How Mobile Tech Can Change the World
Monday, March 8, 2010 at 8:35AM This past month during the Mobile World Congress, Shaherose Charania (a mobile expert by trade and VP at Opinno) spoke about the powers of mobile technology to spur positive change in the world. Presenting before a crowd of entrepreneurs at Barcelona Activa, Shaherose posed the challenge that, because we have been granted the a gift of being educated, having resources, and being part of a network of innovators, we should always be finding ways of sharing that gift.
“Generosity with one’s intellectual, spiritual, material or physical wherewithal is highly commended. When withheld, such gifts are a futile burden.” - Aga Khan Development Network: An Ethical Framework
Starting a company is one way of giving away our gift, because a company creates jobs and designs products that positively affect the user. Speaking specifically about mobile technology, Shaherose raised the point that "to raise connectivity, you increase productivity, and when you increase productivity, you increase wealth." Therefore, mobile tech entrepreneurs should use their gifts and their passion to affect positive social change in the world.
Other Reflections:
In addition to mobile technology, Shaherose's presentation included some insights into the current entrepreneurial ecosystem in Silicon Valley. For example: changes in the VC market. Now startups have to have a product in the market and show traction before getting funding. The whole idea of VCs taking risk, well, they're not. Or at least as not as much as they used to. VCs want startups to take care of everything before approaching them for funding. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however, because entrepreneurs are funding the innovation stage instead of fundraising just to get off the ground.
VCs are also “double dipping” a lot more now than in the past. That is, they go back to the same companies that they’ve already invested in and invest again. VCs want to fast-track that innovation stage with an already experienced team. These "double dips" are still creating jobs, but are reducing risk and increasing chances for success. However, for newer entrepreneurs, this creates a greater challenge upfront to develop a product cheaply and quickly before being able to count on money from investors.
“In this brave new world, startups need to re-think the traditional VC set of “letter series” – A, B and so on. In this less liquid environment startups cannot rely on follow-on investment. You need to get enough money upfront to last you through to profitability.” – Esther Dyson, Angel Investor
A little background on Shaherose:
Shaherose was born in Canada but currently lives in the US, working with Opinno at the San Francisco office. In parallel she is the CEO and CoFounder of Women 2.0, which she launched in 2006. She is also an active advisor to a soon-to-be lauched Mobile venture. She has a passion for bringing positive change to the world, and believes in the power of mobile technology to do just that. Before Opinno, Shaherose worked with Ribbit (BT) and more exenstively with Jajah for two years, as the Director of Product Management and Marketing which was acquired by Telefónica in 2009. She was also a part of the initial team at Talenthouse, a social network for emerging artists.
Recommended Resources:
- Bay Area TechWire
- Great Twitter Users to Follow
- Crunchbase @crunchbase
- Springwise @springwise
- YCombinator @newsycombinator
- Eric Reis @ericreis
- Dave McClure @davemcclure
- Om Malik @gigaom
- Naval Ravikant @venturehacks
