Tech Venture Videos/Podcasts
Post links to videos and podcasts that you find that related to technology entrepreneurship. Each video should be at least 3 minutes in length. Second, rate the videos on a scale of 1 to 5 based on whether you think it would be worthwhile for other students to view. Finally, give a detailed explanation (100-300 words) for each rating.In this explanation, give an idea of why the speaker has legitimacy on the topic (why should we listen to them), the key argument (if there is one), important concepts (state them), best audience for the video (to whom specifically would you recommend the video), whether the video is universally valid (do the arguments and concepts only work in Silicon Valley during the dot-com era), and most importantly, if it will change your own future behavior. Please strive for completeness and brevity, by covering all of these points in the word limits. If you think that some requirement does not apply to your video, just state so.
A few great video podcast sources are:
Berkeley’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology: http://cet.berkeley.edu/Resources/CETLectures.html
Stanford’s E-corner: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/
Texas’ MOOT Corp Finalists videos: http://www.mootcorp.org/plansandvideos/plansvideoslist.asp
Cornell’s Entrepreneurship@Cornell e-Clips Collection: http://eship.cornell.edu/esh_composer.php?aud=al&col=all&cmd=24
"The story", Contests, Funding, Intellectual property, Mentor, Technology scanning
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podcasts, universities, videos
The video that I view was “Rome is Burning” by Ann Winblad. In this webcast, which was a guest lecture, she talks about the importance of timing when entering a technology wave.
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=19244
I would rate this video a 4 because it is a bit long and important pieces are scattered throughout the entire segment. She offers many real life examples of companies that were able to “ride the wave” and be very successful. One of the parts of it that bring the rating down is that much of it is gear toward venture capitalists and opportunities that need funding from them rather than small self funded projects. Another good part about this webcast is that she talked about the importance and emergence of “Enterprise 2.0.”
China 30 years: High Tech Entrepreneurs – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezt0HAeTh5M
Rating: 3/5
This video has a lot of good stuff in it, but the presentation is a little boring and the information is not presented bluntly. Interesting topics raised by this video include the role of nationalism in entrepreneurship, the globalization of innovation, emerging markets (especially China), and the fact that there are large technology corporations out there that we’ve never even heard of. Although you don’t learn much from this video directly, it gets you thinking about how emerging Chinese entrepreneurs may begin to compete and collaborate with us.
David Rose- 10 things to know before you pitch a VC for money
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_s_rose_on_pitching_to_vcs.html
I give this a 5 on being worthwhile to view. David Rose is a serial entrepreneur who talks fast and covers a lot of ground in a short period of time. He not only talks about what VCs are going to want to know, and the things that are important to them, he walks through the whole pitch, interjecting what you should be doing and what the VC will be thinking at every part. This is applicable to our in class presentations as well.
Tom Kelly’s “Think like a Traveler”
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2099
I give this video a 4. Tom Kelly does a good job of completely breaking down his idea of always looking at things as if you are seeing them for the first time. He uses good analogies to explain the principle and it comes across very clearly. He does not earn a 5 because he does not relate this to his success or some other success. He expects you to take it on faith that he knows what he is talking about and while he brings good examples of how to use this, and how it applies to anything you do, he does not bring it all together and tell you how it helps make you successful.
The Principal of Agility
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=914
I would give this video a 2. The basic principal and concept makes sense, however Jeff Raikes takes a long time to get to his point. Most of the video is about Jeff’s own background and history of the software business. The redeeming factor is that he does use this in an example with Microsoft and Lotus at the end, but I do think that he could have done without a lot of the background. The overall premise is that companies need to be willing to see where the market is going instead of blindly staying on their path. Strategies need to be adapted and quickly, this is what saved Microsoft and lead to its success in the software industry.
Thanks everyone for posting. You have found some good videos that will be useful for your other classmates and have pulled out many of the important concepts from each. Based on your initial posts, I have given some more detailed guidelines for the posts. Those who have posted already do not need to re-do their posts to fit these guidelines. They are fine. From this point forward, please try to follow the more specific guidelines that I give above the links to videos.
I watched the video of a presentation given by Jeff Miller titled, “Thoughts on Leadership” at http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=19216 . My first thoughts were – This is definitely not as philosophical as it sounds.
