HBS Entrepreneurship Club NEWS

Summer@HIGHLAND 2012

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 03:48:25 GMT

Summer@HIGHLAND 2012: $15K + Cambridge/Menlo Park + Awesome Mentors + No Strings Attached

Are you a student entrepreneur looking to take your startup to the next level this summer? If so, Summer@HIGHLAND is just what you need: $15K, free workspace and access to Highland professionals & an incredible founder network. Past participants have included the founding teams of such companies as ByteLight, Gemvara, Tivli, Wildfire, CloudFlare, Ksplice and Imprint Energy.

Highland is hosting an info session on Monday, March 5, from 4-5pm at the Harvard Innovation Lab (125 Western Ave).

Interested students are invited to come and learn more about the program and ask detailed questions about the program and application process. The regular application deadline this year is April 5, 2012.

[EVENT] Drew Houston - CEO and Co-Founder of Dropbox - Spangler Auditorium

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:44:03 GMT

Cloud file storage company Dropbox was just named "Best Overall Startup" at the Crunchies. Come hear founder Drew Houston talk about the journey from founding in 2007 to Dropbox's recent $4B valuation, and what's next. (Note: RCs will do the Dropbox case on 2/6.)

Please pre-submit questions for Drew here.

Event details
February 7
3:30-4:45 PM
Spangler Auditorium
This event is open to the entire Harvard community.

Founder Dialogues VI

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:47:46 GMT

We'll be kicking off Fall with both Wayfair (FKA CSN Stores) co-founders, Niraj Shah & Steven Conine, of the $500+ million home goods online retailer. Come join us to learn about how Niraj & Steve bootstrapped the second largest online housewares and home furnishings retailer in the US today with over 3 million items from 5,000 brands and until this year had no venture capital investors.

Wayfair employs over 800 people in the US, Canada, Germany, UK, Ireland, and Australia, and goes to market using a number of brands including Wayfair.com, All Modern, Joss & Main.

This will mark the first time that Founder Dialogues invites two founders to speak candidly of their path to success. Moderator Eric Paley sees this as a unique opportunity to dive into the important co-founder relationship that is crucial to building a company.

Prior to Wayfair, Niraj and Steve co-founded Simplify Mobile, an enterprise software company focused on mobile device management, which was sold to Tangoe, and Spinners, an Internet consultancy, which was sold to iXL. At iXL, Niraj was the COO and a board member, and Steve ran the operations in the United Kingdom.

We look forward to hearing Niraj and Steve's story and believe it will continue our series of inspiring Boston entrepreneurial success stories from home.

HubSpot Presentation Files and Free Trial

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:22:25 GMT

HubSpot was on-campus recently to share an intro to inbound marketing and offer Harvard student entrepreneurs a free trial of their wildly popular service.

Here's the presentation: Hubspot HBS Presentation
Here's a basic guide to internet marketing: Essential Guide

And here is where you can get access to your free trial: Free Trial

For those who sign up for the free trial, please join us in the i-lab on November 10th and 17th at 5:30 for workshops on how to get the most from your trial and office hours where you can get answers to your specific questions.

Startup Suppers - Sign Up Now!

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:44:04 GMT

Last year, we organized 3x3 Dinners grouping 3 tech and 3 biz entrepreneurial students. We’re taking it to the next level this semester. The next round – starting next Thursday, October 13 at 6:30 pm - is particularly special as it’ll be taking place at the new Harvard Innovation Lab and will be sponsored by North Bridge Venture Partners. We’re catering dinner to the i-lab. We’re changing the name to Startup Suppers as it’ll be a truly pan Harvard affair now.

To sign up, please go to http://bit.ly/startupsuppers and fill out the form as soon as you can. Almost everyone was very qualified last year, so we’ll partly be allocating groups on a first come first serve basis, while maintaining representative ratios for each group. Please feel free to forward to friends who you think will also be good fits.

Brought to you by:

Cornerstones of Online business: Social Media, SEO and Hiring Smart

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:25:40 GMT

Location: Aldrich 007

Roger Dickey (Angel Investor and former GM of Zynga), Taso Du Val (CEO of TopTal) and Andrew Masanto and Gael Breton (Directors at Higher Click SEO Company) and will be sharing their knowledge on “Cornerstones of Online business: Social Media, SEO and Hiring Smart”.

