Digital technology

Plugandplaytechcenter ’s Wu: “We want to give birth to the next dropbox”

On day two of our Blogger Bus Tour in Silicon Valley, we went to Sunnyvale, California in order to pay a visit to the Plugandplaytechcenter. This wasn’t my first time at this location for I had already visited the start-up accelerator more than two years ago (read that interview with one of their executive in residence, Howard Greenfield). I had found the visit so inspiring that I had decided to put it back on the agenda in 2012. We received a warm welcome from the staff and even the President of the centre, Canice Wu. Here is what I saw and heard based on the notes I took during that visit

Plugandplaytechcenter ’s Wu: “We want to give birth to the next dropbox”

Plugandplaytechcenter ’s Wu: “We want to give birth to the next dropbox"
Canice Wu, President of the Plugandplaytechcenter: “We want to give birth to the next dropbox”

Saeed Amidi wasn’t meant to become a business angel, let alone the founder of a start-up accelerator. As often, and especially in Silicon Valley, businesses are started with a particular objective, and then things shift and move to the next iteration of a business model. Amidi started with real estate as he was renting space to entrepreneurs. His love affair with start-ups and high tech started with “danger”, a smartphone (see the danger hiptop model on the right) company founded by Andy Rubin. As Amidi developed an interest in technology, he even decided to invest in danger, then PayPal and others. A new business was born.

In 2006, the US entrepreneur purchased the current Sunnyvale building, an “old Philips Semiconductor facility” according to Robin Ardeshir, Corporate development manager at the centre; yet, “old” is a very relative adjective in Silicon Valley! The building’s big, with its 17,000 m² and it can host up to 350 start-ups, from early two growth stages. On average, the start-ups employ five people. There are also “virtual members” who have no fixed space but can enjoy all of the services. This building is one of several buildings which are owned by the Plugandplaytechcenter company.
5 things that plug-in plaintext centre offers
The centre is a start-up accelerator, not an incubator, and they work with partners such as Y-combinator for instance: “our focus is not on competition but on partnering with people like that” Plugandplaytechcenter President Canice Wu added. So here is what the centre does, in just five points:

  1. office space: that includes pretty much everything, from facilities, Internet access, conference rooms to data centre on-premises. This is the legacy business of Saeed Amidi.
  2. events and networking: the centre puts together 120 events per annum, that is one every 3 days!
  3. access to capital: this is typically done via the so-called “deal flow sessions”. The centre receives 3000 resumes each year, 200 are pre-screened, 10 are selected and 4 to 5 go through the whole process until they eventually are offered to see the VCs. Out of these 4 or 5, there is a 50% follow-up rate, the centre representative told us. As one can see, this process is fairly strict; this is a means of ensuring quality and, eventually, success.
  4. access to large corporations: is also one of the main ingredients of success at the Plugandplaytechcenter. Large enterprises like IBM and others are present onsite even though some of them are not in high-tech at all. The automotive industry is particularly well represented.
  5. last but not least, mentorship is delivered thanks to the centres executive in residence, while former sea level execs either in between jobs or even retired. They might even join a start-up for a while in order to monitor its takeoff.

the centre abroad
Towards the end of 2010, while on a visit to the Egyptian version of Silicon Valley I had noticed a booth which bore the logo of the centre. Unfortunately, Plugandplaytechcenter was launched in Cairo for only 3 days, right before the Arab spring Canice Wu told us. Yet, there are many other locations in which a Plugandplaytechcenter can be found such as Canada, Malaysia, Singapore and Russia

beyond Facebook
“This is definitely not the end of innovation,” Canice Wu told us while we were there. “There is more than just Facebook going on here!” he said, “there are a lot of things going on in B2C and B2B alike”. “We even have a 15-year-old entrepreneur in the centre” Wu added.

giving birth to the next big thing…
“We are looking for big things. We are ready to screw up a few, to give birth to the next big thing like dropbox” Wu declared in front of our bloggers. We don’t encourage failure, we encourage them to try, sometimes they fail but they manage the third time around! We can tell when we have found a good guy and then we encourage him” he concluded.

Yann Gourvennec
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Yann Gourvennec

Yann Gourvennec created visionarymarketing.com in 1996. He is a speaker and author of 6 books. In 2014 he went from intrapreneur to entrepreneur, when he created his digital marketing agency. ———————————————————— Yann Gourvennec a créé visionarymarketing.com en 1996. Il est conférencier et auteur de 6 livres. En 2014, il est passé d'intrapreneur à entrepreneur en créant son agence de marketing numérique. More »
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