Archives of the
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series
The Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series brings the best practitioners from the Berkeley and Silicon Valley communities to the Haas School of Business to speak about the practical aspects of entrepreneurial activity.
Information about previous seasons of the Best Practices Series is available here:
Complete schedule for 2009-2010
(all sessions 6:30 - 8:30 pm):
Tuesday |
Opportunity Recognition & UCB BPlan/GSVC Launch (more information)
|
Andersen Auditorium |
Tuesday |
IP and Legal Issues (more information)
|
Wells Fargo Room |
Tuesday |
Internet Marketing & Business Strategies (more information)
|
Andersen Auditorium |
Monday |
How to Write a Business Plan (more information) |
Wells Fargo Room |
Tuesday 12/8/09 |
Measuring Social Impact: Lessons from the Trenches |
Wells Fargo Room |
Tuesday 2/9/10 |
Building Better |
Andersen Auditorium |
Tuesday |
Financial Modeling & Management |
Wells Fargo Room |
Monday |
Pitching
|
Wells Fargo Room |
Tuesday |
Incorporation and Compensation
|
Wells Fargo Room |
Tuesday |
Financing |
Andersen Auditorium |
Each session will start with light refreshments and networking.
Sign up to receive email notifications of events here.
Program Details
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
Opportunity Recognition
Launch of the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition and the Global Social Venture Competition
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
6:30-8:30pm
Andersen Auditorium - Haas School of Business
Please join us for the first workshop of the 2009-2010 Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series and the launch of the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition and the Global Social Venture Competition. This session will focus on opportunity recognition. There are lots of opportunities out there - how do you know which one is right for you? This session will bring three entrepreneurs who have made their choices and have launched their companies. They will tell you how they found their opportunity and the decisions they made in starting their ventures. Many entered our business plan competitions - come hear why you should too.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
Kelly Karns
Co-Founder and CEO, AutoTB
Kelly and her team at AutoTB won first place in the 2009 Berkeley Business Plan Competition. Founded in 2007, AutoTB is developing an innovative diagnostic test for tuberculosis for use in both developed and developing countries. More than one-third of the world’s population is infected with tuberculosis, and AutoTB’s automated sputum microscopy device improves upon current procedures by decreasing analysis time, increasing sensitivity and eliminating the human error present in current procedures. AutoTB has been successful in raising funds in several international business plan competitions and is in the process of advancing product development, securing IP and forming initial customer contacts.
Kelly is also a graduate student in bioengineering at UC Berkeley where she is researching electrophoretic microfluidic systems that allow for rapid, analytical quantification of disease-specific biomarkers. Prior to graduate school at Berkeley, Kelly completed an MPhil in bioscience enterprise from the University of Cambridge where AutoTB was conceived and incubated.
Antony Passemard
Co-Founder, ulteamail
Antony and his team at ulteamail were one of the eight finalist teams at the 2009 UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition and won the Adobe technology company prize. ulteamail provides a team collaboration platform which leverages the design of a personal email interface to foster communication among entire teams with great transparency.
Antony is a 2009 Full time MBA graduate from the HaasSchool of Business where ulteamail came to life. Prior to Haas, Antony was General Manager of Iniflux, a company providing services around network security and opensource software tosmall andmedium size companies in France. Antony improved revenue of Iniflux by 5 folds in less than 2 years, reaching cashflow positive after years of loss. He also spent four years as CTO and co-founder of Integrity, a Value added Reseller of Network and IT Security solutions. Antony is proud father of 2 little girls, 4.5 and 8 months old.
Jason Kibbey
CEO & Co-Founder, PACT Apparel
Jason Kibbey is the CEO and co-founder of PACT Apparel. PACT is an online apparel company offering design-driven, responsibly manufactured, premium organic cotton underwear connected to powerful social and environmental causes. While working at Patagonia, he co-founded and served as Executive Director for Freedom to Roam, a non-profit initiative that brings together people, organizations and businesses to enhance and protect wildlife corridors and landscape connectivity in North America. Before business school, Jason ran Defense of Place, a non-profit land conservation organization that works to assure parks, open space, and wildlife refuges stay protected in perpetuity. Jason has participated in the development of several successful early stage companies. Jason was an Associate Consultant at Bain & Company, where he worked on turnaround and product strategies for high-tech companies. Jason graduated with degrees from UC Berkeley including Environmental Economics and Policy (B.S.) and Religious Studies and received his MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in May 2008.
The Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series is held in conjunction with the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition and the Global Social Venture Competition. The Best Practices Series invites experts from Berkeley and the Silicon Valley to speak about practical aspects of entrepreneurship. Each session begins with pizza and networking at 6:30pm, followed by the session at 7:00pm. The event is free and no registration is required. For more information, visit the Best Practices website or contact the Lester Center at 510-642-4255 or lester@haas.berkeley.edu.
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Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
IP AND LEGAL ISSUES
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
6:30-8:30pm
Wells Fargo Room - Haas School of Business
Intellectual property is one of the most valuable fruits of entrepreneurship’s labor, and has been the foundation upon which thousands of successful business enterprises have been built. This session will cover the legal issues surrounding intellectual property and its importance throughout a company’s lifespan. A team consisting of an IP lawyer and a startup corporate lawyer will provide a “crash course” on patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets; discuss IP issues commonly faced at the time of forming new businesses; explain how IP is exploited during the business development stage of a new business; explore the role of IP when a new business raises financing; and consider the impact of IP on an acquisition of the business. Attend this session to gain a valuable understanding of how these most important legal concepts are applied in the business context, and you may avoid many of the common pitfalls that can damage or ruin your venture.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
TIMOTHY J. HARRIS
Mr. Harris joined Morrison & Foerster LLP in 1997 and is currently a partner in the firm’s Palo Alto office, where he represents public and private companies and venture capital firms in corporate and securities matters.
In his private company practice, Mr. Harris specializes in advising start-up and emerging growth technology enterprises from incorporation through acquisition or initial public offering in matters including venture capital financing, debt financing, equity incentive compensation and technology development (including licensing, joint development, distribution and other technology transfer matters). Mr. Harris also represents venture capital firms and angel investors in their investments in start-up companies.
Mr. Harris represents start-ups and venture capital investors in a variety of technology sectors with an emphasis on Internet- and software-based businesses, including the networking infrastructure, transaction processing, utility computing, online retailing, video games and gaming equipment, financial services, medical imaging, language translation services, telecommunications, online content syndication and semiconductor design industries.
MICHAEL A. STALLMAN
Michael A. Stallman is Of Counsel in the San Francisco office of Morrison & Foerster. In every respect, Mr. Stallman serves as a strategic business advisor to IP-driven companies, assisting clients through all phases of IP development and protection. He has more than 30 years of experience in the areas of business counseling, strategic IP planning, patent evaluation and due diligence, patent licensing, and IP litigation. His expertise includes cross-border issues involving foreign and multinational parties, as well as foreign tribunals and patent offices. The combination of his technical expertise, business savvy, and experience in every area of IP law enables him to efficiently provide his clients with innovative and practical solutions.
His adversarial practice also includes handling patent reexaminations before the USPTO. Through these reexamination proceedings, he has helped patent holders strengthen patents prior to licensing negotiations and possible litigation, as well as helped accused infringers attempt to invalidate alleged infringed patents.
Mr. Stallman is often retained to perform IP due diligence and investigate the strengths and risks of an acquisition target. In that role, he evaluates the strength of the patent holdings of the target and also studies the landscape of third-party patents to determine the level of risk to the acquirer. His extensive experience rendering legal opinions on a wide variety of patents has provided him with a comprehensive understanding of the patent landscape in a number of key optics and medical device fields.
