Ikigai

One of my least favorite things about the end of the year is the ubiquitous 'year in review' list.  The best, the worst, the whatever-the-editor-fancies list.  So, as my last post for the year, I decided I would not do a 'look back' piece, but a 'look ahead' one instead.  As I work with a for-profit as well as a non-profit organization, I thought it might be good to reflect on encouraging and inspirational to-do items for entrepreneurs who are hoping to make a difference in 2013.

But, then as I was randomly web-surfing while drinking my chai, I ran across a mention of 'ikigai', the Japanese word which roughly translates to your reason for being. The 'Why?' of your life. Ikigai has been recently mentioned in various articles (like this one) as one of the secrets to a healthy long life.  Frankly, I'd think that it would be great for anyone, at any age, to know his/her own reason for being.  In fact, most people who seem happy with their lives appear to have a good sense of their own 'ikigai' and are living it, whatever it may be - feeding a family or fighting for causes.

Ikigai is probably what is driving most entrepreneurs - at least the ones that stick with their ventures.  There is something powerful driving the middle-class woman who starts a school for destitute children in India (here's the story) as there was something driving Steve Jobs.  Ikigai might be the answer to the question 'what makes an entrepreneur?'.

Of course, the 'reason for your being' is available to everyone, it is just different for each of us.  And it takes effort to figure it out.  When you do, you're half way to fulfillment.  The other half is figuring out how to live your ikigai. In a long-ago post, I wrote about why I do what I do - create, care, connect - and it is good to be reminded of it as I make choices, big or small.  After all, the ikigai is only the reason for your life, you still have to take the actions that make it your life.

Wish you a happy 2013 - may you find your ikigai and bounce out of bed every morning in anticipation of living it!

Startups - too much of a good thing?

It is possible that we've got to a point that everyone wants to 'do' a startup - whether one has what it takes or not.  This is especially true in places like Silicon Valley, and arguably the trend has peaked when there's a reality show about startups in Silicon Valley (though it appears likely to be short-lived, like most startups).  

There's a lot of buzz and hype on finding ideas and starting companies, even dropping out of school to do so.  While entrepreneurship is undoubtedly a powerful factor for growth, there's more to making entrepreneurship work than 'doing a startup' - you have to build a successful business.  That is a much harder proposition as it takes toughness, dedication and smarts to stick with it and make it work.

Daniel Isenberg writes about the importance of 'scaling-up' over 'starting-up' in this HBR post.  Scaling-up results in entrepreneurial growth and value creation.  He compares the start-up/scale-up actions to giving birth to a child vs. raising a child - the first is necessary to be able to do the second, but the second makes the first meaningful.   Too bad 'Scaling-up in Silicon Valley' is unlikely to be the next big reality show.

Scary thoughts on startups

Top 10 scary things for entrepreneurs, in no particular order:

1. Actually getting started.  It's much easier to talk about starting a company - everyone thinks it is so exciting and gives you a 100 suggestions and you feel you're floating on air and are high on enthusiasm.  But actually start a company and suddenly there's a metric ton settling down on  your shoulders - now you have to talk about reality, not dreams.
2. Building a team.  Yes, you have your best friend from college as your co-founder, but what if you say zig and he says zag?  What if you can't find any good people with the right skill sets, for example, you can't find developers and you have to learn how to code (all over again)?  What if there's nobody but you in your company?
3. Having the right idea. You did talk to 100 people before you started, but they were friends of friends at that huge end-of-summer party you went to and though they all thought it was cool, it could be that they were in party mode.  How can you be sure your idea is really good?
4. Business plans.  It's either a big mystery and you have no idea how to go about it, or, you know exactly what to do and hate the idea of having to re-word, re-calculate, re-format every time you show it to someone new.  
5. Getting money.  What if you don't know any rich angels and your friends and family have slim wallets?  Maybe you can bootstrap, but you'd have to figure out if there's a boot to strap (or a strap to boot) - and it has to work with your specific idea.
6. Legal coverage.  Lawyers cost money (see above), but could you get sued, cheated, conned out of money/stock/intellectual property if you're not sufficiently lawyered-up?
7. Competition.  The horizon is full of 800-lb gorrillas and pesky little startups (not yours) that want to do exactly what you plan to, and look like they'll get there faster and blow you out.
8. Customers.  Or users.  What if they don't show up?  Or worse, they don't show up only randomly and you can't show a chart-popping growth rate?  Is it a bad idea or bad marketing?
9. Time.  As in the thing you can run out of, along with money.  
10. Expert advice.  The blogs, the pundits, the classes, the social media groups, all making holding forth on why your startup will fail, and, to add insult to the injury, why your company is not even a startup because it doesn't fit some VC's startup profile or, to rub salt in it, why you will fail because you don't have the profile of a successful entrepreneur - wrong college, wrong age, wrong degree, wrong home town, whatever.

