The program

Most places aren't looking for a speaker. They're looking for a method.

The ones that get the most out of this are trying to build something that outlasts the event. When that's true, the workshop is one phase of five.

The shape of it

Venture Engagement Model

II First engagements Online, with your partner team. Webinars, planning, working out what your place actually needs.
III In-person training Two days in your city with roughly fifteen startups. Assessment, matching, pitching, and how to enter U.S. culture. This is the signature workshop.
IV Virtual workshops Packaging the venture — documents, culture awareness, English preparation, channel partners.
V Austin engagement One to two weeks on the ground. Investor, sales and product pitches, real meetings, and an honest go / no-go.
VI Land and launch Three to twelve months. Office, legal, operations, investment, sales, marketing.

Phases run at your pace. Some places do two and stop; some run the whole thing across a year. The only phase that never gets skipped is the first, because it is where we work out whether the rest is worth doing.

How a place usually starts

A talk, then a workshop, then a cohort.

The keynote is where a room decides this is possible. The workshop is where the fifteen companies who meant it find out what it costs. The cohort is what happens to the ones still standing three months later.

You do not have to commit to all of it, and I would rather you didn't at first. Book the talk. See what the room does with it.

Who this is for

  • Economic development agencies with a mandate and no method
  • Chambers of commerce and trade bodies whose members want the U.S. market
  • Universities and accelerators with founders who are ready and unprepared
  • Any city that has decided it wants to be more entrepreneurial and is not sure what that means in practice

All the world's problems have already been solved.

It is just a matter of connecting the entrepreneur with the solution to the market with the problem. That is the entire thesis, and everything above is the mechanism for doing it between two places instead of inside one.

Austin proved a place with nothing can become something in a generation. What I do not know yet is how well it works between places. That is what I am trying to find out, and it is why I would rather work with a city than speak at one.

Start where it makes sense

Tell me what your city is trying to become.

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