Building a Unicorn in 2025 What it Takes to Achieve Mega Growth

[Music] hello thank you for joining us oh I I have a very loud voice so I always have to remind myself not to put the mic very close I might have louder voice yeah I think we need to wake up the room so it's good thank you for the great introduction as as usual this guy is amazing um so as was mentioned everyone what we're going to be discussing is what it takes to achieve mega growth and build a unicorn in 2025 so I want to give you a few numbers here so you can grasp the magnitude of the amount of unicorns that are in existence in the world right now um as of 2024 there are over 1,549 unicorns globally spanning around 53 countries and and 291 cities you can calculate how much money that is this marks a notable increase from previous years with the number Rising significantly since the year 2019 where the number of unicorns in that year was 494 unicorns only so that's three 34x uh increase so with Andy here we'll be discussing what it takes to achieve rapid growth from securing the right funding to navigating market dynamics and building a sustainable business model that attracts both investors and customers this session will explore the strategies challenges and key factors involved in scaling a startup into a unicorn in the year 2025 or in general actually um but before I begin I wanted to do a small poll of our audience so we can really benefit from Andy's great experience here uh so my question is in the audience who here is a business owner Works in a startup or wants to know as a business owner as a startup how to build a unicorn company so if you're a founder or a business owner right yeah don't be shy that's a good amount yeah right okay awesome and who in the audience is an investor or wants to learn more about investing and having the foresight great now you've been exposed they'll come after you after okay I think we have more startups that or business owners than investors but we'll we'll do a mix of both so that everyone can benefit from this session so before we begin I'd like Andy to make a small introduction just so the audience can be maybe a fun fact how what do you think about that I think that would be cool right a fun fact is uh I you know this trip coming to Abu Dhabi I was thinking I was looking at my pport like just curious where I've been so the last 10 years I've been to UAE more than any other country on earth I thought that's pretty interesting and by by the way you're thinking ah this guy probably lives like two hours away no it took I live in the San Francisco area it took me a while to get here so definitely it's not a a trip of convenience right it's a trip with a lot of intention um and I kind of looked back in my career based on the passport exercise that I did so before that uh time in Singapore so I've been traveling to Singapore that was the highest frequency country before that China before that New York I'm not sure if this is a leading or lagging indic Ator of global economy but certainly there's some kind of indicator I'll leave it up to you certainly I agree all right so let's begin with a question that I had for both investors and entrepreneurs and I think everyone can benefit from this one so as a VC what are you looking for in a company before you invest in it how do you evaluate startups for potential unicorn status are there any metrics that are stable or are they ever changing for you uh so first of all um is a just this kind of as background I'm an early stage uh investor uh you know I typically invest in two people and a piece of paper and sometimes with a dog some sometimes without a dog right um so very early and um I tend to gravitate my myself towards um you know what I call the bleeding edge right so it's beyond deep Tech basically the things I invest in They Don't Really materialize until 5 10 years later so uh your question is good which is that what am I looking for and I could tell you pretty much at that level it at that stage it's very difficult to tell so I often time think about instead of um uh sort of um nurture versus uh nature um you both identify the Unicorn as well as raising it so how do I identify um unicorns there are three things I look for one um I look for companies that would go after a very large market right very large Market because Market is one of those things I can change and they can change so large n Market uh number two we want to deal with Founders um uh who are both uh passionate about the business as well as have some knowledge they don't necessarily have to be an expert right sometimes having too much knowledge is a setback there's a us we have a saying uh you don't know what you don't know you don't know what you don't know sometimes it's a bad thing but sometimes it's a good thing it turns out for early stage investing you don't know what you don't know is a good thing because you will try things that have failed before but suddenly is workable now when you try it um lastly what I look for is a uh product or some sort of Advantage they have that is for prioritary against their competitors so those are the three things I look for I look for the market I look for the team and I look for the specific um characteristics of the product I think this is a good way to kick it off just to know these Basics but speaking to the entrepreneurs and the audience here I think a lot of them would want to know what the potential pitfalls for entrepreneurs uh when it comes to fundraising especially uh in a more competitive market as you said right so um so we so we as a fund dripper Associates we fund about uh 20 to 30 startups a year so we have volume this is early sort of you know preed cstage companies uh the I I would say looking back some of the most disappointing fundraise that I have for the founders not for me equally for me is when um Founders lose track of the uh the most important thing in the fundraise and that is to capitalize the business right that is the most important thing because as you're a Founder you are probably uh you've identify a um a highly um uh attractive opportunity right the only thing you lack is funding whether you get stuck on terms or valuation and cause you to not capitalize or delay time that will cost you more than um anything else so my suggestion is to find um the right investor and then don't get hung up on um the the terms uh and the other thing is uh there's a class that I um teach um in Silicon Valley um it's called fundraising and dating right believe it or not it is a uh very fun class and useful class in dating there's a concept of getting settled right you don't want to settle but when you're fundraising you actually want to make sure you don't intently sort of wait for that uh perfect match right you actually do want to find mathematically I call that the uh the local maximum and so the global maximum people can spend a lifetime looking for that Global maximum don't do that so local maximum is good okay um so of course all of us can agree that being a unicorn or becoming a unicorn is hard enough but I think people rarely talk about remaining as a unicorn company do you think you've reached that status already staying in that on that pedestal let's say is that challenging as well and how do you assess the long-term sustainability