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
Internet Marketing & Business Strategies:
Adrenaline Startups and Rapid-Fire Marketing
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
6:30-8:30pm
Andersen Auditorium - Haas School of Business
Adrenaline Startups and Rapid-Fire Marketing
The whirlwind dance of understanding basic customer needs and delivering simple products
Many companies today can use existing platforms to build and grow their products without having to invest large sums of time or money. We try to make each such business even nimbler by first attempting to understand our customers’ needs and then quickly delivering simple products that we think meet them. This iterative process of customer and product development continues until we discover a winning formula. We call the ongoing dance “rapid-fire marketing,” and the companies that practice it “adrenaline startups.”
Sunil Bhargava of Tandem Entrepreneurs and the founder/CEOs of two Tandem companies, Sarah Eisner of JuiceBoxJungle and Ray Lau of PlayHaven, will review how they’ve applied this approach to building their own businesses.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
Sunil Bhargava is a co-founder and partner at Tandem Entrepreneurs, which backs nimble startups with financial and human capital (funds and hands-on help). Sunil spent the first ten years of his career in deep technology, working at Xerox PARC, HP and Oracle. He then was on the founding team at Webvan and co-founded Business Signatures, where he played a key role in every aspect of the business, including defining, marketing and selling the product until the company’s acquisition by Entrust in 2006.
Sunil holds a B.S.E.E. from Indian Institute of Technology, an M.S.C.S. from Rice University, and an M.S. in Management from Stanford University.
Sarah Eisner is a founder at at JuiceBoxJungle. Sarah loves building brands from the ground up and creating buzz. She spent the first ten years of her career utilizing her tech education in product marketing and marketing strategy at Cisco. After the birth of her two rambunctious sons, she left Cisco for a tech startup and then just a short year later, in 2006, left the tech startup to co-run an innovative baby bottle company, Adiri, with two other local moms. At Adiri she handled all manner of marketing strategy, branding and outreach (where she learned that she LOVES guerrilla Internet marketing) and also ran sales, PR, advertising, and customer service while weighing in on design, manufacturing, distribution and fulfillment.
Sarah has a M.S.I.E./E.M. degree in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management from Stanford, and a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara. When not at her computer or snuggling with her boys, she can most often be found in the pool or on the soccer field.
Ray Lau is a founder and CEO at PlayHaven, which supports thousands of online communities for gamers. Prior to founding PlayHaven, Ray was an internal strategy consultant at IBM, where he advised senior executives on various business and operations strategy and organizational change issues.
Ray received his B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University. While not working on PlayHaven or beating everyone in Starcraft, Ray enjoys traveling to different countries, tasting new wines, and trying various extreme sports.
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
How to Write a Business Plan
Alex de Winter
Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
Bruce Cohen
President & CEO and Founder, VitaPath Genetics
Monday, November 30, 2009
6:30-8:30pm
Wells Fargo Room- Haas School of Business
This session will provide practical insight into how to write a winning business plan, as well as provide both a VC’s and an entrepreneur’s perspective on business plans. The presentation will address the nuts and bolts detail of what is important in a plan. If you are planning to enter the UC Berkeley and/or Global Social Venture Business Plan Competitions, this is a session you should not miss.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
Alex de Winter
Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
Alex de Winter is a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, a venture capital firm with a long history of helping entrepreneurs commercialize innovation. Alex brings a background in bioscience and technology development to the MDV team. He supports the partnership in evaluating investments in the areas of life sciences and personalized medicine, and biotechnology-based cleantech.
Prior to MDV, Alex spent two years at Pacific Biosciences, where he researched single-molecule DNA sequencing, integrating biochemistry, optics, and nanotechnology. Alex previously worked at 454 Life Sciences (acquired by Roche), where he advanced the biochemistry behind the company's GS20, the first of the next-generation DNA sequencing instruments.
Alex received an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He also earned a doctorate in Chemistry from Stanford University, where he studied bacterial photosynthesis. He received his B.A. in English and Chemistry magna cum laude from Amherst College.
Bruce Cohen
President & CEO and Founder, VitaPath Genetics
Bruce Cohen has spent more than 25 years in leadership positions in life science and high technology companies. He was the founding President and CEO of two early stage biotechnology companies: Cellerant Therapeutics and Acacia BioSciences. He also served as Chief Financial Officer for GeneSoft Pharmaceuticals prior to its merger into Oscient Pharmaceuticals. In addition, he held senior positions in business development and marketing at SEQUUS Pharmaceuticals and Baxter. Mr. Cohen was the President and COO of ViTel International, a privately held, pre-internet electronic messaging company and was a management consultant with Monitor Company working in the health care and high technology sectors.
