The New Way to Distribute Enterprise Software

See my most recent post here.

Cheers,

Andre

--

About me || http://about.me/acharoo

Twitter || @acharoo

Update

Hey all --

After a few years, a couple of iterations, thousands of users, and an amazing ride, I've decided to move on from my role at Viewpointr. With our launch at Summit Series, current positive feedback, and the relationships we've made to date, I feel that now is the right time for Kent Fenwick, our technology co-founder to lead the charge and move the company forward.

Since September, I took some time to evaluate my current goals and explore new opportunities. Of course, I will continue to serve as an advisor to Viewpointr.

I'd like to thank all of you, the Viewpointr community, for your help, feedback, and continued loyalty towards Viewpointr.

My very best wishes,

Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Help me || http://viewpointr.com/acharoo
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Learn about me || http://andrecharoo.com

NYU Guest Lecturer for Venture Capital Intensive

Today, I was a guest lecturer via conference call for a class at NYU entitled "Venture Capital Intensive".

The instructor, my good friend, wanted me to shed some light on the venture capital industry from the perspective of an entrepreneur.

By way of summary on the lecture and as a follow-up for the students, here are the major questions that were posed:

***

What is Viewpointr?

Viewpointr is a community of people helping people. Think of it like "Twitter for Helping People". We are trying to create the easiest and simplest way to get help and give help online.

Why is it competitive?

Everybody needs help in their everyday lives, however, there is no place on the web where you can get high quality help from specific types of people in real-time. As a result of providing the easiest way to get help and give help, Viewpointr will know the types of people that your friends can put you in touch with, which is currently difficult to find on the web.

***

In looking at the position of each player, here is our perspective on each of them:

Aardvark -- Search-based questions answered by people.

Quora -- Wikipedia for questions and answers.

Formspring.me -- Ask questions anonymously.

Fluther -- Crowdsourced Q&A.

Viewpointr -- Personalized Q&A (Twitter for getting help).

***

Amongst our competitors such as Aardvark and Quora, a total of over $50 million has been raised in the Q&A space to attack this problem, but, none of their products help you understand your social graph from this perspective, which we believe is extremely valuable.

What stage are we at?

Viewpointr has recently released an alpha product which can be found at http://viewpointr.com. The company was a featured presenter at Summit Series, an invite-only conference for 750 top entrepreneurs. The conference's attendees included Bill Clinton, Mark Cuban, Russell Simmons, and many more. Here's a pre-recorded version of the presentation we gave at Summit Series -- http://blog.viewpointr.com/viewpointr-summit-series-dc-2010.

Who are the current investors by type?

The company has raised a small round of Garage Financing which consists of friends and family and an early stage VC based in Silicon Valley.

Why did your investors decide to make an investment in your business?

While I don't want to speak on behalf of our investors, I believe the reasons why they invested were a combination of (1) team -- highly capable of positioning Viewpointr as a contender in the Q&A market; and (2) product / vision -- our product offering as the potential of becoming the easiest and simplest way to get help and give help online.

How do I think about valuation?

Currently, the way I view our valuation is primarily around the amount of capital we will be looking to raise and the percent of the company we'll be prepared to sell. Other factors will include the amount of capital our competitors have raised relative to our traction in the market.

At the moment, the company has raised financing through convertible debt offerings, which has effectively, postponed or kept valuation discussions to a minimum. At the time we raised financing, the product was not launched yet and I don't believe it would have been fair, given the amount of money we were raising to sell any equity in the business.

Lessons learned from prior term sheets.

The major term sheet we were offered was during our second iteration back in 2008, when we were focused on a recruiting model around Q&A. The primary lesson learned was to ensure we have enough traction in the market prior to raising venture capital, especially as first time entrepreneurs.

Why look at capital in the US relative to other places?

The amount of "smart capital" in the US relative to other places is virtually uncontested at the moment. As an entrepreneur, one of your goals in order to raise money is to put yourself in a place where you have a higher probability of success. Being amongst a group of super angels, and serial entrepreneurs is more important than just where to look for capital. However, more often than not, the place where these individuals reside is where the most capital resides as well. And, right now, I believe it's in (1) Silicon Valley; (2) Boston; and (3) New York, which btw might replace Boston as of recent.

***

Please let me know if you have any additional questions about the venture capital industry from my perspective or about my business specifically. Feel free to ask your questions on Viewpointr so the entire team can respond -- http://viewpointr.com.

It was a pleasure to speak to the students of Venture Capital Intensive.

I look forward to hearing your feedback on our discussion and thoughts on Viewpointr.

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Help me || http://viewpointr.com/acharoo
Follow me || http://twitter.com/acharoo
Learn about me || http://andrecharoo.com

How to Make It in America

8 Gems of How to Make It in America:

My new favorite show on HBO is called "How to Make It in America" and here are the gems from each episode (8) that summarize how to make it in America pretty well.







Check out my post on Untemplater -- http://su.pr/3JLGMN

1. Everybody’s got ideas. Don’t tell people what you’re going to do, show people what you’ve done. AND Don’t let one failure hold you back from trying again.

2. Put yourself out there and create opportunities to be noticed.

3. What’s your plan? Think outside of the box.

4. Put in the necessary amount of time to work at your craft.

5. Often times it’s not your first idea that will hit. It could be the second, third, or fourth, but if you don’t stick it through, you may never know.

6. When you lose one thing, you gain another. Keep your head up.

7. It’s never going to be easy. Bank on going through a roller coaster ride.

8. Roll with the punches. Never give up.

What do you think? Does this sum up in a nutshell how to make it in America?

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

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Help me || http://viewpointr.com/acharoo
Follow me || http://twitter.com/acharoo
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My First Amazon Book Review: "The Facebook Effect" by David Kirkpatrick

I've just finished reading "The Facebook Effect" by David Kirkpatrick. It was a great read! I highly recommend it. It was so incredibly insightful that it inspired my first book review on Amazon.

Check it out -- http://amzn.to/cxdMfe.

In addition to enjoying the book, this evening, I had the privilege of meeting the author, David Kirkpatrick, at a book signing and interview event with Michael Arrington at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco. The interview was very fun and enlightening to listen to. Here's a summary of the interview on Techcrunch.



If you've read the book or plan to, let me know what you think about it.

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Help me || http://viewpointr.com/acharoo
Follow me || http://twitter.com/acharoo
Learn about me || http://andrecharoo.com

Learn How to be Confident

Check out my most recent blog post on Untemplater.com entitled "How to be Confident" -- http://bit.ly/9hh2mx

1. Follow your instincts

2. Have a story

3. Jump in with both feet

4. Run your own race

5. It's ok to be ridiculed

***

My partner, Justin Lee added:

1. Haircut

2. Dance

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Follow me on Twitter || http://twitter.com/acharoo
Blog || http://andrecharoo.com

My Summit Series Presentation

This past weekend, I had an incredible opportunity to present at an amazing invitation-only conference called Summit Series -- http://dc10.summitseries.com/.

I was among 4 other awesome companies -- Airbnb, Wearpact, Profounder, and Fast Society.

The competition was right before President Bill Clinton's keynote address. Very cool. Here's a summary of some of the major talks that were given at the conference.

Btw -- the above picture was created by XHTMLized.com, our front-end development company. Couldn't do it without them. They're awesome!

***

Since I don't have the footage of the live presentation yet, here's a recording and walk through our short (3:18 minutes) pitch:



What do you guys think?

Cheers,
Andre
http://andrecharoo.com

--
Follow me on Twitter || http://twitter.com/acharoo
Blog || http://andrecharoo.com