canada has been a welcoming country for immigrants, more so for Entrepreneurs. Canada welcomes fresh Entrepreneurs who is diving into the world of Entrepreneurship and also those experienced ones who have been successful in their home country and would like to explore and capitalize on new opportunity be it expansion of current businesses or diversification into something very new!

If you currently live outside Canada and would like to explore Canadian opportunities, then you have a professional organization in Canada willing to assist you with those aspirations. For those who would like to start a new venture, it would be worth your while to explore Canada as a location. Canada welcomes such Entrepreneurs with open arms providing them with possible Permanent Residence opportunities and Citizenship. Canada has been a magnet for innovative companies, and you could be the next!

– JOY STEPHEN

Contrary to popular belief, it is actually easy to legally do business in the Philippines. The Philippine government has taken great strides to ensure ease of doing business in the country. It starts with the registration of the sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation with the SEC or DTI. For certain highly regulated business activities, the procurement of pertinent licenses from government agencies may be necessary. Thereafter, a business permit must be secured from the local government where the company will do business. Simultaneously, the company must also be registered with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). Finally, the company, along with its employees, must be registered with the Social Security System (SSS), Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (Philhealth) and Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-ibig).

– ATTY. NORIEVA DE VEGA

Singapore has a unique position in the global economy and a pivotal role as a business epicenter in the heart of Asia. The city-state has been consistently acknowledged as a global business hub – one that features developed infrastructure, political stability, open business policies, a skilled workforce, the use of English as the main working language and respect for intellectual property rights. Its attractive location along with the numerous Free Trade Agreements signed makes it possible for businesses to access a market of 3 billion people as a gateway between the East and West to facilitate a smooth trade and investment flow. As such 26,000 international companies and 154,000 small and medium local enterprises call Singapore home with many of them using the country as a springboard to tap into other emerging markets in Asia.

Learn more about how you can do business in Singapore through our informative presentation.

– RANJANI RANGAN

Malta is an island of stability with decades of experience and a welcoming innovative mind-set. It is a forward-looking destination, with an open business-centric commercial community that stands tall as an EU member state and a proven record of economic success. This presentation aims to share insights with regards to the ease of doing business in Malta, especially for Startups. It will focus on the Island’s main economic industries as well as its export partners.  An overview to address the measures and support which the government of Malta, in collaboration with Malta Enterprise offers to businesses and Startups who would like to invest in Malta, including the new Covid19-related measures which have been introduced lately.

– MARIA ZAMMIT

Business expansions in markets such as China are becoming strategically significant to companies in different stages around the world. While the value is massive, the approach is the key factor to affect the result of the expansion. This presentation will discuss important factors throughout this expansion process and the appropriate approaches.

– SEBRIGHT CHEN

Find out why the United States is the number one destination for entrepreneurs from all over the world looking to grow global. You will learn why, how, and where to form your company in the US, how to fulfill your liabilities, and how to become part of the ecosystem.

– DIEGO SAMPAIO

Having started many companies, I kept running into the same issue over and over…the best ideas and entrepreneurs were not getting funded and their ideas never saw the light of day. These entrepreneurs weren’t getting funded for the most idiotic of reasons…they were not in the right city, or they didn’t have the right connections, or they didn’t attend the right school, they didn’t “look” a certain way, they were too old, they were too young, they were the wrong gender or race, they didn’t have the right experience, the right team, or or or…you name it and they were rejected because of it. But rarely was the true reason they were rejected because of their idea.

But there’s a way that doesn’t need money or investors. A way to create and launch a startup. Without money. Without investors.

– CHRIS JOYCE

In this world of constant change and disruption, its so easy for new and growing businesses to focus too much on delivery of their products and services, without giving the necessary considerations to the shape, structure and design of their business to support the work they do now and for the future.

In this presentation Rich Batchelor will speak to the 4 most common organizational design mistakes that start-ups and scale-ups make and offer quick and easy tips to prevent or repair these challenges. Challenges to finance, people, process and technology will be explored through the lens of a relatable growing business and see how you can learn to overcome the same issues whenever you may experience them.