I wouldn’t give the presentation a high rating. That is not because it was not relevant, but because I did not find it very enlightening. Most of the concepts presented seemed to be a common knowledge to me. Therefore I will give the video a 2.5
The talk focused more around do’s and don’ts for leaders in startups and not on, what leadership means. A few tidbits that I got from it are written down below.
• Rather understand a leader as “the one who leads” it should complemented by (and not replaced by) “the one who people follow”
• As a leader you need to be willing to accept the role of a leader. Leaders have more responsibility for a day than just of their own. Therefore you constantly need to be doing things that are in line the responsibilities with that of a leader.
• If you don’t lead someone else will. Unlike what we normally believe, people like to follow. There cannot be a vacuum at the position of leadership for a long time.
• if you do not create a culture, it will get created. (This is especially relevant in a startup)
• As a CEO you either have a vision or bless one that emerges. You convert a vision to a mission and then an action.
• More than what you say, what you do is important.
I think this video would be most useful for CEOs/leaders of startups or small companies, who are just about to take their role, though it could be relevant to everyone. I do not think there has been a major difference in the way I used to think and how I think now, or that I expect a change in my future behavior.
Re: Tom Kelly’s “Think like a Traveler”
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2099
I would give 3/5 for this video. The basic idea is that observation is important and valuable. He made this idea presentable by using an analogy to travelers. Travelers can easily see the differences between their country and the country that they are visiting because that part of their brain is working very actively!!!. I think a traveler gives attention to the differences because he travels abroad to meet “different” cultures. This is applicable for all the things which are interested to you. I did not find this analogy interesting as well as the presented idea.
Five Biggest Mistakes That Entrepreneurs Make
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=364
I will give 4/5 for this video. Jerry Kaplan explaining 5 common mistakes that entrepreneurs make. The evaluation was very easy for me since I found 4 of the topics useful out of 5:) The first topic (Having unclear goals and an unclear mission) sounds very generic but one of the most important milestones in starting a company. I found the second topic unnecessary who start a company just to show that he is smart?? The other common mistakes are: doing it for money, hiring people that they like rather than people that they need and not knowing when to let go. He illuminates the importance of above topics with his experiences. I found this video very valuable and I would suggest everybody to watch it.
The second video that I watched was a presentation titled “Creating, Building and Sustaining a Business” given by Stephanie DiMarco. Stephanie is the founder and CEO of Advent Software and brought the company from just being on a paper to being a billion dollar company. She shares the highlights of her journey in this presentation.
The video is available at
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=17406
I would give the video a 3.0.
What helped Advent in the beginning phase was that a lot of planned and unplanned factors worked in their favor. These include the decision of being financed by an individual investor which was done out of naivety along with some crucial strategy decisions that essentially kept the company alive. An important advice that gives entrepreneurs is to enter a markets have less competitors.
As the business grows, it becomes necessary to keep tweaking the organization in order to be efficient. Though for a startup it is necessary for people to play multiple roles because communication is easy the company should adapt a different organization as soon as it grows where communication becomes difficult.
The three things she believes that really helped Advent are -
1. Staying very close to their customers and hearing them much more than expected, and doing I as a discipline.
2. Investing an optimum amount in R&D so that they can keep the show going.
3. A great business model planned to focus making the company survives for a long term. Their strategy included having huge companies get used to their software, which increased switching costs.
Best audience for the video anybody generally interested in entrepreneurship.
This will change the way I think in a some extent especially if I ever lad up in an entrepreneurial role.
The third video I watched was titled, ‘Building a High Performance Team’ given by Keith Karch. Keith is the co-founder of Ariba, and was bringing out the importance of a high performance team in this talk by walking the audience thorugh the case study of Ariba explaining how a high performance team was key to their success. The video is available at
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=19213
I would rate this video a 3.
The key points that I got from this video are:
- Having an A team with a B idea is better than a B team with an A idea.
- Hiring As and not hiring Bs is essential to build a good team. Bs attract Cs and As attract A plusses.
- Once a good team is set up, give it time to prove itself. Having time is equivalent to having money. Make sure there are ample financial resources.
- Set a crystal clear vision so that the team is always focused an therefore the expertise you hire are not wasted.
