Unicorns—companies that reach a valuation of more than $1 billion—are rare. Uri Levine has built two. Over the past twenty years, Levine has both started and worked with dozens of startups, and he believes the key to success is to start with the problem first. He’s discovered that if the problem is big, then it’s a journey worth taking.

How can an entrepreneur determine whether the solution they’ve conceived is a worthy pursuit? What does it truly takes for a startup to succeed, and what components does the entrepreneur need to build out to drive that success? In this exciting fireside chat, Levine will give us an inside look into his startup journey and share the lessons he learned along the way.

As a mentor and teacher, Levine is committed to encouraging entrepreneurs to focus on society-wide problems so that they can build their own highly valued companies. His vision is specifically intended to help entrepreneurs disrupt inefficient markets and improve under-functioning services; to focus on solving ‘BIG problems,’ while saving consumers time and money.

Key Takeaways:

• How to evaluate if an idea can become a startup
• How to figure out your product-market fit
• How to determine your business model and lock down your growth path
• The key components of building a successful startup that will disrupt “broken” markets
• The importance of firing and hiring the right people
• How entrepreneurs can prepare for their eventual exit from the company
• The importance of paying it forward and guiding other entrepreneurs in need

OUR SPECIAL GUEST

Uri Levine

Author of ‘Fall in Love with the Problem, not the Solution’

Uri Levine is a passionate entrepreneur and disruptor, a two-time ‘unicorn’ builder (Duocorn). He is co-founder of Waze, the world’s largest community-based driving traffic and navigation app, which was acquired by Google for $1.1 billion in 2013, and former investor and first board member in Moovit, ‘Waze of public transportation’, which was acquired by Intel for $1 Billion in 2020. Levine has built more than a dozen startups and has seen everything ranging from failure, midlevel success, to immense success.

Shaloo Garg

Managing Director, Late Stage Start-Ups & Unicorns, Microsoft

Shaloo Garg is Managing Director, Late Stage Startups & Unicorns and based out of Silicon Valley. She brings a combination of strong startup, enterprise, strategic partnership and corporate development experience.

Previously, Shaloo was Partner , Global Oracle Innovation at Oracle where she lead the Global Corporate Innovation practice of commercializing revenue opportunities for startups into the enterprise client base and partner ecosystem. She has also lead go-to-market for Oracle’s cloud business and was part of the M&A team that acquired Peoplesoft, Siebel, Retek etc. Prior to joining Oracle, she was in a couple of early stage startups. Shaloo is passionate about Tech for Good and is President , BOD at UN Women, Silicon Valley , a “Champion of Innovation” at UN Women where she is spinning up virtual Innovation Labs with Universities leveraging emerging technologies to encourage digital literacy in developing countries for young girls who do not have access to education.

Shaloo strongly believes that technology’s best user case ever is using its power to impact wider social issues like hunger, poverty, STEM education, clean water, energy, sustainable cities etc in developing and under-developed economies. Shaloo is a Guest speaker at Penn Law School and is an MBA from Delhi University and has done specialization in Innovation and Design Thinking from Stanford d.School. Words to live by: “In life, there are no mistakes… only lessons” – Vic Johnson.

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