Gabriel Aldamiz - chicisimo.com

The guest speaker of yesterday was Gabriel Aldamiz Echevarria. He shared with us the experience accumulated during the management of his three startups. He talked about (i) the idea behind a startup, (ii) the management of the technology, (iii) and the topic that I most liked regarded how to create the spark (or I should better say the various sparks) that trigger an upward network effect.

The idea

Gabriel said that he started three companies but he never had an idea... actually when he later explained what he did I though that he had incredible ideas! What is true is that the ideas were not actually generated by him, but he was still brilliant in finding new applications for something that already existed. So what is the takeaway of this story?

1) Do not focalize only on finding the killer idea but look forward and try to foresee real applications.

2) More important that the actual idea is how you implement it (this is the most recurrent thought in this blog!)

Also, sometimes young entrepreneurs keep their ideas so secret that even customers and business partners don't know. This represents a little precaution to prevent eventual competitors but on the other hand it might represent a strong limitation for the health of the venture.

The technology

As we already discussed in other sessions it is important the development of your own technology. In fact, if since the beginning you are able to develop the core technology by yourself you will not only have a competitive advantage over competitors, but also you will have less troubles with external developers and more control over your platform. However, Gabriel recommends not to focalize too much on the technology development. In fact the risk is that you eventually develop a technology that is "too generic" having plenty of potential applications but no one concrete. In front of this situation it becomes very difficult to convince a VC to invest.

Help your luck

You can create your .com and wait that someone slowly discovers your website or you can do the all your possible to make them know your company. This latter is the approach that Gabriel has decided for chicisimo. Below a checklist of things to do:

- Go to events. You've got to be seen!

- Get to know who writes about you (or that can potentially write).

- Think what type of news you can you give them.

- Think what they like.

- Think about trends.

- Release new data that can be used by journalists.

- Train your speech.

If you give informations they like, bloggers might decide to write about you and your new service. This could not only boast the number of visitors on your website, but also open the door to new potential investors. In fact, Gabriel told us that once one of the most famous bloggers decided to write an article on chicisimo he received emails also from VCs interested in getting contact with him.

I believe that these three elements should be included in the book of the perfect entrepreneur. Thanks Gabriel for your advice. Hopefully your suggestions will contribute to successfully manage my future startup.