- A team performs better if you reduce the pressure its individuals. Worrying about the performance, about being reduces the performance of a team.
- A good team has good potential. In this case it is a good idea to keep raising the standards so that the team keeps improving their skills. If standards are not increasing, they will decrease.
I think that the talk will be most useful for people who are planning on starting a company but do not have a team yet. It would give them some idea about the kind of people they want to hire.
I found an interesting short about failure and its importance in innovation. Randy Komisar: The Biggest Successes are Often Bred from Failures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RP1sS8rMsQ
Rating: 4/5
Randy Komisar has seen his fair share of failure in Silicon Valley. He describes the region’s success as a result of its willingness to fail. He has lead companies to $75 million losses (GO) and has managed successful companies (LucasArts Entertainment, etc.).
The clip urges new entrepreneurs to try things and to consider “failure” as a learning experience. He argues that while success gives context, true learning requires trying something, failing, and dealing with the repercussions. Though the examples are specific for Silicon Valley, I think the underlying philosophy holds true across all of business and life in general. While this is not new information to me, it is interesting to consider the scale of failure required to achieve great success.
Jeff Hawkins: Following Your Goal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMXWi7JdmjM&feature=related
Rating: 5/5
Jeff founded Palm Computing (and invented the Palm Pilot). His enthusiastic insights into entrepreneurship seem very well founded in experience.
Jeff’s main point is that everyone should find their passion and pursue it in the “fastest and surest” ways. He believes that by working smart, it is possible to balance life while and achieve great goals.
I his stance on entrepreneurship the most interesting. He says that it is a last resort effort to accomplishing goals. Attempting entrepreneurship when it is unnecessary only leads to difficulties.
His concepts seem to be intended for absolutely everybody. Establishing goals and accomplishing them easily has been a human endeavor since the beginning of time. Personally, I’m still trying to find my passions, but when I find them I will attempt to accurately define them and work smartly to accomplish them.
Kathleen Eisenhardt: Team Composition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGZQfM-selE&feature=channel_page
Whew! Clocking in at just over 3 minutes
. Rating: 4/5
Kathy Eisenhardt is the co-director of Stanford Technology Ventures Program. She presents research on what a good team consists of and this is aimed directly at entrepreneurs.
She says that the best teams consist of 3 to 5 people. Smaller than 3 and there is just too much work to do, larger than 5 and it will be difficult to manage.
Also she touches on some other aspects that are key to success such as having a mutli-disciplinary team and knowing the other people before hand. I think the advice she gives is very sound and reasonable for any startup venture.
If my experiences were different I think I would give this a higher score. Most teams I know of have either been two people or have required a pretty large development and sales component.
However, I think the advice in the video is worthwhile and is important to take into consideration when creating a team.
Paul Graham at Startup School 08
http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/paul-graham-at-startup-school-08
Rating: 5/5
Paul Graham is the founder of Viaweb (sold to Yahoo) and YCombinator, a startup incubator.
In this video Paul Graham argues that a good startup looks like a good non-profit organization. He takes this further and states that companies should be essentially benevolent. Graham mentions three ways that it helps. Specifically:
1. It helps morale
2. It makes people want to help you
3. It makes you decisive
I think that this is a great video to watch and sets down the ideology of entrepreneurship (at least in the sense of a startup) in a lot of ways. It seems that most startups out there are really trying to solve problems. In some cases it is their own problems, and in other cases it is the problems of others.
This advice is aimed squarely at people doing startup companies and I think this does apply in a universal way. Companies generally try to solve problems (just like non-profits do) however they may charge for it or may need to have capital to expand the idea to its full extent.
Fundamentally, I want to be in business to create something for people that they find useful. So I believe that my behavior is already aligned with this ideology and that going forward I will strive to continue working within this framework.
The webcast that I watched was a guest lecture by Dr. Pehong Chen at Berkeley in 2006; the link is posted below the comments. I rate this video as a 4/5 because it is very helpful but the webcast is nearly an hour and the good points are spread throughout the cast.
The speaker, Dr. Pehong Chen is a credible source on this topic because he is an expert and leader in the new and enterprise business portal technologies. He has held executive positions and/or founded several successful startups.