This stuff could make you want to throw up your hands and head back to the safety of a corporate job.  And you would, but for the fact you believe the scariest thing of all is not being what you want to be - an entrepreneur.

Happy Halloween!

Image source

The business of writing well

Writing is communication, so it should not come as a surprise that good communication skills (writing) are absolutely necessary in just about any career, especially the ones where you need to influence the thinking or behavior of others.  Even those who can write reasonably well, still want/need to work with someone who can do it better - providing jobs for the oodles of marketing/messaging pros out there.  Coincidentally that's what I've been doing the last week, enjoying the focus on the wording of the message instead of the features of the product, for a change.

One of the top education stories this week is the recently released report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, assessing writing competency for 8th and 10th graders.  The results themselves are not encouraging, only a quarter performed at the 'proficient' level or higher, but the way the test was done was definitely cheer-worthy.  It not only made the test computer-based, but it paid attention to whether students used the tools available to them through computers - even basics like spell-check.  Many of us have seen (among family, friends, coworkers) that the top students are often accomplished at writing, as well as math and science, and, unsurprisingly, they have ready access to tech resources (unfortunately the digital gap still persists, feeding the achievement gap). Though the fundamentals of good writing (and critical thinking) are timeless and technology-independent, the way we write has definitely changed and the person who knows how to access and use the myriad tools and services available has a clear advantage.  Kids need to learn to write well, using digital tools, if they're to flourish in the jobs of the future - and it's a challenge that we can definitely meet.

By the way, the example of the 'Lost Island' test (listen to nature sounds and snippets from a diary and write about your imagined experiences on that island) appears skewed to the more imaginative among us.  I personally would have loved it as an 8th grader, but I know many super-smart and successful people who would have not welcomed it that much.  They'd enjoy reading Harry Potter (or Robinson Crusoe - extending the island theme), and obsessively watch episodes of 'Lost', but would get lost themselves trying to imagine something like it.  Here's a report on the NAEP writing test if you want to know more details.  What level of creative writing is necessary for every student?  And should creative writing really be bounded ('stifled') by rules or should it flow unfettered?  (You might want to check out my older post on why entrepreneurs should write too!)

Good products do social good

I got to thinking about this when reading a Quora post on how to get people to notice your startup.  There are many suggestions for marketing, social or otherwise, but the key is always just one thing - build a good product that people want to use.  Marketing is good for only so much, if the product doesn't do it, for whatever reason, it's not going to make much of a difference.

Thinking about some of the really good products of the past few years made me realize how many of them have had huge, positive, social impact - even when they didn't start out that way.  Apple created iTunes to get people to quickly and easily buy music for their iPods - no stated social goals, purely revenue/profit driven.  But, it (was) is a product that people want to use, and now it has vast numbers of educational podcasts and videos, from top universities too, and iTunes has, as a side effect, made quality educational content available to everyone.  Social good?  Check.  Take Google, from search to YouTube.  It has changed the way people get information, and more, it quickly and easily delivers previously unavailable information to people who need it.  For every person who wastes hours watching dancing cats, there's someone learning about how to identify heart attacks from just plain stomach rebellion to too much spicy food.   I don't know about the 'don't be evil' mission of theirs, but their tool is seriously used for good.

