Bill Liao, investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist
Internet entrepreneur and investor Bill Liao gave the second keynote at Angel MeetUp in Dublin this week, where he offered five nuggets of advice to angel investors when they’re engaging with start-up entrepreneurs.
He also spoke about the CoderDojo movement he co-founded with Irish entrepreneur James Whelton so kids can learn all about coding. (But more on that in our second video extract).
Investor Gavin Duffy, and ‘dragon’ on the TV series Dragons’ Den, introduced Liao to an audience of more than 100 angel investors and start-ups in Dublin City on Wednesday. The event itself was held in the new tech start-up accelerator called Startupbootcamp on Barrow Street in the midst of Google’s, Facebook’s and Zynga’s EMEA headquarters.
Eoghan Jennings, the ex-CFO at XING and now a partner with Parklane Capital, is heading up Startupbootcamp in Dublin. And just down the road is another new start-up hub that based itself in Dublin around seven months ago – Dogpatch Labs.
Liao himself is the co-founder of the European business social network XING.com, and is also CEO of Finaxis AG. He has participated in seven IPOs and is a venture partner at SOSventures.
In terms of his philanthropic endeavours, Liao has interests in the sustainability field. He is the founder of WeForest.org, an international not-for-profit organisation that focuses on sustainable reforestation.
And, just last year he co-founded the CoderDojo movement here in Ireland along with Whelton, who hails from Cork and who was just 18 at the time.
The duo set up CoderDojo last summer as a Saturday morning club for kids to learn the fundamentals of software programming. Since then, it has morphed dramatically and there’s now 80 dojos, and not just in Ireland.
As for angel investors, Liao’s five nuggets of advice when they engage with entrepreneurs were not to be too greedy, to find other mentors, to demand measures, to make their story crisp, and to find coders.
Check out his video here.
Bill Liao offers advice to angel investors and covers the Open Ireland movement – Part 1
