Inception Studio

The exponential power of female founders was on full display at yesterday's SheStarts event as we collaborated, created, and inspired each other. The Design-Thinking and AI Prototyping workshop, brilliantly run by Saara Khan and Helen Kupp, showcased the "out of the box" thinking and innovation that happens when talented women come together. Keynote speaker Kira Radinsky and panelists Erika Bahr, Stella Kim, and Mai Akiyoshi delivered compelling “real talk” and insightful advice that left our hearts moved and our minds challenged. A huge thank you to Goodwin Procter for hosting us and providing such a wonderful space for our event. Excited to continue working with the amazing SheStarts community and further amplify the exponential power of female founders. Together, we are unstoppable! 💪🚀 #SheStarts #FemaleFounders #InceptionStudio #WomenInTech

Transformative, immersive, and empowering – the 3 day AI startup founder retreat by the non-profit Inception Studio is an unparalleled experience for aspiring entrepreneurs. In just 72 hours, participants begin with an idea, form a team, and ultimately pitch to a live audience, including potential investors. I am deeply grateful to John Whaley, Mike Morris for their tireless efforts in making this retreat a reality, and for their unwavering support and guidance throughout the process. Special thanks to world-class advisors Andrew Radin, Monisha Perkash, and Shawn K., whose invaluable insights will continue to guide me for years to come. For any AI startup founder seeking a catalytic experience that will propel your ideas forward, I highly recommend exploring Inception Studio's incredible retreats. Their dedication to fostering innovation and empowering founders is nothing short of extraordinary. #AIStartup #Inceptionstudio #AIInovation To my amazing cohort: Sophie Vu, Vijayanand Sankarasubramanian, Chong Han Chua, Jonathan Beekman, Jun Liu, Kashish Kharbanda, Fai Sukontanit, Jan Carbonell, Sankalp Garg

Attending IVS Japan? I will be delivering a keynote to kick off the Generative AI Entrepreneur Pitch Session at 11 am on July 6th. I will also be part of the pitch judging panel. It should be a lot of fun!   IVS Japan に参加されますか? 7 月 6 日午前 11 時から Generative AI Entrepreneur Pitch Session のキックオフとして基調講演を行います。また、ピッチ審査員としても参加します。楽しみにしております！   IVS の社員で Inception Studio、生成 AI、初期段階の AI スタートアップに興味がある方は、ぜひご連絡ください。IVS でお会いしましょう。   I will also be holding a talk and networking event on July 8th in Tokyo at CyberAgent. Capacity is limited to 200 so if you are interested in attending, please RSVP ASAP. #IVS #IVS2024 #IVSKyoto

 🚀 Today, Redcoat AI is emerging out of stealth, armed with our mission to protect individuals and organizations against AI-powered cyber threats. Everyone knows someone—a grandparent, parent, or a loved one—who has fallen victim to a scam. For my co-founder Mike Morris, the wake-up call came when one of his children was extorted on social media during a family vacation, an ordeal that even involved the FBI. He felt extreme anger at the perpetrator, and also shock — despite all the strides in cybersecurity, there wasn’t an adequate solution protecting end users against attacks on personal channels. This is a growing problem, with global losses to scammers exceeding $1T in 2023. And with GenAI, bad actors now have frighteningly powerful tools at their fingertips. Cybersecurity has changed forever. We began building at Inception Studio, a nonprofit accelerator for seasoned founders. Alongside Kelly Byrd and Mike Morris, we explored how we could utilize AI to counteract this new wave of personalized and realistic social engineering attacks. Over a weekend, we built the first prototype that became the genesis of Redcoat AI. After seeing what was possible, we felt compelled to build a solution. Our platform leverages the latest AI innovations to offer organizations a dual-layer of defense: an automated red teaming service to simulate social engineering attacks, and a mobile defense mechanism that safeguards communication across platforms like SMS, WhatsApp, and others. We're also excited to announce a $4.2M funding round led by Pear VC, with contributions from Leonis Capital, Sancus Ventures, Kyber Knight Capital, J2 Ventures, and other esteemed investors. Their support is a testament to their confidence in our vision and mission. We’re eager to show you how Redcoat AI can protect your organization against AI-powered cyber attacks today. Please reach out to me and we can hop on a call.