Let's not forget the now ubiquitous smartphone - and it all started with Apple's iPhone, though the med tech visiting villages in India to provide on the spot assistance is not using an iPhone necessarily.  It's changed education, health care, emergency assistance - you name it.  Again, the goal was not to do good directly, but provide this must-have tool which has changed our lives that could be used by any number of people to deliver the 'good'.

Then there's Facebook.  Almost a billion users strong, recently reviled for its tanking stock price and the social network that everyone joins and many kvetch about.  It started out as an exclusive, somewhat elitist (only the cool schools are in) online student group, almost a gossip board.  Now it is not only keeping far-flung families connected and feeling loved (go grandmas!) but providing a platform for a myriad socially focused groups and even played a part in mobilizing people during the Arab spring of 2011.   It fosters conversation, whether someone is sharing their latest idea for going green or slamming the convention speakers.  It is bringing people together, and helping keep them that way (though arguably some of them need to be reminded to get out and do it in person too).  Much of it may be banal and self-serving, but there's no question that Facebook has been an agent of social change

By the way, the older companies like Microsoft and Yahoo are also doing good on a daily basis with their products.  Whatever you may say about MS Office, the world still uses it - and that includes kazillion non-profits - because it does the job, and I'm finding that tons of social groups, especially small volunteer ones, are all active users of Yahoo groups.  And of course, there's their email - used for distributing sketchy jokes as well as tips to manage your money - the app that just refuses to go away. (By the way, if you're a fan of the all 'good' ideas bubbling out there, check out The Daily Good.)

Yes, this list is mainly of tech companies, because, honestly, that's the field I'm in and what I was ruminating about.  This is not to imply that these companies are all warm and fuzzy like gargantuan, but cuddly, teddy bears.  It's just that all of these are for profit, in a major way, yet they have achieved vast, global social reach and impact - because of the nature of their products.

Maybe more wannabe social entrepreneurs should focus on their products and why people would want to use them, knowing that the good will follow (along with the money).   What do you think?

(Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

A social entrepreneur starts early

Last Friday, as I was driving back from a meeting, I heard just a couple of sentences on the radio before I turned it off to think (I still do that sometimes), but what I heard was something that stuck in my mind.  (If you're interested in the whole thing, I tracked it down to this talk on Forum, here it is: Silicon Valley Culture).  The part that stuck was that Valley entrepreneurs prioritize 'entrepreneurship, family, philanthropy', in that order.

It is definitely one of those statements that evokes a 'hmm...', a statement that would not resonate with everyone, but certainly reflects what we've seen with a lot of entrepreneurs, Gates being a notable example.  But what made me think about this was a meeting with someone who appears to be embodying the exact opposite in terms of focus.

A couple of days ago I had the opportunity to meet Joel Mwale, a young man with a strong entrepreneurial drive.  He's visiting here from South Africa (where he's attending the African Leadership Academy), his visit sponsored by his mentors Terry and Carolyn Gannon (retired, Silicon Valley entrepreneur/execs super-active in various social causes).  The Gannons believe that Joel would get a lot by meeting the many entrepreneurs and academic stars in the Valley and he's definitely making the most of his visit.  When we met, I heard about his journey from poverty in a small village in Kenya through school, where he was well on track to be under, or even 'un', educated, until a chance study tip from a classmate lit a fire in him and catapulted him to the top 10% of students in the country.  And Joel is fired up to be an entrepreneur.

Joel is not thinking of just getting rich himself and helping his family though.  Joel dreams of doing something to improve the education situation in Africa (though he's from Kenya, his scope is for the whole continent).  He's not thinking 'philanthropy' (after entrepreneurship and family, as in the Valley), he's thinking 'social enterprise' - and how he can use his drive, his smarts, his life, to make a difference. 


Joel has started working on his next venture and, as as a fellow edupreneur, had a deep conversation about the learning community platform provided by my startup.  He is one of the 10 winners of the Google Zeitgeist 2012 award for Young Minds for young people showcasing how they are making a positive impact on the world.  Amazingly, Joel's award was for an enterprise that he started a couple of years ago to bring safe, clean water to his village and is now employing over 30 people.  


