Entrepreneur & Small Business Forum
Educational Lecture Events
 
Launch Strategies of Successful Startups
 
Thatcher Bell, Managing Director, Gotham Ventures
Andrew Boer,  President, Movable Media
Tristan Louis, Serial Entrepreneur - Six Startups

A lot of things need to go right for a startup to succeed. The critical time period for most is the year leading up to the launch, and the initial two years of operation. There are no consensus figures, but the survival rate of startups is at best 50%. The event will focus on the factors and elements that differentiate those who make it from those who don't.

There is no recipe for success in the entrepreneurial field. However, there are traits and attributes that apply across the board for those who have been able to establish themselves as going concerns. The event will delve into performance issues that startups are known to succeed at or trip over, and provide recommendations on how to steer firms toward or away from them. The panel includes:

- A venture capital investor with an excellent track record in selecting viable funding recipients and monitoring the performance of portfolio firms.
- A startup owner who founded the firm that became Amazon Payments, who now runs a new startup that has attracted several large firms as clients.
- A serial entrepreneur who has founded six companies - two of which went public and two of which were sold.

Thatcher Bell is a Managing Director at Gotham Ventures, which invests primarily in early-stage startups. Gotham is part of the DFJ Network, the largest venture capital network in the world. Thatcher has spent more than a dozen years in the startup community as a VC and operator. He led the firm's successful investment in SinglePlatform, which was acquired by Constant Contact. Thatcher works closely with portfolio companies Sailthru, ADstruc, LendKey, EXPO, and Verterra.
 

Andrew Boer was the first product manager of TRUSTe, which became the leading data privacy management (DPM) company worldwide with over 5,000 clients. He then founded and served as CEO of Accept.com, the first online person-to-person payments firm, which was sold to Amazon.com and renamed Amazon Payments. Currently, Andrew is President of MovableMedia, a platform that helps firms to reach new audiences. Major clients include P&G, Williams Sonoma, and General Mills.
 

Tristan Louis has been a pioneer in internet development, having played a role in several industry developments, notably in regard to podcasting. He is a serial entrepreneur who has founded six startups - two of which went public and two of which were sold. As Founder and CEO of the startup Keepskor, he is currently focusing on the computer games industry. The platform enables brand marketers to create complex games for mobile devices and social networks without new code.