On this International Women's Day, I want to celebrate our amazing Women of Inception Studio! We have some of the most remarkable women founders anywhere and I am so thankful to know them. I strongly believe in the importance of diversity in founding teams. So far, our cohorts have been 27% women and we have had at least two women founders in each cohort. I look forward to the day when we regularly have cohorts that are >50% women. The Women of Inception even organized a program called the Women of Inception Circle (WIC). The goal is to foster a sense of support, belonging, and community among our women founders. Inception Studio events are where many future tech leaders will meet and team up with one another, forming companies that will define the future of the tech industry. So if we want to improve representation in tech 5-10 years from now, a good way is to make sure we have good representation at Inception events. I challenge the other top early-stage accelerators to strongly consider diversity and representation in their membership decisions! #inception #founders #womeninai #womenfounders #internationalwomensday #internationalwomensday2024

We are trying something new with Inception Studio Cohort 9 - we are bringing in existing startup founding teams instead of individual founders. As such, these companies are further along and are using Demo Day to kick off their Pre-Seed fundraising. Seven amazing startups will be presenting this Sunday at Demo Day. Although this is the least experienced group we've ever had at Inception (average of 8.1 years work experience), 21% have PhDs from top schools, and altogether they have founded 20 companies and have raised $126M. Inception Studio events always fill up quickly and get waitlisted, but you can register here: https://lnkd.in/gFh7jbBw

Startups are not a thinking game. They are a doing game. Through Inception Studio, I've heard countless startup ideas. It is amazing how many times I hear the same ideas, over and over. The truth is, whatever great, deep insight you had, it is virtually guaranteed that someone else had it or will have it as well. (And if literally no one else has the same idea, it is very likely to not be a good one.) This makes intuitive sense because we live in the same world and thereby observe the same opportunities and develop similar insights. And I believe that there are many, many people in the world who are smart and creative such that when they are presented with a problem, they are likely to come up with very similar solutions. So if ideas are commodities, what determines the winners versus the losers? The harsh reality is that very, very few people actually execute on their ideas. Execution is the only thing that matters. Doing a startup is playing a game where the deck is stacked against you. You have far fewer resources than incumbents. You don't have access to data or customers. You cannot leverage your monopoly to crush competitors. Few customers will want to take a chance on you, so you can't just be 10% better than the status quo, you need to be 1000% better. The one thing you have going for you in a startup is speed and agility. For larger organizations, their DNA is set. They cannot easily shift strategies because they have so much inertia. The majority of their profits were made with one formula. That is where their priority will lie. They will have their best people work on maximizing that formula. They have a hard time adjusting to new opportunities because of their prior success. Their cost of failure is high, so they need a lot more certainty. Operating with uncertainty is not natural to most people. It is so easy to say: "The stakes are high and this may not be the best path, so let's be careful and gather more data so we can be certain." But this is a fatal attitude for startup founders. For every one founder, there are likely 999 others who had the very same idea, along with the skills and experience to execute on it (at least as well as you). But why does that one founder win? Because they actually did something and didn't just talk about it. This is such an eternal truth that there are countless aphorisms on this topic: - Think long, think wrong. - Analysis paralysis. - The perfect is the enemy of the good. - A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. - Action is the foundational key to all success. - Done is better than perfect. - You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. - Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. It doesn't matter how brilliant your strategy is. The only thing that matters when you are a startup is execution.