Joel is not waiting to do well before he does good.  For him entrepreneurship is fully integrated with helping solve some of the basic problems impacting people's survival and growth.  And just to put it in all perspective, Joel hasn't celebrated his nineteenth birthday yet.

Top CEO trait: Stick-with-it-ness

It's been said before: what a startup needs is a CEO who doesn't give up just because the outlook is bleak.  I've covered this in a previous post about Pandora which was one of those companies that everyone expected to fade away but went public and is still going strong.

This applies to large companies too - what helps a shaky enterprise survive and succeed is a CEO that believes in its potential and digs in for the long haul to nurture its growth.  We know all about Jobs and Apple.  The story of Ariba is less well-known.  I was one of those who was surprised that Ariba was still around when I heard it was to be bought by SAP for $4.3 billion.  Today's article on Ariba story and CEO Robert Calderoni in the Merc News reminded me again why persistence is a virtue in CEOs.

Too many entrepreneurs think if you don't make it big fast you might as well get out ('go big, or go home').  That may be true for some companies/industries, but it is certainly not universal.  For sure it could be difficult to stay with a venture that doesn't produce enough revenue to pay the team, but that's why entrepreneurship is not for everyone, regardless of the prevailing hype.  True entrepreneurs stick with it as long as they can see there's potential in their vision - they bootstrap, moonlight, crowdfund, whatever they can do to keep the fire burning.  (For sure, Ariba didn't have to go ask Granny for funds, but they had the same problem - at a different scale - of staying afloat and re-tooling their business.)

The trait of determination is even more critical for social entrepreneurs.  All change is hard, and effecting social change definitely takes a patience, learning and perseverance.  The people who need to change the way they live, work, eat or learn may not be ready to do so just because you have this wonderful idea to make it all better, even if it costs nothing.  Behavioral change takes time, and may require many failed efforts before hitting a successful model, which means the company needs a CEO who's willing to stick with the vision and do what it takes.

In an earlier post I'd quoted Randy Komisar on entrepreneurs matching up to different breeds of dogs at different stages of a company's evolution.  One important breed got missed there - bulldog!

Fresh thinking

Yes, successful entrepreneurs are expected and encouraged to be dedicated, focused, even consumed by their ventures, 24/7. But they're also expected to be sharp, unfettered and creative thinkers capable of coming up with innovative solutions for the marketplace as well as more mundane issues like punching up your presentation.  Are there things we should/could be doing to keep the creative juices flowing? 

In my view, there's one simple directive to help keep the noggin fresh and peppy: get out.  In all possible ways.  Get out of your office (or your garage).  Get out some evenings to do something other than hanging out with your team in a bar over beer and chips.  Get out of reading the same old, same old, and mix up TechCrunch with the Economist or vice versa.  Get out of your chosen field and meet people in others, and if you're very much in the left brain world, make it a point to get to know folks in the arts.  Mostly, get out of your comfort zone and do something different fairly often.

Which brings up the obvious point, not all entrepreneurs think that they need to be creative - they'll leave it to the design guy or the marketing gal.  There are many entrepreneurs who believe they're done being creative as they came up with their business idea and now they should just focus on execution.  But execution draws on outside the box thinking too.

An example is a possible new market niche for us, an idea that came to me when I was sitting at the Startup Conference in Mountain View a few days ago with a friend who wanted to check it out (I attend one of these occasionally as part of my 'getting out').  Funnily enough, the keynote speaker, Dave McClure, started off by pretty much calling all the entrepreneurs there losers for attending a conference instead of being busy building their companies.  It is a totally valid point on how to use your time, or not.  These events may be worth attending if you're just thinking of starting a company, and want to know what others did (no live-streaming video of yourself - Justin Kan already did that.)  But my expectations are pretty much to hear something different and maybe meet someone I wouldn't have otherwise met - an unusual mental break for a few hours.  Best of all, it worked!

