AUGUST 2020 - Lisa l City of East Palo Alto
- Laurence I AvoMD
- Tae I Storm Ventures
- Joongheum I AvoMD
- Whitney I Acceleprise
- Yair I AvoMD
“Have great hopes and dare to go all out for them. Have great dreams and dare to live them. Have tremendous expectations and believe in them.” – Norman Vincent Peale
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Editor's Note While the world continues to battle with a global pandemic, we also see endeavours to return to normal life, to economic prosperity, to healthy social dynamics.  In this edition of Founder’s Grit, while it was only natural that our insights reflected the current situation, we curated our content to provide readers with a more forward-looking and optimistic outlook. We tried to catalogue the resilience and grit of the start-up community and how incessant efforts are being made to overcome challenges.  During such times of economic distress, we find it is the small and medium businesses and the vision of innovative founders that step forward to provide new and flexible solutions to unprecedented problems. Media, in this regard, tends to be rather myopic in depicting only the shutdowns and layoffs.
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07 Featured Investor: 20 Years as a VC – Insights from Tae Hea Nahm 11 Persuasion and Negotiation: An Entrepreneurial Art 14 Featured Start-up: avoMD – Addressing The Needs of The Hour
TABLE OF C O N T E N T
18 Whitney’s Work with Acceleprise - What To Expect During COVID And Beyond 21 New York’s Resilience: SMEs Fight The Times 24 In Conversation With Lisa Gauthier - The Power Of Training And Affordable Learning Founder's Grit I Gaper.io
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Featured Investor 20 Years as a Venture Capitalist - Insights from Tae Hea Nahm Tae Hea Nahm is the co-founding Managing Director of Storm Ventures which is a VC firm focused on early-stage, B2B enterprise investments. Having spent the past two decades in the VC arena means that he has seen businesses, new and old go through it all. The dot com bubble meltdown, 9/11, the 2008 financial recession, and now a global pandemic; the entrepreneurial sector has always faced unprecedented challenges and constraints causing some entities to strengthen, and some to disappear from these spheres. Â Tae Hea is also the co-author of Survival to Thrival - a book that is a guide to staying afloat but also flourishing in the entrepreneurial world. Gaper had a quick but insightful chat with him about the recent dynamics the business arena has been forced to adapt to.
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The ‘Entrepreneurial DNA’ Across The World Most importantly perhaps, a major trait that individuals need to develop in this area of work is self-awareness. Stubbornness, and resistance to change benefits nobody, not least a business facing ever-evolving variables.
The ‘Entrepreneurial DNA’ Across The World Storm Ventures has invested aggressively beyond the Silicon Valley, particularly in Korean companies. His engagement with diverse start-ups and founders has made one thing clear. The ‘entrepreneurial DNA’ does not vary by the region one is operating from. It is exclusively a reflection of how passionate and determined one is in being the creative and driving force behind a business entity they have created. And though such a hackneyed thought seems far too trivial, it is consistently observed by business leaders and investors across the world.
This point is actually stressed by a lot of professionals in this field though each has their own way of putting it in words. Regardless of how sure you are of your strategies and plans, you need to consistently re-evaluate them in light of exogenous and endogenous factors. Making mistakes is only natural and expected. They just need to be followed by learning.
Secondly, another characteristic of a successful entrepreneur Tae Hae observed was integrity. Integrity is what allows you to bind teams together and see them through challenging stages. Founder's Grit I Gaper.io
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A PANDEMIC COUPLED WITH ANOTHER RECESSION? Interestingly, what stands out to Tae Hea
However, these constraints have forced firms
about the current economic conundrum
and their teams to learn more innovative and
being faced by the world, is the digital
streamlined ways of doing everyday business
acceleration that it is fueling. According to
operations. Customers and clients are being
him, developments that would otherwise
interacted with new ways that are more
have taken five years are being fast-tracked
technology-centered than before.
and have surfaced within five months. This has made sales processes way more Only a few months before, businesses and their clients had to meet to discuss and close deals. Some social interactions were even encouraged by cultural norms as Tae Hea recounts the
digital communication processes do not discriminate between global or local clients; everyone is able to engage with each other remotely in a uniform manner.
