StartupMonthly is exited to open its first official house (we call it a Mansion) to host the new accelerator participants arriving on November 1st. These entrepreneurs will becomes part of the 2nd cohort of startups accelerated by StartupMonthly.

This 6 bedroom house with a beautiful backyard, a garden, a fireplace and a spacious living room in sunny Menlo Park/Atherton area can't wait to welcome its guests. Young entrepreneurs from Russia and Lithuania will be living here for 4 months developing their products and working towards scaling their businesses. 

The accelerator program is geared towards startup companies solving challenging problems in web, mobile, smart TV, or cloud domains. The accelerator combines seed investment, hands-on learning, and one-on-one mentorship from serial entrepreneurs, investors, and seasoned hackers. StartupMonthly also provides the orientation, acclimatization, and access to Silicon Valley and the thriving StartupMonthly ecosystem.

StartupMonthly team did their best to provide minimalistic but comfortable environment for the guest and to make them feel welcome. The house is light and spacious: cozy living room with a fireplace is a great place to rest after long productive days and to get together with other entrepreneurs to share successes, disappointments and valuable contacts. Each bedroom has 2 beds, clean soft carpets, big windows and private bathrooms. The house is equipped with fast wi-fi, a large modern kitchen and dining room room areas, a BBQ area in the backyard and of course the California sun! All these are great conditions for entrepreneurs to develop and grow their businesses. 

It's important to separate working and living space to find the right balance between work and fun, effort and rest. This is why StartupMonthly decided to locate the Mansion office within walking distance of the shared working space where the this accelerator cohort will work side by side with local entrepreneurs and their startups. 

Additional master bedroom space is available for select few visiting startups who would like comfortable inexpensive accommodations and an introduction to the StartupMonthly ecosystem. Please send an email to house@startupmonthly.com to learn how to take advantage of this opportunity. You can see the pics of the accommodations here.

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Russian Innovation Week Conference brought together leading startup entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and successful business leaders from the U.S. and Russia to mingle, connect, learn and discover opportunities for partnerships. 

Russian Innovation Week mission was to showcase the Russian Innovation and initiatives to foster innovation in Russia in order to create new partnerships with key players in Silicon Valley ecosystem.

Yuri Rabinovich and Vadim Slavin (StartupMonthly Founders) met with the main guests,  Anatoly Chubais, Rusnano, Igor Agamirzian, RVC and Dmitry Akhanov, Rusnano USA and started discussing potential cooperation with SKOLKOVO, RVC and Rusnano.

StartupMonthly moderated the pitch session with 30 companies from Russia:
Clean Tech & Energy:
Optogan, Infra Technologies,  ASLM/Empire Magnetics, Profotech, Advenira Enterprises Inc, Eos Energy Storage, LED Microsensor NT, ItN. 
Life Sciences: 
BBU Pharmaceuticals LLC, NPTpharma LLC, BiOptix Diagnostics, Panacela Inc, Bazelevs, Incuron, Sentiens LLC, CardioWave.
IT:
Balakam, iBuiidApp, Cyscom Ltd, Kuznech, 3DBIN, Penxy, Kernel Corp LLC, Auriga, ISS Art Ltd, Magru, AstroSoft, i-Free Innovations, Novosti MediaLab.
VCs: 
Rusnano Capital.

Russian Innovation Week organizers: RUSNANO, RVC, Skolkovo Foundation.
RUSNANO is a $10 billion state-backed fund based in Russia. It was founded in 2007 with an investment focus on late-stage venture capital and private equity deals in nanotechnologies. RUSNANO invests in clean energy and energy efficiency, the life sciences, medical devices, the semiconductor space and advanced materials.

RVC is a government fund of funds that channels public incentives to venture capitalists and support to the hi-tech sector. RVC was founded by the Russian government in 2006 to ensure faster development of an efficient and globally competitive innovation system and venture capital industry in Russia.

The Skolkovo Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to accelerate the transformation of Russia into an innovation-based economy through strategic partnerships with leading scientists and innovators around the world. 

Source http://riw-sv.com

by Amy Kwan
A few months ago, Steve Blank, our advisor at StartupMonthly, gave a presentation at an ARPA-E conference on the scientific method for getting technology to market, or, as he puts it, how to fail less.  In his presentation, Steve outlines ways to make startups successful.  He provides examples of startup ventures and how they utilized his tools for success.  He emphasizes that a startup’s goal must be to search for a repeatable and scalable business plan, utilizing agile engineering and a business model canvas.  

Here are some interesting things that I learned from his presentation.  

• Startups fail because they confuse the idea of searching for a business plan with executing a business plan – startups cannot utilize existing plans.  Instead, startups need to keep searching for the right business plan.

By Amy Kwan

StartupMonthly had a great Demo Day on Thursday, June 21! Teams presented their pitches and received feedback from 12 mentors and investors.  When you only have 5 minutes to capture your audience’s attention, to make an impression, and communicate your business plan - you need to make sure your pitch is spot on.  There are plenty of tips out there on how to give a great pitch…here are some of our favorites:

1) Be Concise and Clear
No one wants to hear you ramble on forever about how you tested your code.  You should be able to tell your story in less than 1 minute.