– RICH BATCHELOR

“Within chaos there is opportunity.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

2020 has given us plenty of chaos. Now that we have lived through 6 months of chaos, how can you plan to take advantage of future opportunities? In this 20-minute presentation we will discuss how to identify the personal opportunities present to you, how to setup a plan to take advantage of those opportunities, and what needs to be done to implement those plans.

– MARK FECHNER

Positioning is actually highly strategic There are frameworks and distinct steps founders can take to define what their company is doing, why it’s important, and why — above all the noise — people should listen to them.

It all starts with positioning. – In order to effectively align teams, hire the right people, sell, – the positioning of your company, and product, communicates your unique value proposition.

Positioning is important because the markets – for funding and for sales is extremely crowded, and overwhelmed with choices that seem identical.  In this talk I will speak on how to identify and assess your own positioning. I will walk you through a process for positioning around strengths and how to strategically build context that makes those strengths obvious to stakeholder. Lastly, I will show examples of businesses that use positioning strategically for growth.

– MEERA TENGURIA

Intellectual property is a key vehicle for a start-up to secure funding and to generate company value, it is also a key component of the endgame for floating, selling on and otherwise monetising a start-up. Having spent time and effort in securing rights in the USA these can be extended to Europe to effectively double the economic basis for commercialisation and hence potential company value. The question is when and how to do this effectively and how the rights started in the US need to be adapted for European laws so as to be effective. Mark will explore some of the key opportunities and identify some of the typical issues.

– DR. MARK HOUGHTON

Staring Business takes a lot of grit and willingness to work hard. We will talk about how to start a business in US, when to start raising funding, and what are resources as alternative funding you can tap in when you open your company in US. Bootstrapping or chasing VC funding what is the right path for you and when will be answered in this presentation as well.

– OLGA BUCHONINA

The presentation will be an introduction on how to structure the Accounting for your startup by the following:

1. What is the best and efficient Accounting Software solution?
2. How to convert manual to computerized Accounting?
3. How to understand the finances for my startup?

– CRISTINA MARTINEZ

Collaborations between startups and major global corporations are at all-time highs and can serve as powerful accelerants to the growth of emerging companies. These activities are driven by corporate leaders seeking to leverage external innovation, while entrepreneurs are keen to identify and develop relationships that may convert to new customers, commercial partnerships, strategic investments (corporate venture capital), or future exit opportunities for their businesses. During this presentation, we’ll highlight for entrepreneurs’ key dynamics to consider in order to avoid the most common pitfalls in working with incumbents, as well as to help ensure these collaborations end in win-win outcomes for both sides.

– NEAL HANSCH

Whether it’s the United States, Europe, Asia, or Africa, startups across the globe are feeling the negative effects of the worldwide pandemic. It is no longer “business as usual.” Instead, this is the time when startups must adopt a new innovative business model – capitalizing on their current model while becoming different and unique. Tonya McNeal-Weary, Founder of IBS Global Consulting, will discuss how startups can better prepare for the new normal and steps for growing and scaling your startup amidst Covid-19.

– TONYA MCNEAL-WEARY

Products and markets may be unique, but the path to finding product-market fit is not. It’s a formula. We reveal the formula and include practical and tactical takeaways that founders can apply in real-time.

We also reference best practices and case studies drawn from our decades of hands-on experience to inform founder judgment and help build confidence.

By taking an incredibly deep dive into the process of building a well crafted Ideal Customer Profile, this session will help founders stop improvising how they go to market and protect their precious runway by following the well-tread path to product-market fit with intent.

Investor-readiness is the natural byproduct of customers and revenue. We’re looking forward to meeting your founders and earning the opportunity to invest in them.

– MAX MENKE

We live in a commoditized world, where brand names are almost an afterthought. From where we shop to what we buy, we purchase based on performance: do we like what we see, do we like how it tastes, and is the service up to our standards?