Korean tradition of drinking together being a significant part of the sales process. COVID-19
Within companies, managers aren’t monitoring
has decommissioned all social encounters,
and supervising their employees like they did in
whether personal or business.
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efficient for many businesses. To a large extent,
offices.
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“What would normally take five years, we’re seeing in five months”. Storm Ventures plan to adopt a fully distributed business model later in the year. Tae Hea fully acknowledges the discomfort and unfamiliarity that will be associated with such a change but also believes that it will help them become better investors. Unit Economic Business Model For Start-ups? Since almost a year now, VCs have advised startups to adopt a unit economic business model. This entails looking at a startups revenues and costs with respect to a specific unit that creates value for the venture. For Tae Hea, as an investor, the longer the runway, the better. What he recommends for businesses to is to come out of the pandemic with a revised forecast, because the post-COVID business world will differ from the one we have left behind. Revenue forecasts need to be adjusted flexibly to accurately determine what your expenses will look like. He also highlights how holding cash during such a time is simply not a practical approach.
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Persuasion and Negotiations:
An Entrepreneurial Art
Too many agents, remarkably deserving in their own right, falter at the idea of negotiation. Negotiating business deals, investments, contracts. Negotiating a salary raise that is long overdue. A change in work dynamics that are much needed. Perhaps it is the fear of disturbing the pre-existent power dynamics that dictate each party’s bargaining powers. Or maybe people are just averse to any sort of ‘conflict’ in formal environments. And perhaps negotiations have become harder in the previous few years and indeed months. Parties are more open to settling and deciding issues over video calls, phone calls, even emails. While these communication mediums reduce the impression of ‘confrontation’ during discussions, they also remove a lot of information that is immediately available. Thus, the approach to negotiations oft-employed at a meeting room table should differ appropriately from those used during a video conference.
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Be Prepared Specifically in situations where you find that you or your party do not hold the same level of bargaining power due either to the other’s stature in their firm, influence in the industry, experience or any other reason, being well-prepared beforehand always helps. This includes not just the particulars of the deal you are trying to settle upon, but also relevant pointers to support your position and provide counterarguments to theirs. Digital communication can actually play to your advantage here. Somehow, online interactions inhibit people from exercising the full effect of their eminence or power as compared to eye-to-eye interactions. This is something that negotiators can then harness to drive forward their arguments. In an online setting, the other person cannot see how you’re dressed or how imposing you are or how impressive your office is. Because physical nudges lose a lot of their potence in remote communication cases, the onus of persuasion and repute-building falls singularly on the substance of your spoken words. Founder's Grit I Gaper.io
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Build A Rapport With The Other Party… ...prior to your meetings and negotiations. Schedule a casual, short video call a few days before the actual meeting where you don’t discuss anything related to work. Or, if possible, have a short meetup where again, you talk nothing about the upcoming negotiations. Keep these meetings short and brief though since both parties would no doubt be busy and not exactly free to spend more than a few minutes on social trivialities. Such casual and light-hearted interactions before a formal business meeting catalyse the smooth flow of negotiations and collaboration. They serve to reduce the impact of otherwise contentious discussions. Meetings will be more likely to end in a win-win solution. “I'm going to have to ask you to turn on your camera...” None of us like to hear this do we? But video features are the only element that inject the sense of “being there” in online calls. And you do want that touch of presence - that human factor if you will - when you are negotiating online rather than talking to profile pictures. Chances are, the little hair fix or shirt change you may have to do will go a long way in securing a favorable outcome for you and your firm. In short, you can’t expect digital negotiations to pan out in the same manner as face-to-face ones. Being well-prepared beforehand will give you more returns than trying to improvise quips on the spot. But also, interacting on some casual and friendly terms prior to a negotiation can help mitigate some of the rigidities and strains typically bedeviling such meetings. Adapting these tips to your situation will depend on the dynamics of the negotiation you need to deal with. You may not enjoy it, but a well-executed meeting might just be what your business needs to take off the runway.
