The Silicon Valley dream

If you want to embark on a technological and global vision or if your business is ready to scale, Silicon Valley is the ideal place to grow faster, due to the possibility of access to capital, mentoring, and human talent.

When an entrepreneur creates a technology company, their greatest dream is to go to Silicon Valley, a region that has seen many wonderful and highly successful stories, such as those of Steve Jobs (Apple), Michael Dell (Dell), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jack Dorsey (Twitter), among many others that inspire and make any entrepreneur dream. This region, south of San Francisco, which many experts consider as another country within the United States, is home to companies like Google, Facebook, the prestigious Stanford University, and approximately 1/3 of the world's venture capital. However, being an entrepreneur is one of the most difficult and special jobs in the world. At the beginning, no one believes in you, you have little experience in some business areas, and, unlike what you were taught in school (to follow rules and memorize), here the rules are not written.

One of the main challenges that an entrepreneur faces is obtaining investment, and it is important to have clear some of the following key points to attract it:

• Have a beta version of your project up and running.
• Metrics: Number of users, engagement, billing.
• Have very clear for what you want the resources.
• High-risk investors demand a huge potential market with a 10X return on their money.
• Have a great team of people who are good at executing.

A few days ago, I had a very interesting conversation with Carlos de la Lama, the founder of Startup Embassy, a house in the heart of Silicon Valley where entrepreneurs from around the world come to stay, and even live for a few months, who want to visit the Valley and fulfill their dream of starting a project. "One of the biggest limitations for an entrepreneur is money, and with a space like Startup Embassy, accommodation, offices, and global networking needs can be covered for the same price of $50 per night or $300 per week." In the 14 months since the founding of Startup Embassy, Carlos has seen over 400 entrepreneurs from more than 44 countries arrive, from regions such as Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, South Africa, etc. "Most arrive with little experience, with many dreams, and starting out." The impressive thing about Silicon Valley is that young people can come and be heard by CEOs of large corporations who do not care about age but talent, something that does not happen anywhere else in the world. Within Startup Embassy, Carlos has seen many stories of failure and also some of success where young people have sold their companies for several million dollars. There are several skills that are not taught in school and that are useful for entrepreneurship, for example:

Networking: Having a network of contacts, preferably worldwide, is very useful because you will always need advice from an area different from yours and contacts to obtain investment, solve a problem, or have access to clients.

Being perseverant: Many times the person who succeeds in business is not the most qualified but the one who had many obstacles and still moved forward until they succeeded.

Market validation: You can have an idea for a great product or service, but if the market does not validate that you solve a problem, it is worthless. "In Silicon Valley, there are many companies that developed brilliant products that the market did not want."

Teamwork: School taught us that copying is bad, that we had to be able to solve problems on our own. However, in business, teamwork is vital since you have to know how to create strategic alliances, have a good team of partners and employees, and work together with clients understanding their needs.

Obtaining investment: As Robert Kiyosaki says, "The middle class and the poor seek to make money with their money. The rich get richer with someone else's money."

Co-working/Co-living: Co-working is a work modality that is becoming popular because it is cheaper, there is a community from which you learn a lot, and the network of contacts is maximized. However, in Co-living, you are fully immersed because you share housing. Startups are talked about 24 hours a day, and leisure hours become productive time.

If you want to embark on a technological and global vision or if your business is ready to scale, Silicon Valley is the ideal place to grow faster, due to the possibility of access to capital, mentoring, and human talent.