Eighth annual entrepreneurship conference
Phil Benson & Petros Sakkis, WG'05
Issue date: 12/6/04 Section: News
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The 8th Annual Entrepreneurship Conference broke all previous attendance records with over 500 participants. This year's conference featured keynote speeches from Jeffrey Citron, CEO of Vonage; David Morgan, founder of Real Media; and Josh Kopelman, founder of Half.com.
The morning keynote was a great start to the conference, with serial-entrepreneur Jeffrey Citron advising would-be entrepreneurs to be prepared to shake things up and avoid hosting reality TV shows (a reference to Wharton alum Donald Trump's recent financial troubles). He also spoke about the importance of distribution, marketing, and customer focus as things that can make or break a new venture, and encouraged entrepreneurs to stay focused on their value proposition to the customer instead of on the naysayers, the hype, the competitive landscape or potential exit strategies. Citron talked about the types of opportunities that interest him most and the common themes were large potential markets with big, entrenched competitors who cannot change and adapt quickly to disruptive innovation. When asked how one should approach the regulatory environment, his response was (1) hire a lot of lawyers and (2) hire another group of lawyers to check their work.
He reminded people that lawyers are there to help the entrepreneur mitigate risk, not to run the business. Citron answered questions about his company's profitability and potential competitors (such as Skype in Europe, and more established telecoms in the US) with flair before turning over the floor for the morning's panels. These included sessions on Entrepreneurship through Acquisition, Idea Generation and Validation, as well as Social Entrepreneurship, and Creative Financing.
Highlights from the Financing panel included a discussion around the role of angel investing. Panelists revealed the little-known fact that angel investors currently represent a larger source of capital than do more traditional VCs, and that government grant programs represent a source of $3.5 billion of "free money" for R&D.
As of noon, the luncheon keynotes and afternoon panels were expected to generate an even larger crowd than those in the morning. The luncheon speakers include Josh Kopelman, Wharton alum and founder of Half.com among other businesses, as well as Dave Morgan, the CEO of TACODA systems and founder of Real Media.
Afternoon activities also looked promising with the negotiation session with Professor Stuart Diamond maxed out at 150 participants and the waiting list growing steadily. For would-be entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, today's conference demonstrated just how vibrant the entrepreneurial community is in and around Wharton and Philadelphia.
Conference attendee Daniel Johnson summed up his experience at the conference today by saying: "I feel like it has demystified what it takes to become an entrepreneur. I'm already walking away with several new approaches to realizing my goals."
The morning keynote was a great start to the conference, with serial-entrepreneur Jeffrey Citron advising would-be entrepreneurs to be prepared to shake things up and avoid hosting reality TV shows (a reference to Wharton alum Donald Trump's recent financial troubles). He also spoke about the importance of distribution, marketing, and customer focus as things that can make or break a new venture, and encouraged entrepreneurs to stay focused on their value proposition to the customer instead of on the naysayers, the hype, the competitive landscape or potential exit strategies. Citron talked about the types of opportunities that interest him most and the common themes were large potential markets with big, entrenched competitors who cannot change and adapt quickly to disruptive innovation. When asked how one should approach the regulatory environment, his response was (1) hire a lot of lawyers and (2) hire another group of lawyers to check their work.
He reminded people that lawyers are there to help the entrepreneur mitigate risk, not to run the business. Citron answered questions about his company's profitability and potential competitors (such as Skype in Europe, and more established telecoms in the US) with flair before turning over the floor for the morning's panels. These included sessions on Entrepreneurship through Acquisition, Idea Generation and Validation, as well as Social Entrepreneurship, and Creative Financing.
Highlights from the Financing panel included a discussion around the role of angel investing. Panelists revealed the little-known fact that angel investors currently represent a larger source of capital than do more traditional VCs, and that government grant programs represent a source of $3.5 billion of "free money" for R&D.
As of noon, the luncheon keynotes and afternoon panels were expected to generate an even larger crowd than those in the morning. The luncheon speakers include Josh Kopelman, Wharton alum and founder of Half.com among other businesses, as well as Dave Morgan, the CEO of TACODA systems and founder of Real Media.
Afternoon activities also looked promising with the negotiation session with Professor Stuart Diamond maxed out at 150 participants and the waiting list growing steadily. For would-be entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, today's conference demonstrated just how vibrant the entrepreneurial community is in and around Wharton and Philadelphia.
Conference attendee Daniel Johnson summed up his experience at the conference today by saying: "I feel like it has demystified what it takes to become an entrepreneur. I'm already walking away with several new approaches to realizing my goals."