Sky V Meets Silicon Valley

Recently, Dani Marques, Managing Director at Eagles VC, represented Sky Ventures at the Tech Crunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. Dani was joined by Julian Abhari, a founder in The Nest Accelerator's inaugural cohort. The two spent several days gathering value that they have brought back to benefit the students of our organization.

Read about their experience below.

October 27, 2022

Last week I had the amazing opportunity to represent Sky Ventures at one of the most exciting conferences in the world for startups, tech, and venture capital. Alongside Julian Abhari, one of our very own founders at The Nest Accelerator, I traveled to Silicon Valley for a week.

The trip's goals included establishing relationships and partnerships with other university programs, potential mentors, and advisors for our founders and student executives.

Throughout the week, I attended 20+ sessions, hearing from speakers such as Chris Dixon, Founder & MD @a16z crypto, Dylan Field, Co-Founder & CEO of Figma, and even Serena Williams (no intro needed) + Founder & MD at Serena Ventures.

These sessions covered topics ranging from building an early venture capital (VC) network and the current state of VC in 2022, to negotiating your first term sheet. Each of these sessions provided information that will provide direct benefit and insights to the students in the Sky Ventures organization.

Of the many takeaways I gathered, here are a few that really resonated with me:

For founders:

Establish relationships with investors long before it's time to raise money. It allows the investor to see what type of founder you are and also allows you to better understand the investment firm's thesis early on. It is important that founders realize investors can provide valuable insights and connections regardless of whether or not you are one of their portfolio companies.

BE ACTIVE ONLINE AND ALWAYS NETWORKING. As a founder, it is VITAL to be on Twitter, where you should be talking about your product and why you are passionate about it. There should also be a balance to this. Show aspects of your life, such as your passions and interests outside of the business. However, do not let this become a burden. It is an important tool, but should not take up an overwhelming amount of time.

Overall, this was an incredible experience that allowed me to bring a lot of value back to the students of Sky Ventures and Oral Roberts University. I met so many people there who were excited about what we have going on here and ready to play a part.

This is just the beginning.

~ Dani