On Thursday, March 1st, teams from our Ignite and J-Sprint programs met with Adriel Bercow for Office Hours. Adriel is an Associate at Flybridge Capital Partners, and prior to joining Flybridge, worked across the startup ecosystem as a co-founder, for a top accelerator program, and two venture-backed companies.
Adriel brought his startup expertise to the Leslie eLab as he coached teams on a variety of topics. Teams came prepared with questions: How do we find strategic investors? What should we include in a pitch deck? When (and how) do we raise venture capital?
After his appointments, I asked Adriel what trends he sees across successful entrepreneurs. Regardless of the industry, he notices that the best entrepreneurs are building a product that people love—and they do this by solving a problem experienced by their customers. “There are two things I see a lot, 1) entrepreneurs who are super focused on step zero to step one, and 2) entrepreneurs who have a big vision and have a hard time focusing on specific steps to get to that vision.” Adriel commented that successful entrepreneurs need to have a mixed approach: “This is my true north, but these are the steps that I need to take to get there.”
Adriel challenged the NYU entrepreneurs to build startups around real problems. If you’re asking yourself, “what is a real problem?” Adriel suggested thinking about it as a problem that enough users experience and who, if presented with a solution, will tell their friends and families about it.
Thank you to Adriel for his time and support!
About Office Hours:
Office hours are by invitation-only and a chance for startup teams to receive expert coaching on specific issues and challenges they face. Priority access to office hour signups is given to teams participating in programs including Ignite Fellowships, $300K Entrepreneurs Challenge, Healthcare Makerthon, Prototyping Fund, J-Term Startup Sprint, Summer Launchpad, and those recommended by Blackstone Launchpad coaches.
Interested in participating but not involved in one of the programs listed above? Sign up for a coaching session with a Blackstone LaunchPad coach and learn how to access entrepreneurial resources at NYU.
