We’ve asked the Founder of Facecrunch, Jon Beschen, to share his Office Hours experiences with us. It’s our hope that connecting with the right people will save your startup time, energy and other finite resources that propel your business forward.
“Office Hours with Chris and Kevin were fantastically valuable for us. The first time they helped narrow in on the most marketable idea we were toying with. Their advice set us running. After some development time with the idea they both offered great feedback and insight into our product, which ultimately helped us refine it into an awesome offering.”
— Jonathon Beschen, Founder of Facecrunch & Partner at SparkNet Technologies
FaceCrunch is a image recommendation and curation engine for digital advertising. Facebook specifically has been studied on how the choice of faces in your ad has more of an affect then almost any other attribute of the ad. Additionally there has been a lot of research released in the last 6 months on face bias in different advertising verticles.
Lars Knutsen’s introductory slide is filled with black lines resembling ant trails–diagrams of the chemical structure of the successful drugs he’s developed over the course of his career. Early on, the self-proclaimed “chemistry nerd” interviewed for a Pfizer-sponsored Ph.D. spot at University College London, where the words of his interviewer stuck with him: “You’ll always have a job, because people are afraid of dying.”
He later joined Glaxo and studied for his Ph.D. while working there. But despite the success he found in big business, he found it difficult to be entrepreneurial in a large company. “You hire people with great ideas and then tell them they can’t do any of them.”
Today, Lars is CEO and co-founder of emerging biotech company Requis Pharmaceuticals, which offers “patented, de-risked treatments for central nervous system conditions.” It’s a perfect fit for him to fully embrace the creative aspects of science.
Science as a Creative Process “You get high on ideas. Peptides and oxytocin are released in the brain and make you feel good. Everything is chemistry.”
“What do you think the artist thinks about? Do they think about fine wines or black tie affairs? No, they live for that narcotic moment of creative bliss. A moment that may come once in a decade, or never at all.” Lars uses this quote from the movie Art School Confidential to underscore his point. “Making drugs is a highly creative process. Big CEOs at big companies don’t realize that.”
The Malaise in the Pharma Industry “We are observing a general lack of innovation in the industry.”
The prices of pharmaceutical stocks have plunged, and Lars points to big company mentality as one of the factors. “It’s a tough environment in which to invent drugs. We are observing a general lack of innovation in the industry. When I started, a scientist could argue for a point. Today, that scientist would be fired for arguing that point.”
“Senior management can appear to be remote, and may not understand inventions and research. R & D sites are seen as cost centers.” In addition, Lars notes that “stockmarkets have a very short attention span, which is incompatible with long term R&D horizons.”
The Prescription: Entrepreneurs “Creativity doesn’t happen when there’s a gun to your head. It happens when you’re doing something relaxing.”
According to Lars, entrepreneurs are valued in the U.S. Small companies are nimble and can change direction quickly, maximizing on creative potential. “We have a great opportunity in ‘de-risked’ Requis. People-sized organizations are the best. Places where everyone can sit down in one room and interact, 400 people tops.”
On Requisom: “Sleep is like the new sex. Everybody wants it and nobody gets it.”
Sleep aids are a huge part of the biopharma market: $23 billion. “In addition, snoring is a problem and right now there is no drug for snoring.” Requisom addresses both issues. “When evaluated in human volunteers, sleep improved, and subjects stopped snoring.” A tablet comprised of a combination of doxylamine (an antihistamine), tryptophan, and melatonin, Lars notes that separately, these ingredients are available in products on the market right now.
As of now, the FDA decided that Requisom can be available only with a prescription, but it may visit the possibility of over-the-counter access in the future.
The guys at SplashFlood were a few days away from their big pitch and turned to Walnut St. Labs’ Office Hours to put on some final touches. With the help of our Innovation Advisors, the pitch was a total success, and they got funding the next week!
Here’s what one of their Cofounders, Chris Thompson had to say about the experience:
“The Office Hours session with Ray Sarnacki happened days before our pitch to an investor. His vast experience and wise insight helped us better understand the investor perspective and therefore present our value proposition in a more compelling manner. He followed up multiple times afterwards with additional helpful information. Ray’s feedback on our presentation was instrumental in us securing the funding.”
In addition to two office hours sessions with Ray Sarnacki of The Wharton School of Business, Ralph and Chris met with Terry Kerwin, an attorney at Fox Rothschild, for some startup legal help.