In his lecture, he proves “5 golden rules for entrepreneurs to succeed in global business” and they are
Rule 1: “There is something new every day”
Rule 2: “80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes”
Rule 3: “Half/Half Rule” “Good fortunes spawn from the bad; Bad fortunes lurk inside the good.”
Rule 4: “The first 90 constitute only 50% of a 100-mile journey.”
Rule 5: “The world is flat”
The best audience for the video is everyone in this class and anyone who is interested in being a tech entrepreneur. He gives several examples, some his own and some others, to illustrate the universalism of the 5 rules.
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=17391
David S. Rose: 10 things to know before you pitch a VC for money
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_s_rose_on_pitching_to_vcs.html
I gave David Rose a solid 5.
Legitimacy – David Rose has launched dozens of startups and now manages VC involvement in dozens of startups
Key Arguments/Concept – David has a key argument, the 10 things you need to know to be invested in. He lists them, though the main focus is outlining exactly what VCs are looking for. He spreads the focus from the business plan to the entrepreneur himself. The business plan must be solid, but if you do not know what you’re doing and are a person with good integrity and presentation they will not buy in.
Audience – The best audience would be anyone looking to make a VC pitch. David walks through the ins and outs, lets you know what it is that you have to do and the best way to do it.
Valid – David Rose is an expert in what he does and everything he says rings soundly and is applicable today and tomorrow in any industry to anyone trying to make a pitch.
Change me – This video has taught me how to give a great presentation. I will always reference to it, now and in the future.
Re: Jeff Hawkins: Following Your Goal
Rating: 4/5
I agree with your assessment of legitimacy and his key argument, and I definitely agree that it is worth watching if you are a young college student looking for direction in life, (I think that applies to all of us.)
The most interesting and counter-intuitive concept was definitely “entrepreneurism as a last resort.” It made me rethink my approach to entre. The greatest opportunities are going to be in the places where people tried their best to go the traditional route, but couldn’t make it work. It also explains how Professor Sadowsky’s technology made it to our classroom.
The Challenge of Staffing the Team- Mir Ihman
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1959
Rating: 3/5
Legitimacy: Mir Ihman has started over 20 medical device companies and holds over 200 issued patents. He definitely should know what it takes to find good people in a technology company.
Key argument: Finding the right people is the hardest part of starting a new venture.
Do Important Concepts: Start with skill sets that you need, find them. You can never find exactly what you need, but hire someone really good and modify the plan to hire other people.
Best Audience: Someone who is looking to staff up their new technology venture
Universally Valid?: His method seems to be universally valid: Define what you need, take what you can get, and regroup. He talks a lot about a Stanford PhD that he started a business around; that part is probably only valid if you are a millionaire serial entrepreneur already.
Future Behavior?: It will keep me from trying to find EXACTLY the right person. I’ll take someone really good even if their skill set isn’t exactly right.
Team Selection in a Startup – Mark Jung
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1706
Rating: 4/5
Good message, and interesting to listen to.
Legitimacy: Mark Jung was the co-founder and CEO of IGN Entertainment. IGN was sold to Newscorp, and he became COO of Fox Interactive Media.
Key argument: In founding a company, team selection stands orders of magnitude above everything else.
Important Concepts: Common wisdom is to surround yourself with the A team, but that’s probably not enough. It’s a lot like a roommate, or mountain climbing expedition. You need to share values and goals. Who can you count on?
Best Audience: Start ups looking for partners.
Universally Valid?: This is valid for you if you are looking for venture partners. He survived the bubble.
Future Behavior?: This hit close to home, since I had tried to start ventures with people before simply because I knew that they were the A team. I need to clearly define my values and goals before I go looking for a partner. I can see how painful it could be if all the partners do not define success in the same way. These two videos highlight a difference between looking for employees and looking for partners. You are co-dependent on your partners, don’t mess it up!
Additionally, anyone who hasn’t seen the “Last Lecture” from Professor Randy Pausch should definitely set aside an hour and 20 minutes and watch it. He was incredibly successful and led a fulfilling life. Very motivating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbUnatPfSgg
Mike Arrington at Startup School 2008
Mike Arrington is blogger with his very popular blog TechCrunch that covers technology related
startups. He has been named as one of the most powerful people on the internet.