Consumer loyalty is fickle and fleeting: one bad experience can travel fast on social media and dishearten that customer from returning ever again, as well as discourage potential customers from giving the business a try. The result is revenue lost forever.

What separates and differentiates competitors where product and service quality is equivalent is end to end execution: from order to payment, and then beyond where customer service is involved. Excellent execution can even save the day when the customer experiences a bad product or service.

Where logos are a company’s visual image, execution becomes the reflection of the company’s brand.

Startups need to focus on not just its product, service, or technology. How it delivers what it is promising is going to play a big part of determining its viability or success, and whether it is being built upon a solid foundation or shaky ground.

– NORMAN KATZ

Whatever startup you are working on there is a business or standard process that serves as your competition. It is important to recognize everyone that you will compete against or work to replace in the market as you identify the key value proposition and benefits you offer.

– JASON KRAUS

You’re building an exciting and innovative new business.  You’re going to invest your blood, sweat and tears into building your offering, your team and winning in the market.  The vast majority of start-ups get to a liquidity event through M&A – a sale of the business.  Beyond the quality of your product and your revenue/profit, there are a number of things that can change the value of your start-up when you sell.  Buyers will look at things like how your team is built, how your tech is built, your customer relationships, and how you run and document your business and operations.  How do you make sure that along the way you are best preparing your business to maximize value at sale?  Michael will provide an overview of key areas where you can take actions months or years in advance to substantially increase the value of your business to a buyer.

– MICHAEL E.S FRANKEL

Customer Experience is a phrase that has only recently in the last 5 to 10 years become prominent in the business world. As a result, more and more companies are leveraging customer experience to drive the growth of their business. In fact, many business that have defined their business model based on customer experience. (eg-Uber, Amazon).

The greater challenge is for existing companies to become more customer focused as it often requires companies to change what they do today ( renovation versus building new) and it is not easy!

Interestingly though, COVID offers a unique opportunity for companies to become more customer experience focused.

Leveraging research that TMG has conducted on customer experience, John Bardawill the Managing Director of TMG International will discuss what companies need to do to drive growth; focusing on Customer Experience during these turbulent times.

– JOHN BARDAWILL

Companies large and small are waking up to the value of customer experience strategy as a new lever of growth.  Customers and consumers alike put more value on the experience of buying and using products and services than ever before.  Value is created not only by the tangible products you sell but the experience you deliver.  The customer experience no longer is seen as a service issue but a strategic lever of growth.  In many categories, products and services are the price of entry – the delivery of a differentiated experience is the new horizon of value creation.  In this presentation, we will focus on the case for focusing on customer experience as a growth strategy, review a simple framework for organizing your customer experience and introduce some simple tools you can use to being your journey towards a differentiated customer experience.

– RALPH CUMMINS

Protecting Your Rights While Minimizing Exposure When Operating Online – Operating in an online environment brings different challenges and opportunities for business. Companies have been slow to recognize how advances in technology can drive new legal risks. With COVID-19 accelerating the move online, website operators and social media users need to understand how the law impacts their operations and what is needed to be legally compliant.  This session will address the various considerations for a business operating in an online environment, from the initial domain name registration, web and social media development, content management, technological concerns, regional differences and rights of privacy, among others.

– ADAM R. BIALEK

Derek Distenfield has worked in startups from $0-$2billion and has lots of battle scars and lessons learned that he will provide to ensure leaders can learn how to build a strategy in the face of uncertainty, how digital transformation has shifted the vector of invested projects, what agile teams are, as well as their advantages and how to manage teams remotely.