There's another hot new book being pitched to entrepreneurs - Jonah Lehrer's 'Imagine: How Creativity Works'. (Side note: seriously, how does one keep up with all the reading and still accomplish something?  Sure, it's part of keeping your brain fresh but your time is limited.  Realistically, the best one can do is to skim blogs to pick and choose the few books that resonate.)  Anyway, there's a listen-worthy interview with Lehrer on video here.  He provides a well-reasoned approach to creativity, offering some hope that creativity can be cultivated and you can keep it going even as you get older - you don't have to lose it. 

Choose to be more creative.  Shaking up the brain is good, but you need to care enough to want to zumba. 

Finding Balance in Life is Work

Now, here's a topic that affects only the privileged - work-life balance.  Think about it, it is an issue only for those who have the luxury of choice on how much they work or don't.  I'd written about this a while ago (yes, this topic is also frequent fodder for bloggers, writers and researchers) in what I thought was a cleverly titled post 'The work of life' in which I mused about our cave-dwelling forebears whose view of 'life' was more about avoidance of death than finding time for a family dinner.  Fast forwarding about fifty thousand years, today, for most people the world over, a work-day and its duties are clearly defined with little or no flexibility in it (as at Foxconn).

I'm writing about this again as I read a recent HBR post 'Entrepreneurs don't need work-life balance' which made me conclude that we're going about this the wrong way.  Previously I'd written about how to manage being a committed entrepreneur who wishes to meet all personal responsibilities, not just the ones in his/her company.  Now I'd like to step back from minor coping tactics, however useful they may be, to take the long view, a more philosophical one - and not just for entrepreneurs, but any of us who is lucky enough to be able to even to have the option to adjust our work schedules.

Mahatma Gandhi is credited with the quote 'Happiness is when what you think and what you say and what you do are in harmony'.  Less poetically, I believe it is when you are in harmony, or in balance - balance being something you experience, not achieve.  Equanimity is an even better word for it.  And equanimity comes when there's no guilt or stress or regrets - all those unbalancing feelings that come with thinking you should be doing one thing while you're saying/doing another.  As in having promised to be home for dinner but going to a mixer your investor invited you to in the last minute, or going on a long-planned ski weekend with a best friend and fretting about not being onsite for a product release.  These get to be stressful because you're thinking you're doing something for others (and failing in it), when in fact all the choices you make are for yourself.  You enjoy your work, you enjoy family and friends, you want to be physically and emotionally fit and you want it all - without conflict. 

Can it be done?  You bet.  But it takes work to get you and your life in balance.  Plan your life blocking out as much time as you think you'd like/need for all components that are important to you (for sure, if you're an entrepreneur, work's going to take a mega-chunk of it).  When conflicts arise, bring your values to the fore when making your choice.  Again, it should be yours, not anyone else's - after all, you're one of the privileged few that can afford that.  Also add a dash of pragmatism - be where your presence makes the most difference.  If you feel balanced with the result, you know you've made the right choice.  And one more tip, once you've made the choice, forget about the alternative - that way lies the wobbly woe of unbalance.

Exit signs

Entrepreneurs are probably one of the most 'advised' groups out there.  There's oodles of advice on how/why/when one should start a company and how to keep it going (though the going gets tough on that one).  But presumably entrepreneurs need to be told how to know when to pack it in because there's advice out there on that topic too.

Recently I read a much-commented guest post by Mike Troiano on the OnStartup blog, titled 'Be Captain of Your Destiny, Not Prisoner of Wishful Thinking', which listed five indicators which should convince an entrepreneur that it is time to admit that his idea doesn't work and exit.  While those criteria are worthy of consideration, I do believe that a true entrepreneur is not in the game because of a single idea, but because of a vision.  And if one idea doesn't work, it is highly likely she'd adapt and make it something else.  If you read the post, make sure you read the comments, especially the one by 'V' which I think is more in line with those of an entrepreneur who doesn't 'roll over and die' quite that easily.

In my view entrepreneurs have one sure-fire sign that it's time to move on - when the money runs out.  As long as there's money, and, even more importantly, as long as there are customers, the entrepreneur is still in the game. An example of this tenacity is a friend of mine who's helping her husband in his startup.  The idea is his, but they're partnering on the effort, especially in taking turns bringing in income, and they've been working at it for quite a while.  They'd run into various roadblocks, including the  'great' recession, and every time they reached out to customer prospects, or pitched to investors, they learned things that got them to re-tool their product and adjust their market position, and they've done this multiple times.  After many months, I got to meet with my friend a couple of days ago when she told me that they're in launch now. The product looks promising and their prospects are exciting.  This appears to be the real deal. 