If you have ever had an aspiration to start or lead a web based business, or if you simply want a better understanding of how to enhance the internet or web presence for a bricks and mortar business, this is a talk not to miss.

Details of the talk topics and the individual speakers are below:

Roger Dickey

Roger Dickey is a serial entrepreneur & angel investor. Roger’s first company was an Airbnb for tutoring, started in Austin in 2006. His foray into the game industry began in 2007, when he started a facebook app company and worked quickly, building 19 apps with the largest game driving over 10M daily pageviews. Within 8 months, this startup was bought by Zynga, and Roger went on to found Mafia Wars which reached 45.5M users by 2010. He also founded FishVille and 5 other titles in his 3 years at Zynga. Lastly, Roger served as an international product team advisor for Zynga, helping the company grow their games in India, Japan and China. Since leaving Zynga he has started a new company in San Francisco.

Alongside his work at Zynga, Roger began angel investing and advising startups in June 2010. His investments include Facebook, Addepar, DotCloud, E La Carte, Internmatch, HiGear, Ecomom, Speakertext, Wanderfly and more.

Roger will be speaking on the topic of “How to de-risk your startup”.

Taso Du Val

As an early and lead engineer at Fotolog (Acquired by Hi-Media for $100m), Slide (Acquired by Google for $228m), and his own companies, Taso has had a wealth of experience in hiring top tech, management and engineering talent. His most recent business – TopTal brings this ability to hire to the forefront of innovative businesses all over the world. While running a small engineering consulting firm, Taso recognized that while many of his co-workers overseas were just as good as his friends and colleagues at Google, Facebook, and other companies with notable top engineering talent, it was simply impossible to find more of them. TopTal was thus created as a solution to the sky-rocketing demand for top engineers in Silicon Valley, US, and Europe despite the shrinking local graduation rates of such engineers.

Taso will be discussing the ins and outs of hiring tech talent for your business – be that start up or international conglomerate. He’ll also touch upon the different types of entrepreneurial routes one can take and what sort of lifestyles they lead to.

Andrew Masanto and Gael Breton

Andrew Masanto and Gael Breton are co-founders of Higher Click. Andrew and Gael successfully founded and ran several online companies, including Height Increasing Altitude Shoes, the UK’s largest online retailer of mens Elevator Shoes. The success of their businesses came from SEO and PPC work, which led to their current SEO Company – Higher Click. Many of their companies and clients (which include the likes of Atari.com, Flippa.com and others) now rank at the top of Google for competitive keywords.

Andrew and Gael will be talking about Search Engine Optimisation and getting the most out of your website.

Lunch with Roger Dean Huffstetler

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 20:04:40 GMT

Email Alice Moses, amoses@hbs.edu, to sign up (limited to 20). Please only request a spot if you’re sure you can make it.

Interested in getting a job at a tech start-up, but don't have a tech background? Join this Brown Bag lunch with HBS alum RD Huffstetler, and hear how he did it.

For more info:

Bio: RD Huffstetler is a 2010 graduate of HBS/HKS with a joint MBA/MPA, where he was a Zuckerman Fellow. Prior to graduate school, he was a U.S. Marine and served in Afghanistan & Iraq. Originally from Newnan, GA, he now lives in the Bay Area and works for Twilio, a cloud communications startup. Like everyone in technology, he has a blog that only he and his relatives read: http://www.rdhjr.com.

Twilio provides a series of API's that make it easy for any web developer to build applications to send & receive calls and text messages. Some of our best known customers include eBay, Hulu, and intuit, along a range of use cases like automated calls, contact center, and identify verification. Twilio is backed by Union Square Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners

Prototype Development 101

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:08:38 GMT

Location: Innovation Lab

Wan Li (HBS '09) will discuss early prototype development. Wan started out as an engineer but has also had experience being a product manager. He is currently working at Fairhaven Capital.

He plans to cover the 101 of what business school students need to know to work with developers (writing specs/wireframes, managing outsourced developers, etc)

We will also have a Q&A with panel of students who share their experiences with prototype development.