Here’s Chris again:
“Being able to receive free legal advice from Terry Kerwin through Office Hours was very helpful at our pre-funding stage. Terry provided helpful advice without making us feel stupid! We walked away with a clear action plan on how to resolve issues that were haunting us.”
Peter Strid has a hunch we are all pretty bad at using LinkedIn. When he asks the 75-person crowd who uses it, almost every hand goes up. “OK, now who considers themselves effective, or has gotten a sale from it?” All hands, save one, go down.
His latest venture, PeopleLinx, harnesses the power of social networks to help large organizations manage their branding, content, and relationships. “ If I’ve got two sales reps, one of them using social, and the other not, I’m going to bet on the guy who’s using it. The numbers shake out.”
As immersed in startup life as he is today, he would counsel you against leaping into a startup first thing. “If I was kid out of college, I wouldn’t go work for a startup. I’d find out how a big company works, and translate that to startups.”
It is this path that has led him to success with PeopleLinx.
His Non-startup Startup Life “Taking a risk to get into a startup is made much easier by understanding how big companies work.”
Peter found inspiration in former GE chairman Jack Welsh’s book, Jack: Straight From The Gut. “I thought it was such an amazing organization.” He got a job in GE healthcare as part of their imaging division. “Here I was selling 5,000 pound nuclear imaging devices. My business card said ‘Nuclear Specialist.’ My friends loved that.”
“Understanding how GE works, the politics, how a deal is structured, what the contracts look like, has prepared me to make PeopleLinx a success.”
On Hiring Interns “It’s wrong to hire an intern to run your social media.”
Part of Peter’s job often includes educating potential clients. “People used to think it was a good idea to hire an intern to run their social media. Wrong! Taking a big, established brand identity like KPMG and giving it to someone inexperienced is a bad idea. People have realized that.”
He describes social as a “three-legged stool for enterprises: It’s what you look like (your profile), what content you post, and who is in your network. If any of those three ‘legs’ are missing, then the stool falls over. The top of the stool is measurement, ROI.”
“If you have 100,000 followers on LinkedIn, it’s one thing. But what if you have 5,000 employees, each with 300-400 connections? Your reach is huge. When you recruit for new jobs, you want to hire the people connected to your network. They stay longer, they’re happier, and there is a lower cost of acquisition for the enterprise.”
On Getting the Most out of Your Content “We are going to repurpose the shit out of that thing.”
Peter and his team recently wrote a white paper based on a survey they conducted through Survey Monkey. “It took a little bit of time, but it created massive SEO for us. We packed it with data and statistics, and we are going to repurpose the shit out of that thing. We’ll use the individual pieces from it in all our social media blasts to drive traffic back to that one document.”
“If no one knows about your idea, that thing will sit on a shelf and wither away. Tying social media into your idea is a component of success.”
Walnut St. Labs is excited to add Neill to our list of Office Hours Advisors!
Neill Reidy has been in technology since 1997 where he worked support for a local dial-up internet service provider. “Sir, please confirm your phone line is connected to your computer.” It was here that he picked up UNIX, IP networking and got an appetite for working in technology.
After graduating with a B.S in Information Systems, Neill held positions as a web developer and a software engineer for the US Department of Defense. Neill later moved to West Chester and began working for an international system integrator, specializing in data-center hosting with a focus on VMWare, Cisco and Linux. Neill currently runs cloud computing product at Evolve IP. Book Office Hours w/ Neill
Walnut St. Labs is excited to welcome Chad to our list of Office Hours Advisors!
Dr. Chadwick A. Wingrave is a big picture usability specialist with an industry and research background. His current venture, Conquest Creations LLC, is focused on usability contracting and one unrevealed project. Chadwick has published over 30 academic publications and received over $2.5 million in academic, military and government research and development grants.
Startups, Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners who are interested in any Computer Science mentorship, in the areas of Virtual Reality, Usability, Software Development, Smart Environments and/or Health Informatics. Book Office Hours w/ Chad
Despite the fact that Walnut St. Labs has spent the last year growing our community base through organic means, including our own ambitious social media campaigns and by word of mouth, we’ve took a leap of faith and joined the premier meetup site, meetup.com.