Mr. Cohen has an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School, and a BA and MA from Tufts University. He was one of the founders of the Tufts Veterinary School and a co-founder of the Health Professions Information Bureau.
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
Measuring Social Impact: Lessons from the Trenches
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
6:30-8:30 PM
Wells Fargo Room - Haas School of Business
Susan Hollingshead of B Lab will moderate a panel with three social enterprises focused on the topic of "ongoing social impact monitoring." The social enterprises will discuss some of the challenges of measuring social impact on an ongoing basis, and how their thinking around this may have evolved from the initial business plan development. This session will focus on the reality of tracking social impact in the field, rather than as a theoretical exercise.
MODERATOR
Susan Hollingshead
Director, Business and Community Development, B Lab
B CorporationsTM are a new type of corporation which use the power of business to create public benefit. B CorporationsTM meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards, institutionalize consideration of stakeholder interests, and build collective voice through the power of a unifying brand. There are over 200 certified B CorporationsTM, representing a diverse $1 billion marketplace. B Lab is the non-profit 501(c)3 organization that certifies and promotes B CorporationsTM, as well as capital markets and policy initiatives to accelerate growth of this emerging sector of the economy.
Prior to joining B Lab, Susan spent 19 years in the brownfield redevelopment and environmental insurance business; as a co-founder of Renova Partners, the $500,000 million acquisition investment entity partnered with Prudential Reality, and as co-founder and Managing Principal of LandBank, Inc., the country’s first brownfield redevelopment firm. Susan has been a frequent lecturer for the EPA, the American Bar Association various state bars, the ICSC, and other organizations focused on infill development. She is the author of numerous articles on environmental insurance and brownfields. She maintains a passion for social innovation and change and followed that commitment to B Lab where she is the Director of Business and Community Development.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
Angela Cheung
Business Development Manager
D.light Design
Angela graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Management Science and Engineering and later earned her MBA at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. She joined the founding team of D.light Design to build international distribution of solar powered consumer products and managed the international rollout of D.light's first product line, developing and executing large scale rural marketing campaigns. Prior to graduate school, she worked in investment banking, strategy consulting and private equity.
Molly Christiansen
Manager of Health Practices & Business Development, Living Goods
Molly graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brown University with a BA in Community Health. She later earned her MBA and Masters in Public Health at the University of Michigan, where she focused on market-based solutions to poverty alleviation. She developed an impact assessment framework for Vision Spring, and conducted due diligence on health and water investments for Acumen Fund. Prior to graduate school, she directed community development programs for ProWorld in Peru, and coordinated tenant programs for a low-income housing organization in San Francisco.
Danny Kennedy
President, Sungevity
Danny Kennedy co-founded Sungevity and is the President of the company. A long time social entrepreneur, Danny has achieved global recognition as an environmental activist, spokesperson, and opinion leader. Most recently, Danny was the Campaigns Manager for Greenpeace Australia Pacific. In 2001, he ran Greenpeace’s California Clean Energy Campaign, the success of which helped lead to the current California Solar Initiative. Danny was the founder and first Executive Director of Project Underground and has served on several nonprofit boards. Danny lives in Oakland with his wife Miya Yoshitani and two daughters.
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
Building Better Business Models
John Mullins
Associate Professor of Management Practice, London Business School
Randy Komisar
Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Co-Authors of Getting to Plan B
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
6:30-8:30pm
Andersen Auditorium
Haas School of Business
Drawing on a case study of a remarkable telecom start-up in Sub-Saharan Africa, this talk explores a new way to think about and develop breakthrough business models. In doing so, it debunks the “form-filling,” spreadsheet-driven mentality that characterizes so much of today’s business planning, and offers a systematic approach to developing business models that can revolutionize their industries.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
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| John Mullins | Randy Komisar | Getting to Plan B |
John Mullins is an Associate Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School and holds the David and Elaine Potter Foundation Term Chair in Entrepreneurship and Marketing at the London Business School. He earned his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. An award-winning teacher, John brings to his teaching and research 20 years of executive experience in high-growth retailing firms including two ventures he founded and one he took public.
