As part of this partnership, called SBC2go, the partners will provide financial resources, mentors and marketing support to startups selected to participate in the programme.

Dr. Frank Spennemann from Daimler lab and Mercedes-Benz says partnering with Startupbootcamp Berlin will “accelerate our access to innovation and will plug us into an impressive community of alumni, mentors and investors. At the same time we support start-ups in developing business ideas and increase their market value. Due to our global presence we can open doors to new markets.”

So, what is Mercedes-Benz, Bosh and HDI looking for?

E.g. Daimler has a number of initiatives already such as the Car2Go car-sharing service which has over 7,000 vehicles in 18 cities on the road in Europe and North America

They need basic, advanced and realtime data anlytics. How basic traffic data analytics can look like, can already be seen at uber.com

Here are San Francisco’s location networks, showing the probability that a ride starts in one neighborhood and ends in another.

Having this kind of analytics in realtime, car sharing service car2go could offer e.g. dynamic pricing. This would mean an competitve advantge to DriveNow (BMW), flinkster (Deutsche Bahn) and ZebraMobil.

It is great to see that Mercedes-Benz, Bosch and HDI are supporting the Berlin start-up ecosystem. The output of this partnership will be definitely interesting.

Links:

http://www.startupbootcamp.org/blog/the-big-league-startupbootcamp-berlin-partners-up-with-mercedes-benz-hdi-and-bosch-for-sbc2go.html

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/16/mercedes-benz-bosch-and-hdi-create-new-accelerator-with-startupbootcamp-berlin/

http://blog.uber.com/2012/01/09/uberdata-san-franciscomics/

What Ben Horowitz is looking at investments:

1. The size of the opportunity – you need to get 30% to 40% of the market to meaningfull and to make money in technology.
2. The quality of the team – is the team good enough to build a great product that is ten-times better and take the market.
3. A bad market always beat a good team.

What Ben Horowitz likes to have in his investments:

• Megalomaniacs
• Outliers
• Shifts in technology or markets
• Market sectors that are dead – big market, a winner, bad product; this is a opportunity
• Entrepreneurs that tilt towards big markets and not a niche
• Hard core technical team
• Products then teams rather than vice versa

What Ben Horowitz believes to be the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs:

• Being both entrepreneur and inventor
• Finding product/market fit
• Managing their own psychology

Learn how business works directly from groundbreaking entrepreneurs and business leaders. This episode features Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a $300 million venture fund aimed at investing in new entrepreneurs, products, and companies in the technology industry. Presented by UC Berkeleys College of Engineering’s Center for Entrepreneurship. Series: Distinguished Innovator Lectures [4/2010] [Business] [Show ID: 17365]