Night Owls is a weekly hangout, geared towards developer collaboration and open forum networking for entrepreneurs of all sorts. Its an opportunity to expand our community based by reaching out to people who’ve always been interest in visiting us, but haven’t yet attended a Startup Meetup.
Needless to say, Meetup.com brought out a variety of people interested in the space, startups and a fun place to network and collaborate.
We were also blessed with the attendance of some new developers who live locally, but don’t frequent our social media channels.
It was a refreshing to introduce this influx of new Night Owls to the passionate people that champion our space and call this place home on Wednesday Nights.
He communicates his vision at a lightning pace, blending science and a positive, forward-thinking philosophy in stories filled with both relatable analogies and artful alliteration. But his love of science drives it all.
The Early Years: “A science teacher in the neighborhood told me the pollution from the housing development up the hill was the reason the tadpoles disappeared.”
Growing up in southern Chester County, Bob loved nature and science from early on. The fourth grader with the science kit “would find little sunnies and tadpoles in the pond in my yard. One summer there wasn’t anything in the pond.” Bob went to his neighbor, a science teacher, to find out why. “He pointed to the housing development up the hill and explained that the pollution is coming down the hill and making it hard for the fish and the tadpoles to live.”
The seeds for his mission of sustainability started to sprout, and he began to think about a single thing that would be easy to implement, but would make a huge difference. “We need the ability to meet today’s needs without sacrificing the ability to meet the needs of the future.”
The Present: Sustainability and Focus “Business is a powerful vehicle to catalyze change.”
The Biochar Company
Today, Bob’s primary focus is his role as Global Impact Director at The Biochar Company. The company is one of 11 finalists in Richard Branson’s Virgin Earth Challenge, “a prize given to companies that find sustainable and scalable ways of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere,” according to the Virgin Earth Challenge website.
Biochar helps impoverished farmers improve crop yields and save resources. “There are dramatic differences between crops grown with and without biochar. One of the farmers I work with in Haiti went from growing 8 papayas to 32 in the same space.” The high carbon content of the biochar stays in the soil for a long time, pulling in nutrients and enriching the soil on a continuous basis.
“What makes it successful is that it’s so simple.”
Creating Biochar
Creating biochar starts with some type of organic material. “Sugar cane, for instance. You take it, dry it out, and put it in a container. The temperature goes up, and the oxygen level goes down. It’s the same principle as when my Mom puts taco shells in her toaster oven and forgets about them. What’s left is biochar.”
The Biochar Company’s process uses the waste part of raw materials such as lumber. “Creating lumber basically makes a square out of a circle. That extra is usually waste, but not when you’re making biochar.”
On Leaning in with Focus:
At one point, Bob decided to start with 5 ideas. “I figured 3 would get funded, and 1 would work. But all 5 got funded and started working.” He realized he was spread too thin. And he came up with a system he calls the fractal of innovation. “Basically, it’s a process that allows you to get deeper and deeper into an idea until you find that sweet spot.
“In the first tier, you become acquainted that something exists. Moving to the second tier, you want to find out more about it. Next, in the third tier, you begin exploring the lack. There is a lot of research and trial and error in this tier. This is the phase when you find the thing that is the opportunity within the opportunity.”
Finally, the fourth tier is all about innovation. “The innovation becomes so clear to you that it becomes common sense. Like when Steve Jobs said, ‘what’s the best pointer? Your finger!’”
Dive
Dive is a mobile application for effective networking. “You’re network is your net worth.” Taking the “work out of networking,” Dive is driven by an algorithm that combs through the content you produce on social media to find trends (“groupings” in Dive lingo). On LinkedIn, for example, a person might post about innovation. On Facebook, the user might post about longboarding. On Twitter, he or she will post about sports scores. Dive interprets those trends to render a ‘Dive Score.’ “You see not only how many people have things in common with you, but more importantly, your groupings.”
“Dive is about being extremely relevant—find the right information within all of the information.”
The Future: Universities, Cities, and Beyond “Show, don’t tell.”
Bob envisions a future with with brick-and-mortar manifestations of his philosophy, including schools and communities.
Bob Cirino University
Bob intends on buying thousands of acres of land to represent every single biome on earth. “I want to go on a grand Darwinian adventure and bring back stuff.” He cites the Barnes Foundation as inspiration. “What lives on is what we give. I want to have a curated collection of ‘life,’ like Barnes curates art.”