Randy Komisar joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2005 as a partner. Previously, he was a co-founder of Claris Corporation, served as CEO for LucasArts Entertainment and Crystal Dynamics, and acted as a "virtual CEO" for such companies as WebTV and GlobalGiving. He is a founding director of TiVo and serves on the Global Advisory Board for the UCSB Institute for Energy Efficiency. Earlier, Randy served as CFO of GO Corporation and Senior Counsel for Apple Computer, following a private practice in Technology Law. Randy holds a BA in Economics from Brown University and a JD from Harvard Law School. He is a lecturer on entrepreneurship at Stanford University and author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, as well as several articles on leadership and entrepreneurship.
In Getting to Plan B, Mullins and Komisar present a field-tested process for rigorously stress-testing your initial business idea, and using the evidence you uncover to make swift corrections that tip the business equation in your favor. Focusing on five elements that determine any business model’s economic viability— its revenue, gross margin, operating, working capital, and investment models—the authors’ approach significantly reduces your risk of failure by:
- Comparing your idea with existing models to steal what works, avoid what doesn’t, and add improvements
- Identifying “leaps of faith”: the as-yet-untested questions you are banking your business on
- Conducting fast, inexpensive, data-driven experiments to support or refute those questions
- Using this data to make smart strategic changes and course correct before it’s too late
Through examples from their first hand experience and research in businesses around the world, Mullins and Komisar reveal how companies have used such systematic experimentation to transform their current business into a viable Plan B. Whether launching a new venture in the marketplace or inside your company, Getting to Plan B will help you replace assumptions with evidence—and vastly improve your odds of success.
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
Financial Modeling and Management
Michael C. Berg, CPA
Founding Partner
PMB Helin Donovan, LLP
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
6:30-8:30pm
Wells Fargo Room
Haas School of Business
Whether you are new to financial modeling, or a seasoned numbers cruncher, you will want to come hear how to create financials that will impress your future investors. You will learn what is necessary and what not to do when creating the financial model that will accompany your business plan and use to obtain capital. This workshop will provide you with what you need to know about the financial side of a business plan and starting a company.
FEATURED SPEAKER
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Michael C. Berg, CPA |
Michael C. Berg has been a CPA since 1981, including 7 years with Coopers & Lybrand in San Francisco before starting his own firm more than 15 years ago. His industry experience includes manufacturing, high tech, wholesale, retail, professional services and not-for-profits. He has a broad background in private industry, including ownership of two companies in San Francisco. Michael specializes in auditing SEC registered companies and litigation support, and is a founding partner of PMB Helin Donovan, LLP.
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
SECRETS TO THE SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS PITCH: A VC PERSPECTIVE
Monday, March 1, 2010
6:30-8:30pm
Wells Fargo Room
Haas School of Business
Morgenthaler Ventures will lead a session designed to illustrate what is required to make a successful pitch to venture capitalists.
Come and learn the secrets of what makes a successful investor pitch! A diverse panel of early stage investors will give you their perspective on what they really need to see in a pitch in order to fund your company. There will be a brief presentation on the essential elements of an investor pitch, and then the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions of the panelists. The session is designed to be highly interactive and will allow you to ask questions about what really goes on as venture capitalists listen to a pitch. You will discover what the hidden agendas are in the questions they routinely ask of first time founders and their teams. We promise you will come away with a different perspective on venture capitalists, and a better understanding of how to deal with the process before, during, and after the pitch.
Morgenthaler Ventures has been in the venture capital business for more than 40 years, steadily investing through every market cycle. Throughout that time, we’ve had the good fortune to work with exceptional entrepreneurs to help build companies of value.
