1. Make Money – David Heinemeier Hannson, Co-founder of 37signals

David from 37Signals gives an uplifting, straightforward talk on creating a profitable company, charging money for your product, and to solve simple problems. David and I have similar views on growing a business: do it yourself without venture capital, focus on entrepreneurs (he calls them Fortune 5,000,000), and solve a problem you face yourself. What changes can you implement to either make or create an additional $1 million a year from your niche target?

Connect with David on Twitter: @dhh

2. Break Conventions – Eoghan McCabe & Des Traynor, Founders of Contrast.ie

Breaking conventions is easier said than done, and Eoghan and Des do a great job showing us how to create a remarkable user experience by adding some personality and new thinking to your brand. How can you can make your user experience simply better using Eoghan and Des’ advice?

Connect with Eoghan and Des on Twitter: @eoghanmccabe and @destraynor

3. Create Purpose – Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director of Garage Ventures

Even web companies need to master the fundamentals. When you get past the fluff, Guy touches on a few important points every successful company should have such as a mantra, having a great team, a complimentary partner, and focus. Why exactly does your company exist and what milestones will help you achieve your goals?

Connected with Guy on Twitter: @guykawasaki

4. Be Remarkable – Seth Godin, Best-Selling Author

The title of Seth’s presentation, “Standing Out,” isn’t the most fitting. Standing out is not as important as Seth’s point on how to get your idea to spread, being remarkable, and focusing on fashion and design to fuel your brand. What’s your purple cow?

4.5 Execute Financially – Aaron Patzer, CEO of Mint.com

Why 4.5 you ask? Although I like Aaron’s story of how and why he founded Mint and his advice to entrepreneurs on overcoming doubt and structuring a team, I’m against early stage venture capital, handing out shares like candy, and starting a company without a co-founder. But nevertheless his advice on how to manage financials and plan for the unexpected is good whether or not you’ve decided to take on VC. Are you prepared for the stages in your business?

Connect with Aaron on Twitter: @apatzer

You have 90 seconds to pitch an investor about your new, incredible business idea that’s going to change the world and make millions of dollars. How do you do it? Simply break your story into five parts using this guideline of how I’d want to be pitched:

• What is it, who’s your target and what’s the value? (20 seconds)

  Get me excited. Focus on the value of your service rather than the features. Tell me quickly what it is, who your target market is, and tell me how it’s going to help them do something better, faster, or more easily. Focus on value and the void you’ll be filling.

• Pricing model? (10 seconds)

  How much does it cost and how do you plan on making money? Recurring revenue or one-time fee?

• Why is it unique or buzzworthy? (20 seconds)

  What makes your product or service unique? Why will anyone care? What are you going to do to get people talking about it?

• Funding requirements? (15 seconds)

  How much money do you need to get started and why? Very high level overview.

• The team? (25 seconds)

  Who makes up your team and how are you going to make it happen? Why should I invest in you? Why are you the best person for the job? This is the most important section so take your time and remember, investors will be investing in you and your team, not your idea.

Good luck.

“If you’re in the web app startup space, no doubt you’ve heard the big news during TechCrunch50 that Mint was acquired for $170M. That’s a very high return on a company that did a great job visualizing data from Yodlee. What is Mint? It’s a great service that allows you to track all your accounts, expenses, budget and more. Many people, even ones that use the service, didn’t know that Mint actually gets their data from Yodlee, which preforms all the heavy lifting and connecting with financial institutions.”

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