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OPEN Forum -
OPEN Forum lunch -
Women Forum Keynote
OPEN-SV Mentorship Breakfast with Osman Rashid -Feb 26th, 2016
Osman Rashid'sl Bio:
Osman Rashid is a seasoned entrepreneur in the field of educational technology. He is currently the Founder & CEO of Galxyz, an intergalactic adventure that gets kids into science. Galxyz's mission to ignite the fascination of science and unlock the true potential in every student. Previously, he was the Co-Founder and CEO of Chegg, the student hub and online textbook rental leader (NYSE:CHGG) until early 2010, and also Co-Founder and CEO of Kno, Inc. (acquired by Intel in 2013), a digital education platform company.
Osman has received several honors, including Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of The Year Award (CA) in 2009, which is the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs, as well as Forbes Impact 15 for 2012 and Inc.’s Immigrant Edge: 9 Wildly Successful Entrepreneurs.
He is on the Board of Trustees health-focused non-profit organization, ChildLife Foundation.
To find out more about Osman, follow him on Twitter @osmanrashid or LinkedIn /osmanrashid
Financial Management Seminar for Youth (High school Juniors and Seniors and College Students) Feb 6th
TITLE: Critical money skills young adults need to know at this age
84% of college students admit that they need more education on financial management skills. This interactive workshop for teens and young adults will cover an overview of key money management concepts. Whether you are a high school student or in college, you will benefit from knowing the following topics we will discuss:
• How to make a budget and manage cash
• Money accounts
• Saving vs. investing
• Time value of money
• Knowing how to tackle enemies of money
About the presenter: Iftikhar Ahmed is a Financial Advisor with Waddell & Reed. Prior to running his practice, he worked for 20+ years in the high tech sector. His experience spans working in both the US, and internationally in business and leadership roles. He has a Masters in Information Systems Management, and holds APMA® certification, Series 7 and Series 66 securities licenses.
Register Here
Date:Feb 6th 3-5 PM
Location: Waddell & Reed
1999 South Bascom Ave, Suite 400
Campbell, CA 95008
Event is Free but there is a 25 person limit for this seminar so register early.
it is prefered that students under 16 are accompanied by a parent Register Student Here
Review - OPEN-SV Mentorship Breakfast with Mahmood Panjwani -Dec 4th, 2015
Mahmood Panjwani invited eight OPEN-SV members including some he had advised a year ago to this Ask-Me-Anything mentoring session. He had asked attendees to ponder over and be able to answerhis six fundamental questions for any entrepreneur before fully committing to startup:
1. What is the Problem?
2. What is the Product?
3. Who is the Customer?
4. What is the UVP - Unique Value Proposition?
5. What is the Business Model?
6. What is the “Total Available Market?":
An entrepreneur should be able to identify a problem to be solved. The product should resolve the problem and/or differentiate itself with other competing products – unique value proposition. Best way to create a viable product is “cross fertilization” of ideas from various domain skills. Entrepreneurship requires messaging, packaging, producing and marketing the solution to both investors and customers. To investors, teams are important and founders having previous experience with successful startups helps.
Mahmood explained in details how partners at typical VC evaluate ideas for funding. An mainstream entrepreneur should be able to show path to TAM in billions (the higher the better). This is not say TAM in 11’s of millions are not funded. In a typical scenario, a VC may invest with expectations the startup will be acquired. Expect a VC to talk to the potential customers and validate if they will pay for your product.
When discussing a software application startup, Mahmood asked to consider: will CIO needs to be convinced or can individual groups inside an organization purchase the product; how fast protos can be developed; how will freeware lead to a subscription model; can 10K trial user translate to 1K paid customers; how to market product; how to incorporate user feedback; how to manage continual expenditure on development & maintenance vs incoming revenues?
Regarding role of Director of Sales, Mahmood said personal needs to have a high level view of the product. It’s not about selling, but educating the customer. Educate customer about the unique value proposition of your product, and if convinced, the customer would want to buy it. Price is secondary. Objections will disappear.
For consumer products, Mahmood told, typical ROI of within six months will be a good value. Therefore, the product should solve an immediate need/issue and yield productivity and satisfaction right away, eg, iPhone.
Talking about online learning business, Mahmood surmised developing concepts and creating content periodically will be costly. VCs may refrain due to low TAM. Individuals or non-profits may help due to their own mission alignment.
We thanked Mahmood for his valuable time and sagacious advice. Mahmood asked some attendees to get back with him for more detailed discussions.
Mahmood’s Official Bio:
Mahmood Panjwani is an Entrepreneur In Residence at Artiman Ventures.He was Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of iManage Inc. that merged with Interwoven Inc. in November 2003. Mahmood successfully led iManage from inception in 1996 to IPO in 1999 to a successful merger with Interwoven. He led his company through its toughest period during the technology downturn of the early 2000s, by practicing sound financial discipline, motivating a talented team and building a trusting relationship with Wall Street investors and analysts.
Before iManage, Mahmood was the founder and CEO of Q-Image Corporation, a privately held software consulting company. His prior experiences include working in software engineering with companies such as Northern Telecom and AT&T Bell Labs.
Mahmood is the Chairman of Infinisim, an early-stage Electronic Design Automation Software Company.
Mahmood has a Bachelors and a Masters in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Illinois. He is a charter member of entrepreneurial organizations TiE Silicon Valley and OPEN Silicon Valley.
OPEN Silicon Valley Monthly Mentorship Breakfast provides a terrific opportunity for entrepreneurs and industry professionals to meet with experts in their respective field, in a relaxed, informal setting, to build relationships and get valuable business and career feedback. Participants deliver an elevator pitch for 30 to 60 seconds, and the guest mentor provides immediate feedback, enabling fast, effective, accessible mentoring and relationship development.
OPEN Charter Member company Elastica, gets acquired for $280M
Rehan Jalil
Rehan Jalils is CEO of Elastia, a company in cloud security area.
My Story is with Gretchen Hansen, Dec 1st , 6:00PM to 8:00PM
Gretchen Hansen is the CEO/Founder Decorist. Decorist is the leading online home design platform. We use patent-pending technology to efficiently deliver personalized décor advice from free Ask a Designer to our signature Decorist Makeover. Our world-class team is growing the brand and customers around this unique product and experience. Need a little or a lot of home design help? Decorist makes it easy and affordable-all virtually.
Decorist has raised $4.5 million in seed funding from home improve giant Lowe’s Companies, the Women’s Venture Capital Fund and undisclosed angel investors.
Location: Pillsbury Law Office San Francisco, 4 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111
The Entrepreneurial Journey, Wed : November 18th
Adventures in IOT, Tue Nov 3rd.
You dont want to miss our most exciting meetup of the year: "Adventures in IoT" We have invited two heavy weights from this industry to talk about their experiences:
Zia Yusuf was CEO of Streetline Inc. a leading IoT (Internet of Things) start-up providing sensor enabled smart city solutions. It was later acquired by the Kapsch Group. Zia is currently a Partner & Managing Director at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
Ammar Hanafi is Co-Founder and General Partner of Moment Ventures. It is a seed and early stage venture capital investing in the Infrastructure of Everything, that is transforming how enterprises and society operate.
The event will be moderated by Faraz Hoodbhoy, Director Outreach, Ecosystem and Innovation at AT&T.
Tuesday, Nov 3rd, 6:00PM to 8:00PM.
At&T Foundry 260 Homer Ave, Palo Alto, California 94301 Register Here (Note: Event have limited seats and registration will close at 60, so don't wait)