so the question is you see millions of
people trying to come up with ideas for business with grabs you guys and feel free to tell us a little bit about what's
Going to grab you for Techstars here in Adelaide or just in general what are you looking for
And we're probably going to be a little different
I think that's true of all investors right but from a Techstars perspective which is super early stage we talk a lot about
the six things we look for
Are you all ready? Six things. You have got to write them down. Because I know some of the people here are
Going to apply or have applied
In order, the first one is team
Yeah, I have a team. Do you have to have a co-founder to get in to Techstars. Probably. Not always there are a few exceptions.
But it is hard with one person to go through Techstars. I thought that was just a ruling you have to have a co-founder.
We have done it a few times, but
It's really more sort of your motivation and where it's coming from, and why you're uniquely positioned to be the best at that. Yes
For those of you who are art history majors there is a very famour quote
Which is the first rule is there is no rules.
That is the culture here, they'll tell you there's this rule and there we go and the
Next time we'll catch up. So first one is team. Second one is team. Third one team. Heavy focus on the team.
We really look at who are these people, and why are they there?
Team team team. Fourth market. So what is the space that their in.
Do we believe that that's changing shrinking growing something interesting happening. There is it something we want to work on?
Fifth is progress
So they have come in and done something
I'm pretty I have this highly evolved theory that they do stuff.
They just do stuff. They don't go maybe someday I'll do something.
They have already built a team and already started coding, they have taught themselves how to wear write code if they didn't know how
Instead of standing around saying I have this idea
Right so it's you know, its that progress and sixth is the idea itself
I only put it on the list to emphasise how last it is
Right it's not that important and about fifty percent of these company's change their idea anyway
They don't look like what they look like coming in. Well its true. The guy who did
the garage door opener. It is now yeah now it is a robotic ball.
How do you deal with that as an investor. So that idea is last
Sometimes it's like that is really interesting but that is so rare and
The way that I always demonstrate the worthlessness of ideas
by talking about that website that you trade ideas on for startups
Can't remember the name of of it that but you go on there and you list your great startup idea and someone pays you money for it right you've
seen this
It doesn't exist, the ideas are worthless, right? So there is nowhere to trade ideas. There is no E-Bay for startup ideas for start-up ideas right can they are worth nothing?
When you have a great idea so did 100 other people, so what?
Right so we look at that last
And we know that what they're actually doing is going to move around.
Are you looking for lots of patents and some big degrees
It's the insight that you have it's the unique experiences that led up to the opportunity and of course you want to great
A great ide and a great team that's optimal
But you know for us at the very early stage there is so much focus on where you are coming from. We had a company called Script Pad
that is always
demonstrates this
This was a guy whose father had nearly been killed by a handwritten physician prescription
they went and got whatever the drug was and it was the wrong drug. It was a bad mixture
Basically nearly killed the dad and so this was a very real motivation for this entrepreneur
He never let this happen again so obvious solution use an iPad and make everything readable and clear, and it was very very clear that
They saw that change in the world and we're going to stop at nothing to make it happen
They had lived the results at implications of it being done wrong