In this video he talks about how to get, and how to respond to press for your startup. He starts
with claim “We only want to write stories that you don’t want written – use that to your advantage”,
he states if there are interesting stories you that might benefit the press, share them and he implies be and keep in good relation with press not only when you want stories about your company.
He points out some of the mistakes startups make:
-> repeatedly insisting on press to write about them: you become a background noise and more likely be ignored
-> responding angrily when criticised by press: instead of atacking them back immediately, engage with them call them for conversation.
Advises given by him:
-> whenever a blog or press writes about your company, mention it in your blog as well, link back to them. It will give the press incentive to write more about you in the future.
http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at-startup-school-08
Espeically for tech entrepreneurs, this is a must see presentation. Definitely a 5/5. It is long, but very well worth it.
David Heinemeier Hansson is the creator of the Ruby on Rails, a coding platform that allows for rapid and easy software development. Hannson is part of a company called 37Signals which creates SaaS applications for companies. They have been doubling revenues for the past 4 or so years.
Hansson lays out the formula for making a solid business in a sarcastic but simple way. “Charge money for your product.”
He also makes a very good point on what products to make. He claims that if you create something for yourself, you aren’t that unique and chances are other people need the same product.
Also, Hansson talks about the “Fortune 5,000,000″, meaning all the small companies that get over looked while focusing on the big companies.
“2000 customers at $40/month = $1,000,000 per year”
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1076
Tips for Entrepreneur
3/5
Larry Page, co-founder of Google gives 5 tips for entrepreneurs. He obviously has a lot of experience (this was from 2002) in start a company, considering his company’s brand is now worth $100 billion. Some of the points he made are sort unique and I don’t know if I agree with them (but given I didn’t found Google, I don’t have much weight). “Don’t pay attention to the VC bandwagon” I get the message, but I think it is definitely a good place to look at “what’s hot”. I would state it more as don’t start a company in order to get VC funding. If it turns out to be a fit, then purse the VCs.
I think this is a good video for the IT entrepreneur, especially as a really quick overview of what to think about.
His tip on becoming an “real experts” in what you are doing is important and will make me think as I progress, but I still think jumping in and trying things and becoming an expert while trying it is best.
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=279
Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow
4/5
This video should be shown to all younger entrepreneurs. A lot of the times younger entrepreneurs have the idea that starting a company is all about becoming filthy rich. I have heard multiple times by many entrepreneurs that this is a mindset that is bound to fail.
Guy Kawasaki is a well known entrepreneur/investor/speaker. He now manages a fund called the Garage Technology Ventures.
I’ve actually watched this video awhile back and it definitely changed my view on entrepreneurship. I have a mindset that I have a passion for creating something and if I stick with it, I’ll be fine financially in life.
This video applies throughout any industry and for anyone thinking about starting a company.
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=996
Randy Komisar has been partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers since 2005.
He has co-founded Claris Corporation, served as CEO of LucasArts Enterntainments and
Crystal Dynamics.
rating: 4/5
His essential message in the talk was the importance of failure. Not only for startups
but for succesfull sompanies (who have been lucky enough to not have to experience any
extent of failure) as well: “The Biggest Successes are Often Bred from Failures”.
Since great startups are built upon innovation, and innovation at its heart requires
perseverance, the way we deal with failures are important. Not only
we have to have enough tolerance towards failures but to actually learn lesson from
them, that as he describes is one of the key components for the great successes.
Randy states that the past failure experience is as important as gaining an experience in a succesfull company.
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=364
his bio from Stanford Ecorner:
“Jerry Kaplan is widely known in the computer industry as a serial entrepreneur, executive, technical innovator, and author. Most recently, he was co-chairman of Egghead.com, Inc. Previously, Mr. Kaplan served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of online auction company Onsale, Inc., which he co-founded in 1994.”
rating: 4/5
he highlights five biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make:
1) Not being clear about your ultimate goal: Identify what your TRUE goal is and continiously remind yourself to be
on the right track.
2) Trying to prove that you are smart. Rather try to solve a problem and focus on building a succesfull company. While
that’s what most entrpreneurs do, the desire for ego-gratification brings obstacles for your success (i.e. sometimes you get
credited solely yourself and it’s important that it does not happen, but your whole team is credited) Especially those
whose aim is to show their smartness often end up making that mistake.