New Orleans Entrepreneur Week

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:10:05 GMT

What do Jim Coulter, James Carville, Google, start-up businesses, Cajun food and Jazz music have in common? YOU can experience them all during your 2012 Spring Break!

Join the HBS Entrepreneurship Club on Monday, October 3rd at 6:30pm in Aldrich 107 to learn about New Orleans Entrepreneur Week (NOEW), a weeklong festival of entrepreneurship, hosted by The Idea Village, and coinciding for the first time with our Spring Break in 2012.

Join us for Naked Pizza (a 2009 NOEW alum) and learn about the opportunity to engage with MBA students from top schools, corporate volunteers (Google, Cisco, Salesforce), investors (Jim Coulter, TPG), New Orleans leaders (America’s “Odd Couple” – James Carville/Mary Matalin, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Aspen Institute’s Walter Isaacson) in a weeklong entrepreneurship experience.

Why participate in New Orleans Entrepreneur Week?

Join a high-impact entrepreneur as part of the start-up team and gain firsthand experience on the front lines of entrepreneurship.
Network with HBS classmates – and entrepreneurial peers nationwide. Develop lasting friendships, future business partners, investors, and customers.
Enjoy unique New Orleans flair – crawfish boil, jazz music, second line, and more.
Your Spring Break tan will quickly fade but your entrepreneurial experiences and memories will last a lifetime.

On October 3rd, The Idea Village is joining us at HBS to share additional details and the exciting line up for NOEW ‘12.

We look forward to bringing an all-star team to show New Orleans (and the world) what entrepreneurship at HBS is all about!

Lexus Engineering Amazing Contest

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:03:47 GMT

Msnbc.com, in conjunction with Lexus, is hosting a contest about engineering a better tomorrow. Engineering a better future starts with asking a better question. So the entry will be prompted with “What If?” followed by an idea explained in 365 characters or less. Ideas must not be related to automobiles or the automotive industry.

Examples include:

What if you could create a merry-go-round for children that powers electricity for a village?

What if you could take old advertising billboards and turn them into disaster-relief shelters?

Judging criteria will include:

Originality of thought and innovative unique nature
Practical, realistically implementable idea for a better tomorrow
Potential ability to execute proposed use based on written statement

Prizes include:

3 day/2 night all expenses paid round trip to LA from February 3 – February 5 to attend a Startup Weekend event
A new camera and access to the Startup Weekend blog to gain exposure in the startup community and document experience
Additional personal mentorship hours with Angel Investors and notable CEOs in the Entrepreneurial and Technology industry (i.e. CEO of BetterWorks; CTO and CEO of MySpace; CEO of Shopzilla and Bizrate)

Why this is fantastic for you:

With commitments to classes and time consuming homework, the submission requires plenty of thought, but little effort to enter. With several amazing programs already set up in the school to foster such What If? thoughts (e.g. the Entrepreneurship Business Plan Contest), this is just another avenue to gain exposure and additional funding for the you ideas.

Startup Weekends are “54-hour events where developers, designers, marketers, product managers, and startup enthusiast come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups.”

An example of a successful business that came out of LA’s Startup Weekend last February is Zaarly, who has received funding from Felicis Ventures, Lightbank, Ashton Kutcher, Paul Buchheit, Bill Lee, Naval Ravikant, and Michael Arrington.

This is a great opportunity for you to get their idea seen by some big names and learn a few things about turning your idea into reality along the way. The contest website is whatifintowhatis.com and entry submissions will be accepted until October 13^th.

Yammer: Product Marketing for an Enterprise Social Network

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:37:35 GMT

Aldrich 007

David Stewart - VP of Platform, Partnerships, and Marketing at Yammer will speak about marketing a startup product to fortune 500 companies. He will also discuss MBA roles in the tech startup industry.

Yammer is changing internal corporate communications by bringing together all of a company's employees inside a private and secure enterprise social network. Yammer has over 80% of the fortune 500 companies using it and just reached 3 million users

Please sign up here: http://bit.ly/r5UYqS if you are interested in having drinks/hors d’oeuvres with David after the event. This will be first come, first serve.