– DEREK DISTENFIELD

– Classification of proprietary information in common law countries
– Discussion on definition of know-how, confidential information and trade secrets
– Consider how a business owner can and should protect know-how, confidential information and trade secrets
– From starting up – Possible IP protection – pro and cons of registration as a patent vs safeguarding as a trade secret
– Practical steps business owners can take
– Contractual steps to safeguard know-how, confidential information and trade secrets through employment contracts
– Enforcement through the courts

– JEZAMINE FEWINS

Insourcing:
– Which models would work best with insourcing
– Pros and Cons about insourcing
– Limitations of insourcing
– Cost factors
– Knowledge pool of insourcing

Outsourcing:
– Outsourcing models
– Myths about outsourcing
– Why outsource
– When to outsource
– How to find an outsourcing partner
– Things to take care of while outsourcing

– NISARG MEHTA

Entrepreneurs wear a lot of hats. Being a visionary, an inspiring leader, and an operations manager, all at the same time, is tough. Effective business leaders quickly adapt their businesses to changing economic realities and inspire their team to produce desired outcomes through a cohesive mission and well-defined values. Effective leaders believe that problems are opportunities, and they make decisions based on data. In this session we’ll discuss the importance of a well-defined mission, vision, and core values, how to design an effective organizational structure using process mapping, hiring for ethos, and how data drives better decision making and how to get at that data. I’ll share some real-life examples that we’ve been able to deploy at Achen Henderson which made 2020 our biggest growth year yet.

– CLAYTON ACHEN

The life of building a start-up business is intense. You’ve come up with a concept and an idea and invested in developing it into a marketable opportunity.  The relationships you develop with your staff and external parties both in the early stages, and then once the business is up and running, are vital to its success.

We will look at how you can build safeguards into those relationships covering arrangements between shareholders and contractual arrangements with third parties and also look at the options for contracting with employees.

With a focus on the legal position in the United Kingdom, this presentation will highlight the options available to you to obtain protection, the typical agreements that can be present and how certain contractual clauses can manage relationships effectively, as well as some commercial pointers on how to handle early stage disputes.

We will also consider the best route for engaging your workforce, be that on an employment or independent contractor basis.  We will take you through the main issues you need to consider in deciding the ways in which you can engage individuals to suit the needs of your organisation and your working practices.

– TAMMY EVANS & PAULA KUMAR

Sports are the last bastion of live entertainment. Only heightened by the recent pandemic, the next 10 years of investment and innovation will be focused around Sports and its disruption. The landscape in Sports has drastically changed in recent years and global team values continue to rise at a rapid pace, now eclipsing tqhe $5B mark for the first time- the entrepreneurs and innovators are bringing tech and innovation to the industry, in addition to the rise of esports and the overturning of PASPA in the United States. One thing is certain, we all do 1 of 3 things: play sports and work out, have a kid or grandkid that is involved in sports or enjoy viewing and consuming sports.

– CHAD STENDER

Innovation by itself is inherently risky but necessary in order to advance as a society and as individuals. Focused in emerging technology, Reciprocity has created an ecosystem of opportunities focused on strategy and growth aimed at derisking innovation and advancing society forward and improving people’s lives.

Through education and implementation of these opportunities we can accomplish more than we can imagine along the lines of advancement and improvement.

– PAUL CLAXTON, SANYER IYER & ERIN RAPACKI

Special Addition: Our Efforts To Strengthen Female Entrepreneurship With The Foundher Initiative

This presentation, we will take you on a journey which starts in the 1990’s. You will discover how Plug and Play founder Saeed Amidi turned his Real Estate business into a co-working space and how he developed an interest in Venture Capital. Learn about the time when he saw some of the big tech companies we know today thrive in what turned out to be the lucky building: University Avenue 165. As you may already know, the Plug and Play HQ today, are in Sunnyvale – so what happened in-between?. It’s been a remarkable transition from Saeed Amidi’s first investments into Google and PayPal, to the largest innovation ecosystem worldwide with more than 60 acceleration programs – and you will learn all about the how and why. Finally, we will close the presentation with one of Plug and Play’s special missions: Female Entrepreneurship. Learn how we inspire, educate and connect business women and how you can get involved in the FoundHER initiative.

– LEILA MARIA KEHL

This presentation will discuss innovation in investment management.  Specifically, it will dive into recent innovation within the Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) space.  While highlighting these recent innovations, Nick Elward will discuss the importance of having a startup mindset to drive this and all innovation.  Nick will review the ideation process, collaboration with peers, vendors, and competitors, as well as the criticality of maintaining laser focus.