One of my early posts was about a VC wondering when to hold on to a company, and in my view, it was when you could see the founder/entrepreneur still engaged and still passionate about making it happen - it was  'know when to hold' without being hung up on the 'know when to fold'.  Entrepreneurs who have a vision about a problem that needs solving, are willing to change their ideas on how to solve it, but don't give up on the vision, unless it is something they didn't care for that much in the first place.  Someone who's an entrepreneur by conviction, not an entrepreneur by convenience, would rather detour than exit if at all possible.

Frownies and smilies

Customer feedback is what makes the whole venture real for an entrepreneur.  Sure, validation is the number of users, the number of units sold, the amount of revenue received - but the quantitative stuff is never enough.  You want to know what the users think, how much they like what you're doing and why.

So you actively seek customer feedback, especially in the early stages as that is going to inform your product and marketing strategies.  And when you get the 'wow!', 'cool', you're thrilled.

Then you run across the first customer who is not a fan of whatever you're doing and let's you know that in definitive terms with feedback itemizing the many different ways your product fails to impress.  Your initial reaction is most likely a sinking feeling, tinged with a little 'what if nobody likes it?'.  The next one is that the customer doesn't really get it and you're not going to pay any attention to the feed.  Luckily your business sense kicks in and you start looking at what the feedback is about.  You put yourself in the shoes of the customer and try to see what could have happened and what you can do about it.  And if you're super customer-centric (as you should be) you reach out to the customer with a reasoned response and maybe notch a win.  Negative feedback can bring positive results.

Handling feedback in business is pretty much like how you would do it in other areas of your life.  Enjoy the kudos, but don't disregard the criticism and don't let it crush you by taking it personally.  Take a few steps back (and a few deep breaths!) and try to find value in the feedback.  Your product - and you - will be the better for it. 

As they say, a frown is just an upside down smile.  


 

Domain expertise

Conventional wisdom has it that you should only work on what you know.  As in what you studied in college and/or gained experience in through your jobs. This is especially true for entrepreneurs - 'domain expertise' is expected in founders.

But entrepreneurs are also advised (pushed)  to 'follow their passion'.  And the reality is that not everyone recognizes their passion early on.  Or if they do, they are not able to indulge it and they settle instead for jobs they're good at - maybe to pay off the monster college debts they racked up studying 'marketable' subjects that they were not so passionate about.

So what's an entrepreneur to do when she discovers the passion for an area that she has no direct experience in?  In a previous post, I'd written about how it is important to get to know the area well if you are going to build a company around it and suggested various steps that you could take.  And a few days ago I met an entrepreneur who exemplifies the commitment to doing what it takes to make that shift successful.

CK12 has been getting a lot of attention in education and tech circles for making the promise of online textbooks a reality, and, most importantly, an affordable reality.  But what is less known is how the founder Neeru Khosla went about starting CK12.   Her background was in biology, not education.  Neeru was involved in leadership roles in various non-profit efforts until she decided to jump into the digital textbook revolution and make online textbooks readily accessible.  But before she did that, Neeru joined a Master's program in education at Stanford University.  I had the opportunity to chat with Neeru at an event last week and I asked about her experience.  It was 'very hard' she said, understandably.  It is no cake-walk to get back into college when you've been out of it for a couple of decades or so, especially for a demanding program.  'So why did you do it?' I asked.  Her answer: it got her involved with people in education. 


The organization is well established now and there are millions of views of the textbooks on CK12.  It got there because Neeru was willing to do the hard stuff and didn't let age or lack of domain knowledge stand in her way.  And that's one of the defining characteristics of entrepreneurs - they do not shrink from tackling the difficult, challenging, out-of-the-ordinary things that are needed to make their ideas reality.  Living your passion takes commitment!