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Featured Start-up - avoMD -
Addressing the Needs of the Hour We probably couldn’t have found as perfect a start-up for the month as avoMD. At a time in our world when doctors and medical professionals are facing a barrage of new information in the form of research, political noise and well, a global pandemic, avoMD is endeavouring to bring forth a much needed digital update to the health sector. Thing is, we cannot exclusively attribute the bottlenecks and the highly stressed state of health systems to demand and supply dynamics. It is also the infrastructure of health institutions that has resisted digital innovations in dictating its growth specifically when compared to other rapidly growing sectors.
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However, this is quite expected in the current times. Hospital budgets have been hard hit since the global COVID-19 pandemic. Their priorities have naturally shifted from introducing tech-driven upgrades to their sector to dealing with an aggressively contagious virus. Â But on the flip side, given the kind of information dilemmas the medical
inadequate interfaces and workflow
community is now faced with, the urgency
integrations at the end of both the patients
of the need for services like avoMD’s has
and the physician make the health system
become even more obvious.
inefficient and create problems for both agents.
The problem they address is the general
Â
inaccessibility of medical knowledge at the
Their service is simple enough and achieves
point of care - an issue that has spiraled
its functionality well. avoMD has developed a
into an alarming emergency as of late.
digital personal assistant of sorts to aid doctors in making better clinical decisions. The app takes its users - the clinicians through a comprehensive outline of the process of diagnosis and treatment and is able to present additional information in order for physicians to understand reasonings behind any recommendation.
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avoMD came into being when co-founder Yair Saperstein developed an interest in clinical informatics, a field that combines IT and medicine. He then met Joongheum “PJ” Park, his cofounder at avoMD, who shared his work on a digital tool that was to aid decision making for doctors. This integration of IT and
- Joongheum “PJ” Park
only a matter of months for the company to incorporate, receive acceptance from the NYCEDC E-Lab accelerator, and eventually raising its initial $100,000.
medicine instantly appealed to Yair who then began to learn about developing decision pathways. He was able to achieve success with the one that he created for Diabetic Ketoacidosis. avoMD took off from there and made its app store debut. It was then
avoMD’s tool is by no means a digital doctor. It does not replace the human decision-making capabilities that medical professionals are capable of exercising. It is present as a personal aide which provides instant access to relevant information from
- Laurence Coman
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- Yair Saperstein
a vast pool of research. Part of the reason that Laurence Coman, COO at avoMD, feels that the hospitals specifically are resistant to innovative, AI-led developments is because there is still more to be desired from the technologies available. If tech is to work alongside doctors, the AI systems need to match the knowledge and decision-making prowess of these professionals. Such solutions, therefore, need to be very carefully structured and thought through before the medical community accepts them. 16
The future of work... ‌is not remote, according to Laurence. While he believes that some elements of work will see their future in a remote or virtual setting, like telehealth. But working from home comes with a lot of challenges, not least to the mental health of people who would then be confined to their homes without any social interactions. Most people want that break from life that they get by going to a workplace. Life at home also poses certain challenges to the productivities of individuals, especially when the work involves time-specific and sensitive aspects.
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FOR S T R UGGLING ENTR E P R ENEURS AND F O U NDERS Laurence is optimistic in his views on running new business during these distressing times. He finds that there is a lot of innovation that can be done (and needs to be done) during chaos. Also, because the lockdown has greatly enhanced a lot of people’s free time owing time saved through not commuting and socializing, there is a lot of room for working any side projects and businesses one might have had.  In conclusion, it is rather refreshing to chat with someone who has very realistic views on a negative situation but is also forward-looking and optimistic about the possibilities for improvement and changes that can be taken for the long-term good of the business community.
