I’m fresh back from a followup to last year’s Tomorrow Tour event series that we at Technical.ly hosted for and with the entrepreneurial engagement team at Comcast. This time we hosted small group dinners with entrepreneurs to inform the direction the Comcast team is heading to support founders. (The above photo is me interviewing angel investor Kelly Hoey at our public Atlanta event last year).
We’ve now hosted several, and they’re all engaging. But the conversation I led in Atlanta felt especially compelling. We pledged a conversation with no attribution, but I wanted to recall a few of the takeaways. So here for my own future reference are notes for future use.
Here those notes are:
- “What you wear is fashion, what yo carry is technology:” Sree Kotay (Comcast CTO, who okayed my sharing this)
- “Enchanted objects”: MIT’s David Rose’s phrase for the internet of things
- 300m users for Internet, 3b for mobile, 30b for IOT in connected objects
- “Commerce and content capitalized the internet”
- “Never take more than you can give in any relationship”
- Program details: Flashpoint at Georgia tech and Tech Stars take 7 percent for $20k, which also offers an optional $100k convertible note)
- Lessons for startups to engage corporates: Just say no; Have a window to find a champion; Be open about budget; Be real: just evaluating if you’ll do it internally;
- Know the range of startups: Early on they’re a cheaper shot at them saying yes to early customers. Then they grow to saying no
- Three kinds of startups: improving process, totally changing process and moonshot ideas
- “What keeps you up at night?”
- Tell us what problems you most need solve for
- Don’t write a check less than $25k to try something