This June, Tech in Motion NYC held an amazing "Startup to Success" panel discussion at NYU’s Global Center with an audience of over 300, which included co-founders, technical professionals, entrepreneurs and more. After settling in, the moderator Kunal Mehta, Author of The Disruptors Book, introduced the panel and guided the flow of conversation throughout the night by asking some great questions to the panelists, who were as diverse as the crowd.
The panel boasted a lineup of very influential entrepreneurs and investors from the New York startup scene, including: Andrew Yang, Founder of Venture for America; Nihal Mehta, Founder of Local Response & General Parter at Eniac Ventures; Brett Martin, Entrepreneur, currently building Switch, & Co-founder of Sonar Media, Inc., and Anna Khan, Venture Capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners.
Kunal Mehta started the discussion by asking the panelists to introduce themselves and what they’re currently working on. Each panelist had their own, very unique stories as to how they got to where they are today and what they had to do to get there. During that time, Nihal Mehta explained how he relocated to San Francisco in 2001, right after the dot-com crash, to start a mobile marketing agency. He had essentially been “flying in when everyone was trying to fly out” of the dot-com scene. Life wasn’t the easiest for a couple of years and he grew his business during the day - and paid his bills by DJing and throwing parties at night. Eventually his company, ipsh! raised funds and was later sold to Omnicom in 2005.
Andrew, Nihal and Brett each had opted out of a traditional career in corporate American and were asked why they had chosen to do so. They explained they did so because they didn’t want to be stuck working meticulous corporate jobs their whole lives. For them, the biggest risk of not taking a leap to start a company was ending up doing something they really didn’t want to be doing.
Among the successes, the setbacks and the failures, the panelists discussed what qualities they often see in successful entrepreneurs. Anna Khan searches for the right entrepreneurs to back every day, and said, “I like to back Visionary Operators.” Nihal Mehta explained that it takes “grit” to succeed as a startup and Brett Martin said “resilience,” whereas Andrew Yang said “persistent adaptability.”
Overall, the panelists doled out a lot of really helpful advice about starting your own company and what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.
After the panel concluded, the event was opened up to an audience-driven Q&A session. So many were eager to ask the panelists questions that even after the talk wrapped up, the panelists stayed late answering one-on-one inquiries from guests.
The evening was a big success and a lot of fun for everyone involved! Big thanks to our continued sponsors who helped make this event a success: Workbridge Associates, Jobspring Partners and Microsoft.