of a business in general interesting enough if you're a startup you're successful right and successful you know in the early stage just mean that you know have a high valuation you have your Revenue whatever you're not really you're not really done yet it's you're just getting started but if you trace back I could guarant gue you n out of 10 startups why you are successful it's because something intrinsic in you the founder right it could be the people it could be the culture so Steve Jobs have once said a players hire a players b players who do they hire the audience this is a smart audience what do B players hire C players they don't hire B players right so I think it's really important you remember if you're successful it's only temporary as a as a startup you got to keep the culture right the culture is what allows you to keep winning um let's speak to the investors a little bit so investors are often seen as a source of financial uh back I feel like they should raise their hands again so the the founders could identify them after the meeting please don't be shy raise your hands yes investors investors in the audience raise them high I'm proud all right very good so all of the entrepreneurs here these are your you know who to look for all right your ladies and your your guys you're welcome I'm doing you a favor I do you a solid all right so I think these gentlemen and the ladies can agree that usually investors are looked at as you know Financial uh backers but the value they bring I think you can agree Andy extends far beyond that so in your experience what are the most effective ways that youve found um that investors can actively support Founders uh during challenging periods and not just funding so this can include strategic decision- making team building and navigating Market shifts is also a good one hope hopefully by now you realize I like to use analogies so about 23 years ago um I inadvertently climbed killer monjaro this was after you know business school we decided to go to Africa and we said well what are we going to do well there was a mountain we should go climb it so we showed up no idea right so sometimes you will bump into Founders like that they kind of embark on a big journey and these were great Founders right no fault of their own they just weren't exactly prepared so my job as an investor in those situations uh is to be a good guide right so I just remember as we're climbing oh my gosh we wanted to turn back every five six hours and it gets more and more difficult right uh investors are not Porters we not we don't qualify to be Porters uh we are not even qualified to be your guide for the whole journey some of us will come in as part of the journey to guide you uh my rule of thumb for being a good investor and a board member is uh what I call my doctor friends would tell me Do no harm okay because it's their journey in fact they're the experts I'm not the expert I'm a I'm a financial backer I'm a I'm a a guide I've seen this journey many times before but it's never the same Journey interesting enough right so I think the most important thing is we kind of kind of keep them on track when things are so bad I want to remind them I've seen that the journeys got even worse and they turn around and when things are so good don't get your head so big because I've seen many people fall off the top of the cliff one wrong step so just keep at it and speaking of what you've seen and your breadth of experience obviously in the investing um field I'm curious what is the company that you view as your best investment I know you your portfolio includes companies like telegram like Ledger but in your view what characteristics did that company that you view was your best investment yes have tricky question that's almost like which baby do you have that's I only have two right um that that's that you like the most but I always like to say people love the babies when you're young they were like oh so cute right so I I'll use my my latest unicorn that was born this year right uh unexpectedly it was a it was a planned uh it was a planned baby but unexpectedly became a unicorn uh it's a company by the name of AKO uh it's two uh MIT Engineers so I went to school there I went to visit and I met them 10 11 years ago they were husband wife team that's actually I have a I have a decent record with husband and wife teams um both Engineers both nuclear Engineers right it generally that's not a very hot Department definitely not 10 years ago so to find two of them husband wife and H that's kind of unique um 10 years later you know they you know got into Data Center you know they as you know the rest was history because aien isot so they went public and people now realize oh my gosh this technology is great we could use it it's clean uh we don't need transmission distribution so this they became a unicorn so I I love the new baby yeah sounds good um I've I've done some research about some of your your classes and one thing that you've said and that really you know I think people will be curious about as well is that you've invested in a company and you're going to that first board meeting and you said after you've just invested it's a very stressful meeting that usually brings bad news so can you expand on that and do you have advice for early investors going into that first meeting after they've just know L is very polite online you'll see something more vulgar like the old moment right uh I I my recommendation is actually for the entrepreneurs to be more transparent let us know all the challenges we are professional investors a lot of times you'd be surprised how much with could stomach uh what is difficult for us to St often time is the uh are the surprises right and then Our advice to the other investors my personal brand is probably the most important thing if I have a deal that's not doing so good or whatever I would always tell the new investors because I don't want to accidentally ruin them for the next deal last question I'm going to give it to the audience do we want to give that to the entrepreneurs yes Make Some Noise you have to advocate for yourself you can just sit there or to the technology um I think I'll think I'll end it with just the top three things that you've learned throughout your years yeah and maybe the advice to the entrepreneurs that are that are in the audience they're top dos and don'ts just one here and one there uh for entrepreneurs the dos and don'ts um I think you want it's a relationship building it goes back to the dating experience right you really want to make sure it's the right fit you don't you don't want to you don't want to get in business with the wrong people so I think building that relationship and really build that trust over time is the way to go and whatever you do uh make sure you um you stay consistent right um so that that's probably the best generic advice I would give all right unfortunately our time is up everyone let's please give a hand for Andy Tang from Draper Associates can I can I just implore you on one last thing I no here so it says Draper Associates give me your best pitch all right so if you're an entrepreneur come talk to me afterwards you could give me your best pitch and then for the best pitch I'll give you this ball awesome than so fun thank [Music]