Uber’s top lawyer serves up advice to Indian entrepreneurs

Salle Yoo, General counsel for Uber Technologies was on a visit to mentor Indian startups. Photo credit: Bizjournals.com.

Salle Yoo made her decision to join Uber when she got a ride in San Francisco using the app within four minutes despite the chaos of a major baseball game that had just ended at a stadium nearby.

Salle watched hours of videos of Travis Kalanick to understand what Uber was all about before making the leap to join the huge startup from a well settled job as a partner at corporate law firm Davis Wright.

She is now Uber’s top lawyer after joining in 2012.

Last week Salle flew down to New Delhi, India, to mentor young entrepreneurs from about 20 young ventures. The topic: how to tackle policy, growth, and regulatory roadblocks early in life of a startup.

At Uber, extensive documentation – called ‘playbooks’ – are very important.

It’s part of Uber’s mission to create a startup ecosystem in partnership with Invest India – a government vehicle to promote investments. To achieve that goal in India, the company’s senior leaders are taking time out to fly to the country from all over the world.

The idea, unveiled at the start of the year, is to coach selected startups in day-long workshops on how Uber solved problems in areas such as marketing, operations, technology, finance, and policy. In seven years, the company has expanded operations to about 394 cities around the world. It is valued at over $60 billion.

As part of Uber Exchange, the firm invited about 500 startups to submit applications. About 120 have been selected to get mentored. Uber will conduct six such mentoring sessions and finally select about 10 of them to fly down to San Francisco for introductions to big-name investors.

As a result of the program, Uber may benefit by connecting with local startup communities, which are clued into what’s happening in their respective cities.

7 tips for smooth startup sailing

In the mentoring session, Salle – whose title is Uber’s general counsel – gave the Indian entrepreneurs pointers on seven critical points:

1. Hiring

Always hire the best. Make recruitment a project for leaders, rather than a process, she advised. Follow the rule “A’s hire A’s. B’s hire C’s” – that it to say, great people hire great people. The quality of people you hire will become a competitive advantage for your startup in the long run.

2. Investments