– NICK ELWARD

A Nielsen report last June 2020 reveals that COVID-19 has shifted the content delivery network (CDN) market landscape and accelerated the demand for content delivery. In the US alone, the percentage of time spent online has increased 215%. The number of viewers for online gaming content has also been increasing consistently. The growth of gaming video content further contributes to the overall CDN market demand.

Blockchain, a form of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), is poised to disrupt the CDN industry, especially in the esports segment. Because of its networked nature, this technology cannot be penetrated by hackers who only have access to a single node and not affect the functionality of the whole network. Armed with this feature, blockchain offers decentralization, transparency, and tamper-proof records to CDNs which are very important to the gaming industry.

Esports involves a number of stakeholders–game developers, players, streamers, team managers, streaming platforms, leagues and tournaments, gaming product makers, event organizers, sponsors, advertisers, and online viewers, etc.; hence, it needs a comprehensive platform. This is where blockchain comes in: The decentralized platform can bring these stakeholders under one roof. Stakeholders may take advantage of the platform to manage the distribution of prize money, transfer of players, media rights, sponsorship, advertising, and several other aspects.

– DAVID DRAKE

Challenger banks are in most VCs discussions and are closing large investment rounds and gaining many customers. But what’s behind? Is it something new? What can we learn from web banking from the 90ies and digital banking from the 2000ies to predict the future of challenger banks?

– ARCADY LAPIRO

Pioneering Global Digital Transformation from Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Pentagon shares the lessons learned in the journey of the world’s Digital Transformation pioneer started on a shoe-string and invited by world-leading companies such as Google, IBM, Intel, and, Ogilvy and institutions such as Harvard and MIT to take them on as clients given our world-leadership of Digital Transformation based upon Digital Assets, Human Capital, and, Social Capital on which we serve as the UN global benchmark for worldwide national economies. As the world’s first, foremost, and, largest global Digital Transformation Network of practices with millions of worldwide users, hundreds of thousands of contributors, and, fans who have recommended these ventures to their worldwide followers including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Big-4 Consulting CxOs, and, CxOs of US Army, US Navy, and, US Air Force, our latest Air Force Research Lab ventures continue leading the world’s Digital Transformation journey.

– DR. YOGESH MALHOTRA

– The B2B Play: Selling into Businesses…
– Most likely focus for digital offerings
– Product Innovation
– Operational Excellence
– Customer Experience
– Starting off as a Proof of Concept or Pilot

– IMRAN HAQUE & HANG LI

Graphen computing is critical to create artificial intelligence systems that can achieve full-brain functions just like human. In this talk, I shall explain the challenge of producing machine intelligence and how to potentially achieve various brain functions, such as thinking, reasoning, feeling, etc, through graphs.

Novel applications on such platform will be introduced. For instance, we used it to trace the worldwide COVID-19 virus mutations and propagations. We could use it to build various knowledge graphs and to monitor anomalies in financial institutes, such as finding frauds, cyberattacks, money laundering schemes, and market intelligence. Applying it for clean energy, it could predict power generation of solar panels for smart grids. It can also be used for car diagnosis and predictive maintenance. Similarly, with deep domain knowledge, it can provide insight of “what am I?” such as analyses of whole human genome, prediction of genome functions, and potential disease pathways.

– DR. CHING-YUNG LIN

Operating in a start-up and entrepreneurial environment that is innovative, fast-paced, and requires multitasking brings about the realization that a demonstrable gap exists between what leadership expects of consultants and how they, in reality, work, referred to as the expectation-reality gap (ERG). The presentation starts by addressing several elements that should excite employees to work in a start-up organization. Elements such as the culture required in a start-up company, why consultants should change their way of thinking, what to do, and succeed in a start-up company.

The presentation addresses the following five expectations: A business plan does not spell action, Managing the right KPIs does not spell success, A young company does not spell acting quickly, Referrals do not spell like-minded, and Inspire does not spell leadership.

– ANDRIES JACOBS