“It’s ok. But it sucks to hear it on the phone.” – Dr. Who

If you accept a position of responsibility you have to own it.

  • If you sell a product, you have customers
  • If you hire people, you have employees
  • If you raise venture capital, you have investors
  • If you make a profit, you have the Government

Even though starting your own company lets you be the boss, it does not mean you get to run away from responsibility.  In fact, it amplifies it.

There will be bad news.  You can’t hide it because it doesn’t go away.  The people you’re responsible for deserve to hear it from you; directly and in person.  It’s hard but it’s supposed to be.  Some will understand but many will not.  Bad news can be a shock and you’ll get the blame regardless.

Integrity isn’t defined by the good times.

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“Don’t get into a spaceship with a madman. Hasn’t anybody ever told you that?” – Dr. Who

…and yet, given the chance, most people can’t pass up an opportunity to venture out into the unknown universe through space and time. We want to know what really happened and we want to know how it’s going to turn out.  At least that’s how it works on the TARDIS.

Now, entrepreneurship…

The future is unknown.  The challenges may kill the company… but then you may change history.  And it takes a little madness to leave a comfortable job with the perception of security to climb on board the entrepreneur ship.

We all have risk.  Entrepreneurs, and time travelers, confront and embrace it.

 

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship…the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.” – Peter Drucker

Wealth is an outcome, not a mission.  It is a result of the creation of value.  Money is one way to measure value but there are others.

The creation of value consumes resources.  Money is a resource but there are others.

Innovation creates value that did not exist before, which is a powerful tool of the entrepreneur.  But equally powerful, and necessary, is the ability of the entrepreneur to gather the necessary resources to bring that value into being.  These include money, people, partnerships, advisors, investors and early customers.  We call these validations.

If you measure anything at all, measure your validations.  They are the leading indicator for the Startup.  They lead to success in the business.

 

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“The optimal number of mouths between a bootstrapper and her customer is zero” – Guy Kawaski

Bootstrapping is hard but it preserves equity and is perhaps your most efficient capital.  Some business are more conducive to boot strapping than others and it all hinges on how much personal equity and investment you have to put in.

Pharmaceuticals – definitely not a bootstrap model for a single entrepreneur.  CD Baby, on the other hand, was a great boot strapping success story for Derek Sivers.

Complex business models, those with a lot of companies involved in the decision making and sales process, cost a lot of money and time.  Sales people, distribution partners and retailers are all worthy  but they take their share.

For bootstrappers, it’s best to sell directly to the customer.

Read Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki

 

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“I’m certain that the guys who made telegraphs didn’t think the telephone was all that good an idea, but it ended their livelihood” – Guy Kawasaki

With technology it’s hard to pick winners.  The touch screen changed everything.  The stylus…not so much.  And we’ll see about Bitcoin.  (Perhaps one sign of a successful technology is if it’s accepted by spellcheck.)

In any case, innovators are the ones who find new ways of doing things and the first to adopt them.  But they also have to be hyper aware of what’s coming because a new innovation could change things overnight.  The iPod owned 92% market share within 2 years of it’s introduction.  As a result nobody remembers the Sony Walkman, another great brand in the desert of broken opportunity.

There’s no profound wisdom here except to get your product into the market as quickly as possible and grab your share of the market.  Then sell, sell, sell.  You may become the next platform standard or you may only have a few months.

 

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

 

 

“‘Me, Me, Me’ equals ‘Less, Less, Less'” – Fred Hess

In pitching as well as marketing, the message has to be oriented to the audience and to what they are interested in hearing about.  We have all seen Rock Star CEO’s whose companies are an extension of their personalities and while that could be good during that CEO’s tenure, even for those large companies, it is not sustainable over the long run.

In fact, in Jim Collin’s book “Good To Great”, he develops his idea of Level 5 Leadership  in which the CEO channels her identity and ego into the success of the company.  This is proven by the fact that the CEO’s of several of the Great companies are people we have never heard of before.

For startups, this is ever more important.  The experience of the team is supreme but not for the hype of the personalities. It’s more for the experience of navigating through the minefield that every startup faces.

Which takes us back to messaging.  Your pitch has to be about communicating the value you provide to a large and growing market and how you can provide a return to your investors.  You marketing message has to be about communicating that value to your customer.

 

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.” – Edward P. Tryon

One reason entrepreneurs start their own company is because they simply can’t work for someone else.  There are plenty of great, inspiring books extolling the virtues of “entrepreneurial independence”.  Another motivation for owning one’s destiny is the opportunity to create wealth.  You have a set amount of time on the planet and entrepreneurs choose to use theirs to create wealth for themselves as opposed to shareholders of a corporation.  All good stuff!

And there there is the issue of control.  Entrepreneurs who demand control of everything will struggle…for two reasons.  First, you can only control a fraction of the variables you encounter.  You can’t make customers buy the product and you can’t make investors invest.  You have no control on how your competitors react and let’s not get started on employees.  And then there’s a little thing called the world economy that can eliminate profitable markets overnight.

The other reason for the stuggle over control is you’ll never get there by yourself.  You will need partners, investors and key employees.  You will have to share equity with these people and in doing so, you are sharing control.  With apologies to Bob Dylan, if you’re building a high growth startup, you’re still going to have to serve somebody; customers, investors, shareholders.

If this is going to be a problem, then you should take another look at the Food Truck (but then there’s the Health Department…)

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“We’re gonna fix it till it works!” – Connie

The conversation took place at an entrepreneurial symposium at a national lab.  A researcher named Connie was talking about her research in the context of starting a company.  Her excitement was contagious as she was applying what she had learned about customer needs to the development of the technology she hoped to be the basis of a future startup.  She said, that the prototype didn’t perform the way she wanted it yet but said “We’re gonna fix it till it works!”

Her determination was inspiring.  She had made the transition from proving what is possible to delivering a solution to a problem.  She’s an entrepreneur.

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

 

“Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks of himself. ” – Dale Carnegie

The key to a successful conversation is to get the other person to reveal enough about themselves so you can tell them an interesting story.  The key to telling a good story is to engage your audience in away that relates to their experience.

Know thy audience!

Don’t give a technical presentation to a group of investors.  They are interested in markets, value propositions, and how they can make money.  They don’t care as much about the engineering.  You would’t want to give a funding pitch to a group of customers.  They are interested in solving their problems, not how big the market is.

When you are at a networking event and meet someone new, the first thing out of your mouth should be, “tell me about what you do.”  Then your elevator pitch can be instantly customized to what your one-person audience really wants to hear.

Entrepreneurial Flattery!

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

 

“We’re all naked underneath” – Dr. Who

This quote found it’s way into three conversations last week.  Each time the person was anxiously anticipating a meeting with someone of influence and power.

Despite all the egos, positions, wealth and cultural trappings that serve to distinguish ourselves from each other, people are still people.  Unless you’re a jerk, there is no reason to be anyone else but yourself (although there is research to support that jerks are generally unaware they are jerks so the principle still applies).

During times you are the focus of attention; the board meeting presentation, the performance observation, the funding pitch, the oral book report – these are really opportunities for you to continue the narrative of your life.  That is, you get to tell another part of your story.  Make sure the story is yours and not someone else’s you invent.

And give yourself a break.  The outcome may not go your way for a slew of reasons which you have no control.  Stress will only keep you from being you.

 

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson