The ever-popular TechFire “Fireside Chat” returns this Wednesday, December 13 when Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati hosts a panel discussion on team building and company culture.
This event, which starts at 6 p.m. at Luma Launch on 2nd Street in Santa Monica, will be TechFire’s final event of the year.
This event is part of TechFire’s ongoing theme, “The Road to Series A.”
Speakers will include: Anna Nitschke, Eniac Ventures (Head of Platform & Operations); Lauren Barnett of TriNet; Blaine Graboyes, CEO of GameCo; Steve Weiss, CEO of MuteSix (named by Inc. Magazine as One of the Best Workplaces for 2017); and a partner from Wilson Sonsini who will discuss employee benefits and compensation.
Panelists will explore methods to attract, hire, and retain a diverse, well-balanced team that will be ready for Series A when the company gets to that stage. Series A is generally considered a company’s first big capital raise, after taking friends and family family money as far as it will go.
Speakers will also discuss employment benefits & compensation, how to build a brand that aids in recruiting, and how to minimize HR headaches and pitfalls.
Following the panel, there will be an interactive discussion with the audience, followed by a networking reception with appetizers and drinks.
Tickets are by invitation only. Priority will be given to those from startups with seed (or later stage) funding. Go to TechFire.co to learn more.
In September, TechFire hosted a discussion with Greylock Capital’s growth advisor in residence, Casey Winters. Winters has worked with Pinterest, Airbnb, Reddit, GrubHub, Eventbrite and Tinder.
This event also took place at Luma Launch.
Winters spent much time going over the importance of product-market fit.
The best measurement of this, he said, is if “people would be really pissed if your site went away.”
Winters said it’s important to understand what consumer behavior was before your product arrived on the scene – and what other, existing products your site might replace.
The goal, he said, is to make your new entry a habit for users – something they use without even thinking.
It’s also important, Winters noted, to explore the cost of acquiring customers. It’s possible to “buy traffic” by placing ads on Facebook, he noted – but is the return on investment sufficient to justify the spending?
The cost of acquiring a customer (CPA) should always be less than the long-term value (LTV) generated by a new customer, he said.
Winters said email blasts, done correctly, offer terrific value.
There are three key stages to product lifecycle, he continued:
1) First is the “free” phase – you give away whatever you have in the hope people will like it and talk about it – leading others to try it, too;
2) The second stage is what he called “performance marketing” – the product is working well, people like it, the company is still investing in growth;
3) Finally, we get to “brand” stage. Your product is now a household name.
But you are never really done, continued Winters. There must always be a “maniacal focus” on improving the core product, or the competition will run right by you.
Companies that last are always reducing friction and adding features that make sense.
Consumers have to like your product, of course, said Winters. But the company that will most likely go all the way, he said, is the company run by a team that believes in the company as if it’s a cause.
TechFire has, in the last year, expanded beyond its Westside roots. TechFire now regularly gives presentations in Burbank and recently hosted an event on self-driving cars at Los Angeles City Hall.
TechFire is produced by David Murphy, a regular in tech circles for many years now. He has started a few companies of his own and once conducted a research project on Los Angeles traffic that received funding from Elon Musk.
Murphy is highly connected throughout Silicon Beach and was “there at the beginning.”
Wilson Sonsini, long-time host of the TechFire “Fireside Chats,” is legendary in tech circles as “the” premier law firm.
Wilson Sonsini has worked with mega-clients like Google, Twitter, Tesla, Amazon, LinkedIn and Netflix, but is always on the lookout for promising startups.
For more information about Wilson Sonsini, go to: wsgr.com. For more information about TechFire, visit: TechFire.co.
