Kopi Chat

A special brew by NUS Enterprise

20th September 2016

Aaron Patzer

CEO Mint.com

Gary Liu CEO Digg.com

Paul Bragriel

Founding Partner Golden Gate Ventures

Lite Takeaway

of Highlights

DA BAO

Kopi Po

Hiring

Hire slowlyFire quickly

Surround yourself with people who are better than you, who fill your gaps and know your

gaps.

Otherwise, if you are an A+ player, and you hire an A- player, they're going to hire B+ players

and eventually you're going to have a company filled with a bunch of C-level players.

- Gary Liu

Don't invite the virus (people with bad attitude and not fitting into the team's

culture) to join at the very beginning.            

-Paul Bragriel    

You will be the smartest person in the room when you hire people smarter

than you and learn from them.

- Gary Liu

Validation

The biggest mistake I have made is not getting proper validation.

-Aaron Patzer

Validate your product in front of normal, average, non-tech people

and not just your friends and family.

Your parents' friends are the best people.

-Aaron Patzer

Get them to use the product for 15-20 minutes. If they are genuinely upset when

you take the product away from them, that’s a great validation, not just the initial "Wow"

factor.

-Aaron Patzer

Marketing

Cold-emailing and cold-contacting people works! People are too scared to reach out to

people, but humans are actually very receptive. Use LinkedIn and Facebook. Don't be afraid to

reach out to potential customers, potential clients, and potential hires.

-Paul Bragriel

Usually you will have a better luck contacting the Vice-President or a

Director, not the CEO.

-Aaron Patzer

For media, don't approach founders of the big blogs, talk to the newest person on the team who is probably hungry for stories and needs content. They are the ones with a quota they

need to fill every month.

-Paul Bragriel

Don’t wait for the magical introduction. You have to push for it.

-Paul Bragriel

Growth

Build virality into the product/service/platform rather than rely solely on marketing to make it viral

What is your major risk? Who is going to shut you down?

-Gary Liu

Drop by your clients' offices— just to say hi!Don't just wait for something magical to

happen, you need to push for it and make it happen.

- Paul Bragriel

What’s the Next Big Thing?

Aaron Patzer: Artificial IntelligenceGary Liu: Messaging Run-Time

Paul Bragriel: Virtual & Augmented Reality

Start a company because you want to impact the world in a

meaningful way.

-Aaron Patzer

Kopi Chat is a series of talks organized by NUS Enterprise that brings in speakers from all around the world to connect with

the community of entrepreneurs and

developers. To attend the events, just hit up the

website: www.blk71.com