Among the many Morgenthaler-funded companies that have gone public or were acquired are: Apple, Atria, Brion, Illustra Technologies, IPC – The Hospitalist Company, Medaphis, Microchip, New Focus, NexTag, NEXTEL, Nuance Communications, Perclose, Premisys, Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, Synopsys and VeriFone.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
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| Rebecca Lynn (MBA 08), Principal, Morgenthaler Ventures (Moderator) | Gary Little, Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures |
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| Hank Plain, Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures | Aydin Senkut, Founder & President, Felicis Ventures |
SPEAKER BIOS:
Rebecca Lynn (MBA 08), Principal, Morgenthaler Ventures (Moderator)
Rebecca joined Morgenthaler’s Menlo Park office in 2007, and she focuses on early-stage investments in Health2.0, financial services and mobile. She serves on the board of Lending Club and Practice Fusion, and she is a second on the boards of OpinMind and Autonet.
Rebecca began her career at Procter and Gamble’s corporate headquarters where she worked in international new product market entry. She spent time in both Cincinnati and Mexico City developing new products for the market and launching a new category in Latin America. She then joined NextCard as an early employee and spent four years at the company. At NextCard, she led product development efforts and later served as the Vice President of Marketing where she managed one of the top five largest online marketing efforts. NextCard was the first online credit card company, and it went public in 2000 with a $1.3B market cap. After NextCard, she ran her own consulting business focusing on online marketing for financial services and affiliate marketing.
Rebecca passed the California State Bar and has a focus on intellectual property litigation and corporate law. Rebecca is an inventor on several issued patents, and she was published in the Berkeley Law and Technology Journal.
Rebecca holds a B.S. from the University of Missouri in Chemical Engineering and a JD/MBA from the Haas School of Business and UC Berkeley School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley.
Gary Little, Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures
Gary was named to the 2008 and 2009 Forbes Midas 100 lists honoring the most successful and influential people in venture capital. He focuses on Internet services and software investments. His investments include NexTag, Netli (acq. by Akamai), TimesTen (acq. by Oracle) and KnowledgeNet (acq. by Thompson). Gary currently serves on the boards of Rhythm NewMedia, JasperSoft, MuleSoft and Opinmind. He previously served on the board of imeem.
Gary joined Morgenthaler Ventures in 1997. Previously, he served in several roles at Apple Computer, including SVP of Apple's Power Macintosh Division, VP Sales Americas, and Sr. Dir of Marketing for Apple's Pacific division (China, Japan, Asia, Latin America, Canada).
Previously, Gary spent seven years at Sun Microsystems as Director of Product Marketing, Director of Asia Pacific Marketing (including a posting in Hong Kong), and as Group Manager of Industry Marketing. Before Sun, he held sales and marketing positions at IBM. Gary began his career as an IC design engineer for TRW's microelectronics research labs. Gary earned an MBA from Harvard University and a BSEE from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Hank Plain, Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures
Hank joined Morgenthaler Ventures in 2007 after more than 25 years in the life science industry, including co-founding eight medical device start-ups and directing the exits of five companies with a combined value well in excess of $2 billion. He is based in Menlo Park, California and is focused on medical device investments.
Hank was on the board and a member of the deal committee that helped to successfully negotiate the acquisition of Acclarent by Johnson & Johnson for $785 million in December 2009.
Hank is the Vice Chairman of The Foundry, the premier medical device incubator based in Menlo Park, California, where he co-founded Ardian, Cabochon Aesthetics, ForSight Labs, ForSight Vision2, Miramar, Satiety and Transcend. He also served as President and CEO of Perclose, Inc. from 1993 to 2000, during which he led the company to $100 million in sales and managed the company’s successful IPO and acquisition in 1999 by Abbott Laboratories for $650 million. He was Chairman of Embolic Protection, where he helped negotiate the acquisition of the company in 2001 by Boston Scientific for $200 million. He also served as a Director at TransVascular until Medtronic acquired the company in 2003 for an undisclosed amount. Previously, Hank worked at Eli Lilly for 12 years in various management positions.
