My Success and Failures in 2016

By Dea Wilson, CEO at Lifograph - The Wiki of People

Below is the annual update I send to my network - a glimpse of what I’ve been up to in 2016. Please comment with our own success and failures. :-)

PROFESSIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

? Organized 80+ events attended by almost 4,000 startup founders, investors and tech professionals

? Our event speakers included amazing people from Sand Hill Angels, Band of Angels, Blumberg Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, TiE Angels, Fenox Venture Capital, 500Startups, StartX, TechStars, Y Combinator, Voyager Capital, Pear Ventures, Harvard Angels, Keiretsu Forum, Naiss Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, Signia Ventures, Tiburon Seed Fund, Samsung Ventures, Emergence Capital, Galaxy Ventures, Xseed Capital, Sazze Venture Capital, Global Tech Venture, Juno Tech Ventures, Rubicon Venture Capital, Unshackled Ventures, Haroun Education Ventures, HP Tech Ventures, GWC Innovator Fund, Sierra Ventures, Garage Ventures, Steelhead Ventures, Tricent Capital, etc.

? Hosted journalists and influencers from TechCrunch, Entrepreneur Media, Huffington Post, VentureBeat etc., as well as one of the first investors in Google, one of the first board members at Yahoo, Will Farrell’s cofounder, the former COO of Salesforce, the former CFO of Oracle, the Golden State Warriors growth hacker, the winner of the reality TBS TV show "America's Greatest Maker" and even the marketing guru for celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Adam Lavine, The Rolling Stones and Nicki Minaj.

? Reached break-even revenue at Lifograph and also raised pre-seed money

? Launched our own crowdfunding site - https://crowdfundus.com - as well as our new community site - https://community.lifograph.com/

? Doubled the number of members in our investor and founder groups

? Featured in Entrepreneur Media as one of the top networking tools in Silicon Valley, and also mentioned in Yahoo Finance, Silicon Valley Business Journal, Founder Institute blogs, etc.

? Continued to be media partners for Founder Institute, Startup Grind, Founders Floor, Access Silicon Valley, DeveloperWeek, Startup Socials, hackathons, etc.

? Hired our first employee and built a team of seven people (including our first data scientist), who helped us enter the production phase of our Lifograph platform using an advanced tech stack (React, Redux, GraphQL, Neo4j, etc)

? Selected as part of NewCo 2017, an inovative tech festival founded by John Batelle - who launched Wired Magazine and founded Federated Media

? Became member of Tech Angels, a community of awesome angel investors looking for startups that will change the world

? Started working with some interesting startups as part of my Silicon Valley Incubator (Accrualify – SaaS platform to manage accrual accounting; Bandalou – social commerce for baby products; BloomKonnect – supply chain management for the flower industry; Cheryl Burke Network – matching platform for dance lovers and teachers, etc.)

? Spoke at the Repatriot Conference, hosted at the Romanian Presidential Palace and the Romanian National Bank. Other speakers included the President and Prime Minister of Romania, successful business leaders and investors, etc.

? Lectured at Menlo College in Atherton on issues relating to entrepreneurship and investing

PROFESSIONAL FAILURES

? Could not hold on to a couple of super awesome collaborators because we could not pay them cash compensation. Equity is not enough. People need to make a living and cannot pay for groceries with stock options. But hopefully we will be able to hire them after raising our seed round in 2017.

PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS

? Visited 45+ cities in 8 countries (France, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Romania, US, Mexico)

? Been selected for the Ferrari Challenge promo photoshoot

? Tried flyboarding for the first time and attended my first Soul Cycle class

? Attended my first soccer match at Avaya Stadium hosted by the President of the San Jose Earthquakes

? Been on the live set for the “Dancing with the Stars” show on ABC, featuring Pitbull

? Been a Medieval Princess at the California Renaissance Faire

? Attended the first polo match at Menlo Circus Club

? Involved in several charity events – Northstar Ski Team Foundation, Make a Wish Foundation, Hers Breast Cancer Foundation, Avon Walk, etc

PERSONAL FAILURES

? Even though we raised pre-seed money and my startup reached break-even point, I still couldn’t pay myself a salary. My team comes first. So I had to rely on my family’s support. They are truly my first angel investors.

? I lost touch with most of my friends, spending more and more time locked in my office, sleep deprived and overwhelmed by the amount of work in front of me. I feel the startup took over most aspects of my life and not always in healthy ways. I doubt 2017 will be any different, though… But this is #startuplife.

However, I'm full of hope for this year and wish you a happy and healthy 2017 !!

Thank you for reading this annual update and for being part of my great network.

I appreciate all your support. :-) Please comment with your own success and failures. Would love to read them.

Dea @ Lifograph - The Wiki of People

https://www.lifograph.com