Whitney's Work with Acceleprise What To Expect During COVID And Beyond When we spoke to Whitney, a while back, she had already laid claim to launching over a hundred companies with their go to market products. This is apart from the consultancy and previous experience with the portfolio she’s had. Her years of experience in the accelerator ecosystem compelled her to share, that while there may be an influx of accelerators and incubators in the start-up world, if you are not in the top 20 globally, the going gets pretty hard. Accelerators are evolving and they have to. The pandemic has definitely changed things up a bit. There is still a lot of value for founders who are trying to learn how to start companies, and those looking to learn best practices and plugging into a larger
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community of operators. “You can glean some insights into how to scale a business successfully.” With uncertainty in the market, on what’s going to happen when the economy opens up, post-COVID, investors are cutting back. Nevertheless, good founders always find investments. Go to market models are now becoming a more critical component when considering to invest. Founders should therefore be prudent about how they put forward their ideas and conceptualize the whole notion into a reality. Not only have the accelerators accommodated for COVID, traditional office space too has and is evolving during this time. “I expect the actual office space to change quite a bit; and that’s going to shift a number of things. There’s going to be a nice domino effect across the work environment. Digitizing a number of areas and trying to streamline the remote workspace; and the working from home space is going to be a new market that I expect to boom quite a bit. I’m already starting to see that in the start-ups in the portfolio that actually catered to those markets.” This only goes to show, that Acceleprise is already factoring in the change in the office real estate environment, and what it now means to accelerate start-ups in the new normal.
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Sharing a bit about the investment side of things, Whitney notes that “VCs that are more likely to invest in your space in a down market are those who are actually pretty familiar with the market.” This is to reduce risk as VCs understand market dynamics better. “They have relationships in the space to help push that product to market, and support the founder a little bit better.” She pushes founders to research the funding space for their particular product and go to market model and approach such teams – “target the funds that have some experience in the space.” She also suggests and advises founders to try and raise more money than they think they need right away. COVID being the current deterrent, no one knows how long it is going to last or how it’s going to impact the market. “Give yourself the extra runway. There’s a lot of unknowns.” To sum it up we leave with some sage parting words: “EXPECT IT TO TAKE MORE TIME”
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New York's Resiliance SMES FIGHT THE TIMES
it surpassed the growth rates of nearly all other industries on all economic fronts. These developments have brought a welcomed diversity to the business ecosystem in NYC which was previously dominated by Wall Street. The recent pandemic, however, has subjected a lot of these firms to a forced and sudden change in how they continue work. Relative to other industries, notably the restaurant and
The tech sector of New York City has seen
hotel industry, tech firms have not been
tremendous growth in the past decade where Founder's Grit I Gaper.io
hit as hard. 21
US start-ups managed to raise over
Rather tech employees have been able to
$30Â billion of funding at a time when the
regroup as remote teams and keep their
pandemic was raging. Firms are now
firms afloat. But not all. Some firms have
attractive to investors based on how well
seen growth in their client-base and had to expand their teams as a result. Gaper is one of them. Some have struggled to
they are capable of adapting to sudden changes. Online trading start-up Robinhood amassed $600 million during
generate sales revenues, retain team
the months of May and July owing to a
members or achieve fundraising targets.
steep rise in the number of people
This is simply because there are niche
choosing to try their hand at trading
markets within the tech industry. Firms
during quarantine.
whose clients were restaurants, hotels, student accommodations, home-rentals
Start-ups and small businesses can aptly
or clubs would have faced a dramatic
be considered as the spearheads of
decline in sales and revenue. But those
innovation and problem-solving. When
whose products included digital
veteran firms are struggling to continue
collaboration tools, communication platforms, educational software or games would have seen a boost in demand for
business normally, these new firms come through with revitalising solutions. A
their output.
restaurant faced with a fall in customers
Despite these challenges, NYC tech firms
based home delivery solutions. This is
is brought back to life with applicationexactly the kind of vision that New York
have been resilient. Funding rounds have
needs in its business circles to carry it out
not stopped. New products are being made to meet new demand: pre-prepared meals, delivery services, learning
The city has begun to open back up now.
platforms, online mortgage companies,
An interesting question that merits
telemedicine, streaming services. The
discussion is whether a return to office
industry is rife with opportunities and
spaces is required or not - at least for tech
many are eagerly taking them.
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of the dire straits it has been pushed into.