Cities
In order to reinvigorate the natural productivity of an area, Bob plans to find devalued land, and lease it to farmers at a local level. “I’m going to use sun and rain to grow money.” With this model, he envisions building a city from the farm up. “Like George Washington built the United States of America.”
Bob Cirino was our startup meetup speaker on January 27, 2015.
There is a joyous fearlessness in Melissa Alam. Her latest venture is The Hive, a coworking space for female entrepreneurs in Old City. Although she’s only officially been on the entrepreneur path since graduating from Temple University’s marketing program in 2010, really, she’s been an entrepreneur since grade school.
“Growing up, I was obsessed with magazines like Teen. The boys in my sixth grade class felt weird about buying them, but they’d come to my locker and want the pictures of the hot chicks. So I made bundles of photos and sold them to people for $1.
2010: “I’m a Leo, so I’m a power hungry person.”
Melissa grew into her own as a force, leading a small new sorority on Temple’s campus. She also started a blog. “It was a way for me to get better at writing. I never had the confidence to be a writer, and I have the worst memory. So it was kind of an online diary.”
2011: “I realized I wanted to do something where I was in full control.”
She got a job at SEO but quit after a year. “I wasn’t feeling creative any more, so I needed to move on.”
2012: “2012 was my year of freelance, and I loved it.”
She began designing web sites and blogs on a freelance basis. “When clients asked me for something I didn’t know, I’d say yes! And then Google it.” It was an exhilarating year. “ I loved being in the wild in my career. Being on your own teaches you the art of the hustle.”
2013: “Starting the magazine put me on the path to female empowerment.”
Drawing on her experience as a blogger, she started Femme and Fortune magazine. “I wanted something more professional than just a blog. So I thought, ‘why not start my own magazine.’ It caters to ambitious women.”
2014: “2014 is the year that changed my life.”
Melissa moved all her content to melissaalam.com, and the move felt right. “This is when I got cooler in my branding. I used serifs. I used a single color palette. I created the logo I still use today.”
Interviewing a host of women for her blog got her thinking bigger. “All these women I was meeting and talking to were building these awesome businesses. I thought, ‘Why can’t I?’”
An acquaintance ran into her and mentioned that his office was up for rent on Craigslist. That conversation sparked an idea. “I found an office space, called up the company, and told them I want to open a co-working space for women. I want to provide workshops and resources for women who don’t have as much time to do their own research.”
In September she signed the lease. Then, Technical.ly Philly picked up her story. “I got a lot of interest from women. It’s like this is what I’ve been building myself up for.”
2015: “Confidence is a ladder we’re always climbing.”
As of this month, she has 10 women in The Hive. Tonight she’s hosting an event for one of them. “She’s a health and fitness coach, so she’s doing a talk on eating healthy for entrepreneurs.” Also on the radar are The Hive awards, which recognize the efforts of women in STEM careers.
“With enough support and enough people to help you, anything is possible. Trading services, being available…all that has helped me.”
Melissa Alam was our Startup Meetup presenter on January 20, 2015.
Dr. Chao Chen, Co-Portfolio Manager at TFS Capital
“In August 2007, our fund lost a lot of value very quickly, and we didn’t know why. It was a period where we had to face the fears of maybe losing the company, and losing money for investors. We learned a lot from pulling through that experience.”
— Dr. Chao Chen, Co-Portfolio Manager at TFS Capital
“What I did was nothing special—I took a chance and worked hard.”
— Dr. Chao Chen, Co-Portfolio Manager at TFS Capital
“I realized, in America the way you succeed is much more about taking risks and doing something on your own, believing in yourself.”
— Dr. Chao Chen, Co-Portfolio Manager at TFS Capital
“You have to put yourself out there, and be there when the opportunity happens.”
— Dr. Chao Chen, Co-Portfolio Manager at TFS Capital
“Talking to investors is always somewhat awkward. You want to sound very smart, but you can’t really say anything to reveal what your strategy is. So you have to use a lot of words to make you sound really sophisticated. And I was terrible at that.”
— Dr. Chao Chen, Co-Portfolio Manager at TFS Capital
After graduating with a B.S in Information Systems, Neill held positions as a web developer and a software engineer for the US Department of Defense. Neill later moved to West Chester and began working for an international system integrator, specializing in data-center hosting with a focus on VMWare, Cisco and Linux. Neill currently runs cloud computing product at Evolve IP. 