Early-Stage Startup Financing: HBS Angels and Other Sources

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:34:11 GMT

Learn how to leverage the HBS alumni community to raise money for your startup. Hear from three CEOs (two alums, 1 student), one VC, and the co-President of the HBS Angels (www.hbsangels.net), a global alumni club for HBS and Harvard alumni angel investors. Panelists include: Sheila Marcelo '98 (CEO and founder of Care.com), Fred Shilmover '10 (CEO and founder of InsightSquared), Sean Dalton '98 (Managing General Partner at Highland Capital Partners), Danielle Weinblatt '12 (founder of TakeTheInterview.com), Sean Jacobsohn (co-President of HBS Angels and VP of Worldwide Alliances at YouSendIt). Moderator is Mike Roberts, Executive Director for the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.

1) For angels: How does the deal sourcing and screening process usually work for you? What can the entrepreneur do during this phase to get noticed and get a “hearing”?

2) For VCs/angels: How does the HBS network play into the process and how can it continue to be useful over time? How does traditional VC fit into the ecosystem?

3) For student entrepreneurs: What process did you use to find and get in front of angels? What seemed to work effectively? How did you use the HBS network?

Presenter bios:

Sheila Marcelo: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilamarcelo

Fred Shilmover: http://www.linkedin.com/in/fredshilmover

Sean Dalton: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sean-dalton/2/701/255

Danielle Weinblatt: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/danielle-weinblatt/9/9a6/310

Sean Jacobsohn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/seanjacobsohn

Mike Roberts: http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=ovr&facId=6540

MIT t=zero festival

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:16:20 GMT

t=0 will function as a catalyst for entrepreneurship. Many students come across Entrepreneurship as an engaging life path very late in their academic careers at MIT. Our hope for this festival is to allow them to experience the “ramen stage” of their startup while they still have a meal plan and the flexibility of student life. We hope to teach them about how to be successful entrepreneurs, inspire them to change the world and empower them with the skills necessary to execute their ideas in meaningful ways.

The lineup:

- CEO/Co-founder, Hubspot
- Co-founder of Foundry Group and also a co-founder of TechStars
- Venture Hacker, AngelList
- Co-founder Apricot Capital
- Partner, Matrix Partners
- President, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab
- Advisor, Code for America
- Founder, Fire Hose Games
- Chief Strategy & Development Officer, Grockit

To register: http://t0.mit.edu/registration/

HubSpot Workshops on Inbound Marketing Planned for October/November

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:43:14 GMT

The eClub and the i-lab have joined together with the inbound marketing gurus at HubSpot to offer a series of workshops to the Harvard community. In conjunction with this series, HubSpot will be generously making free trials available to Harvard student entrepreneurs.

The first session, on October 19th at 5:30 in the i-lab, will cover general principals and advice on how to get found and convert visitors using blogs, social media, advertising, and other tactics.

Subsequent sessions held November 10th and 17th will be targeted at students using the free trials to test their startup concepts or launch new ventures - the HubSpot team will answer questions and provide insight into how to get the most out of the free trials.

HubSpot's efforts are being coordinated by Adam Enbar, HBS '10.

More details can be found on the innovation calendar at www.hbseclub.com/calendar

[EVENT] ERIC RIES: "THE LEAN STARTUP" - 9/21

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:02:07 GMT

Eric Ries will be on campus on 9/21 to share his experiences and insight. Eric is the creator of the lean startup methodology, and all students with an interest in entrepreneurship are encouraged to come and hear his advice on how to build a minimum viable product, test assumptions, and learn what customers really want.

Eric's new book, "The Lean Startup", goes on sale 9/13, and has gotten rave reviews from seasoned entrepreneurs and first-time founders alike. Buy it here: http://amzn.com/0307887898

Eric will be speaking in Burden Auditorium on the HBS campus at 5PM, followed by a reception in Kresge, sponsored by the new Harvard Innovation Lab (http://i-lab.harvard.edu). The event is open to all.