I cannot overstate the importance of diversity in startup teams. Having a diverse team is crucial for long-term success. Too frequently, I see people who are too similar trying to start companies together. Maybe they were college roommates, close friends, or even family members. They have very similar backgrounds and experiences. This leads to serious blind spots and challenges down the road, some of which are fatal. Unfortunately, investors propagate this bias. Some investors have an image of the perfect founding team as two technical people who are best friends, college roommates, and have known each other for years. Despite a few notable successes, these types of companies are statistically less likely to succeed. (I encourage both VCs and aspiring founders to read “The Founder's Dilemmas” by Noam Wasserman, which covers this topic in depth.) I view startup teams as the foundational DNA of a company. Founders should be deliberate in selecting the DNA they want in their company's "gene pool." Just like in biology, a gene pool that is a monoculture accentuates all traits (positive AND negative) leading to blind spots (pathogens) that can kill your company. Friends often share the same networks, biases, and blind spots, resulting in a tendency to hire similar people. Over time, even if they stumble across someone with complementary skills, the organization will reject them. (e.g. “Why should we hire her? She can’t even code!”) This is why at Inception, we place a strong emphasis on collaborating with individuals who differ from you. You want to work with people who bring diverse skill sets, experiences, and backgrounds, yet share common values, ambition, and vision for the future. Moreover, founding a company with someone you've recently met isn't as unusual as it might seem. One crucial element of a cofounder relationship is the "spark" of working together, which can occur just as easily with a new acquaintance as with a long-time friend. Consider the analogy of marriage, which is not too different from being a cofounder. (In fact, you will probably spend more time with your cofounder than your actual spouse!)  Most people don’t end up marrying their lifelong childhood friend or (gulp!) relative. More often, people marry someone they've known for a (relatively) short period because they were able to form an immediate strong connection. The same principle applies to choosing co-founders.

Now is the time to build. We are at an interesting time in history where there is a major new capability in the form of generative AI and foundational models. No one really understands the capabilities yet - even the people who are creating these models - but almost everyone agrees they will be important. This is a time when there are real benefits to being a builder. Builders can explore the edges and capabilities of these systems. Becoming fully fluent in this technology will be a superpower for the next few years. There are no books or courses on this yet. (Our CS224G course at Stanford is a first attempt at this.) So the best way to learn is to try to build something real. There are a lot of excuses you can tell yourself as why not to build now: "Look at all the tech layoffs. I'd better keep my stable job." "GenAI is overhyped. There are way too many startups and most won't survive." "There is no proven business model in this space yet. That makes it too risky." "The incumbents have advantages in access to data, compute, and distribution. Small players cannot compete." These are all partial truths. And most people should not leave their job and start a company, or join an early-stage startup. But if you are entrepreneurial, have ambition, have conviction on an idea, and are at a life stage where doing a startup makes sense, now is a great time. Perhaps the best time I've seen in my lifetime so far. And the current nature of the technology gives the strongest benefits towards builders. There will be at least one trillion dollar company and multiple hundred-billion-dollar companies started in this 3-year window. The big winners won't be uninspired ventures borne out of market research or focus groups. They will be "AI-native" companies, driven by the radical reimagining of industries and novel capabilities. That will come from the builders.

As we wrap up our eighth Inception Studio retreat, I have been reflecting on why the model seems to work so well (18 companies raising $50M+ in the first year). Interestingly, it is uncommon for teams formed at the retreat to continue with the same exact team and idea. While it does happen, the more typical scenario is it lights a fuse that leads to them starting a company shortly thereafter. I think there are some interesting dynamics at play. First, I think the format of the event - a 72-hour challenge to build a demo and pitch deck and deliver it in front of investors - makes people realize what they can accomplish when they focus and truly apply themselves. They need to dig deep into reserves they may not have known they had, or have not tapped in a long time. They are left with an empowering realization: "If we did all this in 72 hours, imagine what we could accomplish in a week? Or a month?" It is like going through The Crucible. This is a truly empowering feeling. And as you go back to your normal life, you begin to crave that feeling. Second, during Inception you get to work with some amazingly accomplished people and see them up close. And then you realize that you are not so different from them. They are human after all. Their ideas and skills are not that different from yours. So you start to believe that you can be a successful founder too. I remember when I went to USA Computing Olympiad in high school. Before I went, I had a image of what the other participants would be like. I was surprised to see how incredibly normal everyone was. And that gave me a lot of confidence, which helped unlock my potential. Finally, the chance that you happen to match with the perfect teammate on the perfect idea in such a short time is low. But the point is not to finish. The point is to get started. I've seen teams make five or six pivots in the course of a single day at Inception. This process may have taken weeks or months otherwise. But they get used to moving at a rapid pace, which helps them be successful later on. Andy Chou, who helped to organize and attended the first Inception retreat, described his Inception Studio experience as "helping to achieve the activation energy required to do a startup." I think that is a good description. Inception Studio events help catalyze startup formation. Interested in being part of our next event? Find out more here: https://lnkd.in/eVeviwBr