Hank holds a B.S. from the University of Missouri – Columbia in Finance.
Aydin Senkut, Founder & President, Felicis Ventures
Aydin Senkut is the Founder and President of Felicis Ventures. He's been an angel investor in promising start-ups since 2006. His portfolio encompasses over 50 companies including Appjet (acquired by Google), Aardvark, Brightroll, Bump Technologies, Disqus, Imageshack, Meraki, Mint (acquired by Intuit), Mixer Labs (acquired by Twitter), Mochi Media (acquired by Shanda Games), Outright, Posterous, Powerset (acquired by Microsoft), Plusmo (acquired by AT&T), Practice Fusion, RichRelevance, Sendori (acquired by IAC), Tapulous, and Yume Networks. His investment focus is on early stage consumer internet, mobile and enterprise web companies.
Prior to Felicis Ventures, Aydin was Google's first product manager responsible for launching Google's first 10 international sites and then first International Sales executive closing deals worth over $100 million in gross revenues. He holds a B.S. from Boston University with Honors, an M.B.A. and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Aydin is on the board of Imageshack Corp. and co-organizes the quarterly gathering of ex-Google founders and investors. He's been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Financial Times Germany, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
Incorporation and Compensation
Tuesday March 30, 2010
6:30-8:30 pm
Wells Fargo Room
Haas School of Business
Join us for a discussion of important issues when incorporating a company. We will explore the decision-making process in forming the start-up, including timing, documents, and issues in determining the capital structure of the business organization. We will also provide an overview of the compensation and equity incentive structures available to founders to attract and retain new talent, including a discussion of the general mechanics of creating and issuing these awards and the legal and tax consequences in the execution of compensation and equity programs.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
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| Mark Baudler Partner, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati |
Scott McCall Partner, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati |
SPEAKER BIOS:
Mark Baudler, Partner - Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Mark Baudler is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. He has been an attorney in the firm's corporate securities practice since 1996. Mark primarily represents technology and growth companies at all stages of their development, from seed-stage start-ups to early-stage public companies to more mature public companies. He structures, manages, and negotiates merger and acquisition transactions, public equity offerings, private placement equity and debt transactions, strategic alliances, spin-outs, recapitalizations, and other corporate reorganizations.
Mark regularly advises public and private companies and their management on a broad range of corporate matters, including corporate governance responsibilities, equity incentive plans and arrangements, employment matters, intellectual property issues, regulatory compliance, and commercial transactions. In addition, he often counsels entrepreneurs on the formation of their companies, equity structures, and negotiations with seed and venture capital investors, as well as representing and advising venture capital firms and other institutions investing in technology companies.
Mark is currently an adjunct professor at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, where he teaches a course titled "Venture Capital & the Start-up Technology Company."
Scott McCall, Partner - Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Scott McCall is a partner in Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati's employee benefits and compensation practice. He represents both private and public technology clients in connection with executive compensation and employee benefits matters. Scott's practice focuses on the design and implementation of equity compensation and bonus plans, executive employment agreements and the corresponding tax, accounting, and securities law issues. He also is actively involved with the firm's transactional practice, working with employers to manage the transition of employees and their benefits during and after a merger or acquisition, joint venture, or spin-off.
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Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series
Financing
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
6:30-8:30 PM
Andersen Auditorium
Haas School of Business
No registration is required for this event.
Please join us for the capstone session of the Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series. Our panel will discuss the latest investment trends with a focus on maximizing your investment potential. Learn what investors look for in funding opportunities and how to prepare your company to close funding once you have generated interest. Optimize your team, your pitch and your business plan. The panel offers diverse perspectives ranging from angel investing to traditional venture capital. The panelists' experiences span a number of industries and backgrounds. The workshop will include Q&A, so come with the questions you've been waiting to ask an investor.
