Boulder Startup Week

It is HARD for non-social/consumer startups to find money, especially early.  For enterprise startups, ideal investors are quite often not angels or VCs but corporate and/or government partners who can provide both financing and critical customer engagements.  With larger companies moving heavily into the startup world, the ability to find and gain these partnerships has never been better.  But these are not free rides and quite often the motivations and criteria that these alternative sources use are very different from more traditional investors.  Join us to hear from some of the most exciting alternative funds in the area and learn what they are looking for and how they can help your company in more ways than you might realize!

What does it take to succeed in the enterprise space?  What makes this area so challenging and what pitfalls can you avoid?  When will you be ready to launch and what does that means, exactly, in the enterprise space?  How can you achieve that elusive pot of corporate gold that so many fail to find?  While there are books and investors that can provide some insights, we thought the best people to help are those who have succeeded!  Come join this session to hear from of the most successful enterprise entrepreneurs in the area as they share their stories, provide insights and guidance that will enable you to thrive is this exciting enterprise world.

Great, you just got a new contract!  How about the $10K in legal fees to work out the details?  Are patents really worth the time and energy?  What do you mean I need to raise a specific budget just for legal services?!?  Unlike other types of startups, enterprise startups are entering a realm where good legal support is critical to success.  You need to really understand the intricate complexities of this world and how your success will incur legal costs as you plan out your company.  Join our session to gain insight from some of the best legal minds in the area and learn upfront lessons that could cripple your company without proper planning.

The LEAN startup model is all about rapid iterations...at least in the consumer world.  But how does a startup accomplish customer-drive development with customers from which they might only have one chance to impress?  Enterprises understand the challenges facing new companies but they absolutely require critical components to work with a given startup - and what they need might surprise you.  If you are launching a new startup, are pre-revenue you are struggling to increase enterprise sales, you might be missing something that is important for your success.  Come to this session to hear from your customer - the very people that you want to purchase your offering - and learn what you need, and do not need, in order to succeed.

You finally have your product ready (right?) and you are ready to sell, sell, sell...or are you?  What is your message?  How do test it out, package your offering in an enterprise-friendly format?  Are you making classic mistakes that could set you back months if not end your company?  Selling into the enterprise is not as simple as hanging your virtual shingle and waiting for the masses to come.  There is science to the messaging, and an art to the presentation that will either make or break your company regardless of the quality of your solution.  Join our session to learn from the experts who know these lessons better than anybody.  Find out how to move your amazing solution into a highly-profitable enterprise. 

Enterprise startups are very different from consumer/social-oriented startups.  It might take months or years to land a small handful of customers but the revenue potential is massive.  With more money than ever sitting in corporate hands, a new era of enterprise innovation is underway and yet the ability to properly assess potential is still very hard to understand.  Join our session to learn from leading VCs and Angels how you should assess the value of a startup, accurately determine risk and determine good from bad projects.  For entrepreneurs, this is a change to see how investors think about enterprise startups and, for would-be investors, this is a chance to start breaking through into an exciting, and rapidly growing, area of the startup world.