For a taste of what you might learn: http://youtu.be/i65PaoTlVKg

New Silicon Valley IXP Opportunity for ECs

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:04:06 GMT

1.5 Credits - Space for 18 ECs

The course will be led by professor Eisenmann; Fawwaz Habbal, executive dean of the Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences; Gordon Jones, director of the Harvard Innovation lab; and Alison Wagonfeld, executive director of the HBS California Research Center.

The program schedule is still evolving, but it is likely to include a visit to a venture capital firm's Sandhill Road offices; a workshop with a design consulting firm; several trips to startups' offices; presentations and panel discussions featuring entrepreneurs and investors; small group mentoring sessions; a visit to an incubator; and opportunities to network with recent Harvard alumni and with current Stanford students interested in entrepreneurship. Students who are working on business plans will meet with investors to solicit feedback.

Students will have several assignments. They must submit a learning objective in advance of the trip, outlining their objectives for the program. Each student will also serve as "captain" for a company visit, with responsibility for developing a discussion guide and for briefing classmates in advance of the visit on the company's history, product, and strategy. Finally, each student will be part of a team responsible for developing, over the course of the week, a point of view on a specific topic (e.g., what's distinctive about Silicon Valley entrepreneurship; how the evolving funding landscape impacts entrepreneurs' options), then presenting their perspectives to all program participants.

More here: http://bit.ly/qbMste

[Startup Tribe] HBS in San Francisco

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:05:40 GMT

The "product launch" of the first happy hour was so successful that we've decided to commit to a line extension and build the brand. Plus, this time we're getting together in the City. (We'll do the Valley or East Bay again next.)

Get together with other members of the Class of 2012 (as well as friends who just graduated and some of the 2013'ers) for drinks on Thursday.

Thanks to support from the West Coast Club, we have a space reserved at John Collins Bar. Plus, unlike Boston, this place can actually give us a discount ($1 off with student ID). Located about 2 blocks from the Montgomery Street BART stop. http://www.johncolins.com/index.html

Feel free to bring along whomever you'd like, and try to RSVP so we get a sense of who is coming.

Voyager Capital 4th Annual BBQ

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:01:46 GMT

We'll bring the burgers and drinks. You bring yourself.

This is a great opportunity to meet exciting young entrepreneurs, engineers and VC's in the valley and hear what everybody is upto. The BBQ has been a packed house every year, so please RSVP ASAP if you can make it.

WHO: You, and other young VC's, Entrepreneurs and Engineers from around the Valley

WHAT: 4th Annual Voyager Capital Young Tech Professionals Summer Barbecue. Food & Alcohol will be provided

WHEN: Wednesday, June 22, 5:30 pm - 8:30 pm

WHERE: 607 Mountain Home Road, Woodside, CA

DRESS: Casual

RSVP: http://voyagercapitalbbq.eventbrite.com/

HBS Global Networking Night

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 07:06:08 GMT

Please join the Harvard Alumni Association, regional Harvard Clubs, and Shared Interest Groups (SIGs) worldwide for Global Networking Night on Tuesday, June 21, 2011.

This unique event brings alumni together on one night, in cities around the world. It is a special opportunity to connect with fellow alumni and current students from across the University. Build new connections, reconnect with classmates, share your experiences with students, and welcome recent graduates to your city. Tap into the power of the network!

Palo Alto, CA

Sponsored by the Harvard Club of Silicon Valley

6:00 PM; no age restriction
British Banker's Club
1090 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025

Boston, MA

Sponsored by the Harvard Club of Boston and the Harvard Architectural and Urban Society_Alumni
6:00 PM; no age restriction
Harvard Club of Boston, Harvard Hall
374 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215

New York, New York

Sponsored by the Harvard Club of New York City, the Harvard Architectural and Urban Society_Alumni, and the Harvard Black Alumni Society

6:00 PM; no age restriction
Harvard Club of New York, Harvard Hall
35 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036

For more details: http://alumni.harvard.edu/haa/events/globalnetworkingnight

eClub SF Dinner - CloudFlare

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 06:49:32 GMT

eClub SF Dinner series kicks off with blast! CloudFlare co-founders (HBS '09) talked strategy in finding startup lawyers, raising funding and assembling a team. Thank you Michelle Zatlyn and Matthew Prince!