MODERATOR
Matt Kirmayer
Member, Corporate Practice
Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC
Matt Kirmayer is a Member in the Corporate Practice at Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC. His practice is focused on the representation of emerging technology companies, venture capital and private equity funds, and institutional investors. Matt represents clients in many industries, such as multimedia, wireless technologies, networking, Internet infrastructure and security, nanotechnology, life sciences, and medical devices. He also represents NY Money Center Banks and institutional investors in capital market transactions. Before joining Mintz Levin, Matt was a partner at a San Francisco area law firm. He began his career in New York City, handling securities offerings and merger and acquisition transactions. Matt is admitted to practice law in California and New York. He was awarded his B.A. from the State University of New York at Albany and his J.D. from Rutgers University. Matt obtained his LL.M. from New York University School of Law.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
Prashant Shah
Managing Director, Hummer Winblad
Prashant Shah joined Hummer Winblad in December 2000. He has been instrumental in many investments including Baynote, Bridgestream, Cenzic, InMage, Jareva Technologies, Krillion, Scalent, SyncVoice, Tizor and Voltage Security. He also observes a number of these boards. In addition, Prashant is an active Charter Member of TiE Silicon Valley (www.tiesv.org), where he is Chair of the Software SIG; and a member of the Board of Trustees for Astia (www.astia.org).
Prior to Hummer Winblad, Prashant spent many years defining and launching high tech products. His background spans all seven layers of the OSI stack with product management roles at enCommerce (acquired by Entrust), Cypress Semiconductor and AT&T. Prashant received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Amy Belt
Vice President
Advanced Technology Ventures
Amy joined ATV's healthcare practice in 2006 where she focuses on investments in the medical device sector in the firm's Palo Alto, CA office.
Prior to joining ATV, Amy was at Guidant Corporation (later Abbott Vascular) leading the international launch of the Xience drug eluting stent. The launch marked the company’s entrance into the $5 billion worldwide DES market. Amy has launched and managed product in the US, Europe and Asia working closely with clinical, regulatory, manufacturing, R&D, and sales. In addition, Amy spent time in Bristol-Myers Squibb's international group working on several cardiovascular and neuroscience projects. She began her career as a Management Consultant for APM/CSC Healthcare where she worked on projects with almost 40 hospitals across the US and Canada.
Amy holds an M.B.A from the Walter Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from Yale University. She is also a Kauffman Fellow.
Jeff Karras
General Partner
Levensohn Venture Partners
Jeff Karras joined Levensohn Venture Partners in January 2001 and specializes in digital media and cleantech technologies. Before joining LVP, Jeff was a Group Product Marketing Manager at Sun Microsystems, where he was a key strategic driver behind their Portal Server product line. Prior to Sun Microsystems, Jeff was a Principal Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers' Strategic Change Group, where he provided strategic guidance across a variety of industries including telecommunications, software, energy and financial services.
In the past, Jeff has held a board seat or worked closely with a number of LVP portfolio companies including Atheros, Veraz Networks, Covigo, Rapt, and Reconnex, ShotSpotter, Plum and Wildpockets. In addition, Jeff is an active member of the Board of Trustees for Astia and the Earthshot Foundation. Jeff received a BS in Commerce from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Eghosa Omoigui, Esq.
Director, Strategic Investments, Consumer Internet & Semantic Technologies
Intel Capital
Eghosa Omoigui has been with Intel Capital for over 9 years and is currently Director, Strategic Investments, Consumer Internet & Semantic Technologies. In this Santa Clara, CA-based role, he acts as a senior investment professional in the world's largest stage-agnostic technology venture capital organization, focused on platform-agnostic web services and digital media-based investment opportunities in the consumer internet. Due to a 10+ year passion for all things semweb/semtech/data, Eghosa also drives Intel Capital's investment focus on next generation semantic technologies and the real-time web. Current representative investments include Betaworks, Sense Networks, Voxify, Yatra, BuzzInTown, Cerebra and TextDigger.
Prior to joining Intel, Omoigui worked in several start-ups in senior management positions and has variegated experience as a corporate and securities law firm lawyer, in-house counsel and turnarounds/restructuring advisor. Eghosa attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College and has been admitted to the Bar in Nigeria, New York and Oregon . Eghosa lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his 3 kids, a miniature poodle and a supersized german shepherd.