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firms. If teams and employees were able
workspaces. But changes need to be
to organize themselves on digital
made where required. Turning a
platforms and continued to reach
dismissive eye towards adopting remote
productivity targets (sometimes even
work (whenever possible) will only
beyond), what are the arguments in favor
portray you as an inflexible firm which is
of a return to offices? Will work-from-
resistant to changes that your
home setups be abandoned just for the
competitors are happy to make.
sake of going back to the pre-pandemic
Returning back to normal life does not
normal? Or can firms justify the choice to
necessarily entail an exact re-installation
call everyone back?
of pre-pandemic work structures. Rather
Â
it should be treated as an opportunity to
This pandemic was able to push everyone
upgrade your firm and get ahead of
into kick-starting an organized routine of
others.
remote work. While many believe that it is only right to resume office-based work, no one can deny that the seeds of working-from-home possibilities have been sown. Many remote teams actually ended up performing more efficiently and productively than previously believed. Firms have saved a lot of costs. Companies were able to recruit talent and experts from diverse locations without being restricted by geographical constraints anymore. Many will, no doubt, want to take these developments forward.  In a diverse and bustling city like New York, it is indeed unconventional to see a decline in business activities in office and
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IN CONVERSATION WITH LISA GAUTHIER The Power of Affordable Training & Learning Lisa is living proof and an inspiration to many to persevere in pursuit of your goals. Gauthier served as the mayor of East Palo Alto twice: once in 2014 and then in 2019. While talking to Lisa she told how she almost missed the opportunity but was gracefully encouraged by her daughter not to. Gauthier was one of the first 20 people who were selected for the working scholars program by study.com and went on to complete her bachelors, a dream she never thought she would fulfill. “As a single mother of 3 young adults, my priority was always their education over mine” Where Covid-19 has affected the global economy and has altered lives and the way we perceive work, Gauthier is hopeful and believes this will allow an opportunity for people to see that communities are stronger when they work together.
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“When I was asked to run for office I never thought that was something I could do. My daughter, who was then in college, overheard me say "no" to this opportunity once and told me I trust your decision making, you can do it.” She went on to say that the effects of
workforce development programs such
the pandemic have been felt in the
as asking companies to hire at least
Silicon Valley as well. With cities like
15% of their workforce from East Palo.
East Palo that are already deficient in school funding, there is the realization
In an effort to build the community of
that it’s behind in the tech sector as
East Palo and to develop the workforce
well.
further, the council partnered with
Amazon to establish a career centre
One thing that the council is now focusing on is organizational training to help keep people on jobs and to train them with skill sets that will allow them to earn at least a minimum wage. Much like the training at Gaper Academy | Nerdii, a project of Gaper.io, that was initiated in an attempt to bridge the gap between the lack of software
opportunity to work at Amazon, given they have the skills. On top of this, people will be offered services such as resume building and training to help them get the skills they need. Our conversation with Gauthier led us
developers in the market and their
to the conclusion that the Industry
growing demand in coming years.
placement aspect of Gaper academy
Adding to this, Gauthier also highlights the importance of inclusivity in
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that would allow any individual the
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was indeed a great idea and we aim to grow it further.
AN INSIGHT INTO WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT AND MEETING THE SHORTAGE
Lisa Gauthier was recently named as one of the 100 outstanding Silicon Valley professionals selected to be in the 2020 class of Women of Influence. She is both a woman of business as much as of learning. A staunch advocate on the importance of affordable learning and training, Gauthier now serves as the Government Affairs Manager at Study.com. When Amazon first approached the city of East Palo, they were facing a shortage of 300 engineers. In fact, the current state of the US software developer market stands at a shortage of about 50,000 developers and it is estimated around the same number are due to retire in coming years. This means that by the year 2021, there will be a shortage of 1.4 million software developers with only 400,000 graduates. There is an estimated increase of 21% in the employment of software developers but over 80% of Americans have reported to not being able to afford a college education.
WHAT LIES AHEAD? Speaking at the first graduation ceremony of the Working Scholars Program, Gauthier mentioned that the accessibility of such programs allow a huge learning opportunity for people who otherwise cannot afford traditional education. Â To further develop workforce and to reduce the risk of unemployment there is a need for collaborative work towards a unified goal. One way to achieve this is to work with Independent Organizations, NGOs, Small Businesses and Startups to come up with personalized training boot camps that can maximize productivity. Founder's Grit I Gaper.io
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