Yesterday evening there were a great discussion at the Churchill Club.

The event was hosted at Microsoft in Mountain View. Several entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley insiders attended.

Executive Summary:

The big question was: Why start in a recession and how to raise money?

The answer in a nutshell: Twitter will be the next big thing (and they also do not need a business model to raise $35Million) So just start. If you not get money directly it is good for the character to learn bootstrapping.

Okay, in reality the answer was a bit more differentiated and answered by some real entrepreneurs and a VC:

Long Version:

The speakers:

Leah Culver, Founder, Pownce
Dave Goldberg, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Benchmark Capital
Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Sol Lipman, Co-founder, 12 Seconds
Krishna Subramanian, Co-Founder, Mobclix

Moderator:
Jason Pontin, Editor in Chief, Publisher of Technology Review; former Editor of Red Herring Magazine

From the homepage:

Some believe that economic downturns are among the best times to turn great ideas into lasting companies: entrepreneurs are between gigs, money is cheap, and everyone feels the pressure to operate more efficiently.

Join us as the Churchill Club gathers a few of Silicon Valley’s most interesting and renowned entrepreneurs who left their most recent companies and have either founded a new startup or are working on a new project. Hear them reflect on these decisions and debate what it takes for a startup to get funding and thrive in today’s challenging market. Respected venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson will join the discussion to add the VC perspective. 

____

All guys in the panel agreed. It will be a hard time in this year but all successful entrepreneurs will take that risk.

It is harder to get money. But if it comes to that point. Steve Jurvetson co founder of he big VC guys DFJ recommended to take a bigger VC and give away some more shares instead of saving some percentages. In the end several smaller VCs get problems with a second round financing. Itis not really a good year for Exit opportunities and many smaller VCs already invested in several Web 2.0 startups.

Leah from Pounce explined that Pounced is now included into Sixappart. I didn’t check was happenend with Pounce. I also prefer Twitter. At Vox/SixApart was my first blog years ago. Also a nixe platform but I will stay on wordpress!

David Goldberg also starts a new cool thing. He calles himself currently: “Entrepreneur in Residence” and helps at Benchmark Capital. He starts building a new technology to make digital intangible content like music more transferable between devices and to get a better sync.

He stated that the current media market is overinvested – I definitely support his statement. There are about hundred companies we also looked after at PopAkademie. And everything is already tried out. So please to not start a next media page. But provide a solution to give the artist a share of the minimal revenues on Youtube. (Goldberg mentioned that Google is working on that Royality problem)

Krishna from Mobclix provides mobile solutions to monetize iPhone stuff. Was not easy for him to explain a lot. The whole discussion was more about VC and how to start etc

The funny smart guy from 12seconds had a cool new thing: Twitter is the next big thing but why only do it via text? He offers video tweets. So take your mobile phone and make some statements via your cam and upload them. I think he is right. The youth will love it. I think that is a really hot thing. In addition his developer looked like Bill Gates 30 years ago. So it is also really good from the technology
By the way…
in front of the building there was the first TESLA Roadster. Very hard to get and still the most amazing innovation in the Green-Field. The “Real Bill Gates” was not there even when it was at Microsoft.. but I think some other very very rich Internet guys.