Moneyball entrepreneur

Ok, that title's a tease.  It's really about the quotes from the movie Moneyball (based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis) that Dharmesh Shah connects to lessons for entrepreneurs in his entertaining and insightful blog post.

There are 17 quotes in the post, but my favorites are #6 and #17.

• #6 - Your goal shouldn't be to buy players, your goal should be to buy wins.  When you're early in the game you think having the 'right' (aka experienced) people in roles (VP, CMO, whatever) would make life easier, and often it is with the goal of getting funding, instead of doing the work that needs to be done.  I relate to this because I was advised to get 'names' and spent quite a bit of time trying to do that, but realized that it just didn't click, and that I'd rather have someone with smarts and enthusiasm to do what needs to be done.  And that helped me focus too (#2 on the list).
• #17 - We're going to change the game.  The goal has to be something worthwhile to make you want to stick with it through all the uncertainty and set-backs.  It's the passion for something bigger that will fuel you through the downs until you get to the ups. 

The Moneyball mantras are for socially-focused ventures too.  "It's about seeing something that's not quite right in the world, and deciding you want to fix it."   Education and health are two areas where there are a lot of initiatives started by people who see problems and want to do their bit to fix them.  These two areas also have a lot of entrenched belief systems (as in Moneyball) that are getting seriously shaken by new players who are willing to 'think different'.

Even if you don't love Moneyball (as I do), check out Dharmesh's post here - it is thought-provoking for entrepreneurs and just about anyone who's wants to do something of impact (and it makes you want to have Billy Beane on your team!).

Who is an entrepreneur?

My favorite definition of an entrepreneur has been 'One who recognizes opportunities and organizes resources to take advantage of the opportunity'.  But I read a new one in a post a couple of days ago - actually, it was conceived 37 years ago by Harvard Business School professor Howard Stevenson - that puts the 'organizes resources' in a different light.   Stevenson's definition of entrepreneurship is 'the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.'


The 'without regard to resources' is an interesting differentiation.  This implies that, to an entrepreneur, the appeal of the opportunity is more important than the availability of the resources to execute on the opportunity.  At every step the entrepreneur looks at what should be done and then figures out how to do it - instead of the standard approach of looking at what can be done and how it should be made to fit.  The entrepreneurial approach starts with the results required instead of the resources available.  Looking back at some of the great entrepreneur stories (Steve Jobs for example) this seems to have definitely been the case.  The post also quotes Stevenson on how more entrepreneurs start out poor instead of rich as they are less constrained by lack of resources.  (Though that didn't apply to Bill Gates.)


I do like the definition though. You can see it in all the entrepreneurs who boot-strap their way to success.  It is what drives entrepreneurs to work with contractors to build prototypes if they don't have co-founders, and not be afraid to do marketing and sales even if their own background is in engineering.  They are not stuck in the comfort zone of requiring all the questions to be answered before going after the opportunity.   Maybe it's just another way of saying that an entrepreneur is - cheers, you guessed it! - a risk-taker.  You can read the Inc.com post here.

Resolution time

January 1 is just another day on the calendar, but for many it's the day that brings the usual push to make resolutions to better ourselves.  It is something that many do every single year -  if we're not cynical, we'd see it as a testament to the fact that hope (for improvement) springs eternal in the human breast.

Mark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur, has a new book out in which he contends that if you want to give yourself the best chance of success you should work harder.   According to Mark, this is because the only thing that is under your control is the effort you put in.  This article takes Mark's guidance and suggests that putting in more effort (setting goals and measuring results) is a worthy resolution for the new year.

All good.  Effort, not just time worked but striving towards goals, is absolutely necessary for success and is a good idea for your resolution list.  But, I do not agree that 'the only thing that anyone...can control is their effort'.  I believe there is one thing that is much more important, in fact, you wouldn't be putting in the effort without it.  That thing is attitude.  Attitude is something that you can absolutely control, and your attitude will determine your success (and the effort you put towards it).  My suggestion?  Put in the effort to 'cultivate a positive, can-do attitude' at the top of your to-do list.  The rest will follow.  Happy 2012!