3) Greed: Doing it for money. Focus to generating more value rather than trying to get the MAXIMUM portion of pie. Focus on success.
4) Hiring people that you like rather than people who you really NEED: rather on social preferences for people, it’s important
to focus on skills.
5) Not knowing when to let go: building copmany is like rising children – that change as they rise. Same analogy in company.
Have a realistic self assessment.
although these seem like simple advices, they way the speaker explains each point by relating to specific examples where entrepreneurs do end up
making them helps a lot.
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1076
Rating: 3/5
It was interesting listening to Larry Page, co-founder of Google, talk about what he believes are the keys to entrepreneurship since he is an extremely successful entrepreneur. There were a couple tips he mentioned in the video that were extremely pertinent to me specifically. The first being, just don’t settle, rather try and achieve the large problem. There are too many people just trying to make a quick buck and investing in companies that are currently “hot” or in “hot” markets. If you are able to solve a large real problem you will have a viable business and the money will come. The second tip that I thought was valuable was having a healthy disregard for the impossible. This means set stretch goals even if others believe that cannot be achieved. This way you always have something to go towards and keep growing. With this tip comes hiring the right people because they will always pay off. The only thing I did not like about this video was the fact Larry Page was just reading off a powerpoint and not going in to much detail. I would have liked to hear him just talk about his thoughts and experiences more.
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1719
Rating: 4/5
The video was about Carly Fiorina, CEO of HP, talking about leadership and capability. She explains how leadership is about three things: capability, collaboration, and character. She says capability is not necessarily about how intelligent a certain person is but sometimes about the questions they ask. Be able to ask the right questions at the right time and listening to the answer is one of the best skills to have. I thought it was interesting how she talks about the number one factor for telling if a business is successful is customer satisfaction. Fiorina says a balance sheet or income statement is just a representation of past decisions, things in the rear view mirror. She also talks a lot about continuous learning and taking risks within the business. It is important to keeping trying things until something works. However, even when something works continuous innovation has to happen to stay competitive.
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=364
Rating: 5/5
Jerry Kaplan talks about the five biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make. The first is having an unclear mission and goals. This is something that may sound so simple but is vital to write down and understand. Even though the mission or goal may not always be met, sometimes overachieved, it is still important to have something to go towards. They second mistake is trying to prove that you are smart or prove an ego. This is a really bad reason to start a business because you do not want to share the credit even when credit is deserved and therefore don’t get their support. The third mistake is doing something for greed. One problem of doing this is doing it on the cheap where you save money everywhere and don’t raise money. If you do not raise money or allocate the appropriate amount then the business may never grow to the level it shows. It is more important to have a portion of a large company then all of a small company. “Equity is like shit, if you pile it up it just smells bad but if you spread it around lots of wonderful things grow.” Key learning, do not horde equity. The fourth mistake is hiring people they like rather than the people they need. A venture is not a social club, you need to bring together different skills and mindsets together. You have to learn how to respect people you do not like. The last mistake is not knowing when to let go. Growing a company is like raising children, they change as they get older and values change as well. The skills you need at a startup level may be completely different from the skills you need to run a large organization. You must be able to realistically assess yourself so you know when you need to step aside. This is extremely important in order to get to a large scale.
David Heinemeier Hansson at Startup School 08
http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at-startup-school-08
Rating: 4.5/5
David Heinemeier Hansson is a partner at 37 signals and the creator of the web framework Ruby on Rails.
David talks about a situation with web (and technology startups) where many don’t have a business model (just makes me want to go on a rant about twitter). He says that many tech startups have lost sight of the fact that you’re charging for a product or service.
I think what’s especially cool about this video is the kind of simple math that David does. Such as 2,000 customers, at $40/month makes for a company with $1,000,000 in yearly revenue.
Further, David puts forward a certain attitude towards business that is kind of intriguing. He says that you don’t necessarily want to be big as a business because it can keep you from doing what you love. Rather, just trying to make a good amount of money and not worrying after a certain point is a good goal.
This advice is clearly aimed at people creating startup companies (and I get the feeling young people as well). I think that for people potentially wanting to start a company this puts things in perspective quite well.
There are really some great nuggets in here and I think are great for anyone wanting to start a company.