What's special about a New Year

Image courtesy of [Stuart Miles/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Why is the first day of the New Year so special?  It's not just the good times and watching the ball drop in Times Square even when you're thousands of miles away in a different time zone, though when you're young, good times may be all that you care about.  But, as you get older, you want more from the event than just the ephemeral experience of partying.  It is because the new year promises a new beginning and we all want another chance, if not for 'do-overs', at least for 'do-betters'.

And new beginnings require changes and big efforts require big changes. If you're already on an fitness program, it is not difficult to add another 15 minutes or do another routine, but if your exercising consists only of clicking your TV remote from the couch, starting to exercise requires you to change.  Change is difficult for many of us who've been conditioned to aim for comfort and predictability and avoid any chance for failure.  But change is life and as we're all changing in small ways even if we don't know it, we might as well sign up for the big changes that we can consciously make to get us to where we want to be and who we want to be.

Considering a change in 2014?  Check out this post from James Altucher.  Wild and crazy, but totally on the mark in its message.  Vive la change!

Entrepreneurial attitude

I believe entrepreneurs are distinguished more by their approach to life than anything else.  Here are two stories I ran across recently that bolster that belief, of two very different people who exemplify the 'just do it' ethos of the entrepreneur.

First up, an 'oh wow' account from a young techie about how he went about making a new dice game.  It details how he went from concept to a game that is now ready to buy, pulling together whatever resources he needed (and learning a lot on what they were and how to find them) to make it happen - a departure from delivering software to delivering a physical product.  The 'oh wow' part is not only does the game sound cool, but that he took on the effort, and more importantly, the risk of failure, at building something new.

The second story is more of an 'awww...' one - an 89 year old woman (yes, 89!) who decided to pretty up her walking stick and seeing how everyone liked it, she started a business selling decorated canes to anyone else who wants a little cheer on their stick (cherry on the top - she raised expansion funds on Kickstarter!)  Here's a lady who happily plunged into entrepreneurship when everyone would be expecting her to be sitting back and relaxing in her rocking chair.

How many of us think of products like these and don't ever take them beyond a Sunday afternoon daydream spin?  These may not be ideas that "put a ding in the universe", "disrupt" anything or aspire to "billion dollar market caps", but their creators didn't let modest goals, lack of experience, or age hold them back from bringing them to market - and clearly, they had a lot of fun in the process.

Enjoy the stories on Happy Canes and Space Dice - do you have a story to share?

Image courtesy of Master Isolated Images/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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

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. 

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.

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!

Social entrepreneurship at work

In a long ago post, I'd quoted one definition of an entrepreneur as 'one who sees an opportunity and organizes resources to take advantage of it'.  Modifying that slightly, I'd say a social entrepreneur is 'one who sees an opportunity for social good and organizes resources to deliver it'. 

I've recently been working with the Silicon Valley Education Foundation as part of their Step Up to Algebra program, a middle-school math outreach effort.

• The need?  Large numbers of students in Silicon Valley were entering high school with little or no skills in algebra.  And as SVEF CEO Muhammed Chaudhry points out "students who study math at least through Algebra II in high school are more than twice as likely as those who do not to earn a four-year degree, and the level of math a student reaches is the most accurate predictor of whether that student will earn a Bachelor’s degree" (Adelman, 1999 & 2006).  
• The resources?  SVEF started the program a few years ago by providing summer workshops for students in local middle schools, using mentors from the community (usually local corporations) to provide the one-on-one support needed to help these students (typically under-resourced) get comfortable with algebra.  And of course, they do secure the all-important resource of funding to enable the program.

The program has been running for a few years now and they have delivered.  But entrepreneurs stay on top of changing market needs and refine offerings to fit them.  It apparent that there are more students needing help in algebra, and it also like a good idea to provide them that help throughout the year, not just for a few weeks over the summer, so they can gain increased competence in the subject. 

As always, the challenge is matching resources to goals.  Expanding the program makes logistics and volunteer sourcing difficult, so SVEF turned to technology to help make that happen.  In a sort of 'blended learning' approach, with bi-monthly in-person sessions, bolstered by the excellent Khan Academy content, and online mentoring on the Meemli platform, SVEF is able to deliver more help to more students, more often.  (Disclosure: I'm Meemli's founder, and I'm writing this to share my first-hand experience with SVEF's exciting approach.)

Working closely with SVEF, I get to see all the challenges non-profits face, especially in public education: working with cash-strapped schools, over-worked teachers and varying environments in each district.  I also see how hard it is to be innovative, take risks, work with outside resources you don't control and do it all with limited staff and funding constraints.  It takes patience and a willingness to go with the flow while still reaching for the goal - things that you don't see much of in tech startups, by the way.  As an entrepreneur myself, I'm impressed that SVEF is, on their own, putting together a delivery system for their program incorporating new technology instead of sticking to the proven, mainstream/late-adopter options.  Not many are willing to take this kind of a leap, even in Silicon Valley - innovative risks are easier dreamed of than embraced.  Kudos to SVEF for being true entrepreneurs for social good!

Getting started

As I'd mentioned in a couple of long-ago posts (here and here), I'm not blogging for publicity - I blog primarily to keep my right-brain from getting moribund and sharing opinions on a couple of things I care about is easier to achieve than truly creative writing.  But, the down side is that I don't blog that often as I'm swamped with 'real' work - it's been almost a month since the last one!  Some day I'll make blogging part of my 'real work' and presumably blogging bliss, or at least productivity, will ensue.

Meanwhile, I ran across a post on how to get start and fund a social enterprise.  It is short and eminently to the point and I totally agree with all the directives here:

1. Find your passion
2. State your values
3. Start with small ambitions
4. Speak the language of 'we' rather than me
5. Act as a 'for-purpose'

This list is intended for startups for 'social good', which are often non-profits, but in my opinion every one of them is applicable for a 'for-profit' enterprise.  Even the 'for-purpose' is a great reminder that every venture has to have a purpose that you can build around, and a purpose/goal of 'doing good' is just as vague as 'making money'.  

There is one key point that I believe needs to be added, both for social as well as commercial ventures:

     6.  Have a funding plan

While the post is aimed at fund-raising and using the above fundamentals to fuel it, even fund-raising needs a plan.  Whether it is self-funding, boot-strapping, angel/VC funding, individual donations or foundation grants, you can't get started without figuring out how you're going to finance it.  As someone who heads a non-profit that also funds other non-profits, I know that a funding plan is essential to delivering the 'good' - just as it is critical for success in a for-profit venture. You can read the post here.  It is worth reading, and saving, for all would-be entrepreneurs - just don't forget the financial plan!

Making it happen

I just read a post by Altucher on the #1 habit of people who get things done, aka, 'effective' people.  He refers to Stephen Covey's most popular '7 Habits of Highly Effective People' - the book he wants to beat - and zeroes in on the #1 habit: Be Proactive.

A few years ago, I happened to read Covey's book and it does have good stuff - but honestly, I can't remember much of it, though I'd probably recognize them if I heard the seven habits.  Or not.  A lot of these self-improvement books do tend to blur and sound the same, so I probably couldn't tell which were from that specific book.  But that's not a bad thing per se.  It is likely there are just the same few things that we can do to help ourselves, and it is the way they are presented that may resonate with each of us differently as individuals and get us to remember them, and, more importantly, do them.

I like Altucher's pick for the One Thing that rules them all.  No one would argue against being proactive, in fact, that is the only way to get anything done.  What is even more helpful is Altucher's exhortation to 'start today' - he's asking you to be proactive not procrastinate - and his neat little 'how-to' for chunking down your goals into 4 categories and listing what you can actually get a handle on right now makes it look like a no-brainer.

Of course, this is good advice for everyone, but particularly so for entrepreneurs, and he does give some examples of that.  Though I'm more likely to emotionally connect to 'The Tao of Steve Jobs', Altucher's post is a fun read and easy to practice.  Here it is: 'The #1 Most Effective Habit'!

The Tao of Steve Jobs

Just to get it out of the way, 'The Tao of Steve Jobs' has nothing in common with the movie 'The Tao of Steve' except for the first four words.  That's it.  This is not a book or movie or anything more than one small blog post about one amazing man.

It's almost a month since Steve Jobs died and there have been a zillion people opining about his life and legacy, as well as the inevitable detractors and tut-tutters.  And just when the stories seemed to be slowing down, out came his biography and TV shows - even SNL did its best. There are so many angles to the stories too - Steve the entrepreneur, the dropout/rebel, the wunderkind who was shunned by the tech establishment and then came back to show them, the family man who was felled by cancer.  Here are two widely different perspectives I liked reading: James Altucher's blog post and the eulogy by Mona Simpson (Steve's sister). 

For Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs, Steve was a god.  The one we all wished to be like, the fearless (and smashingly successful) entrepreneur,  the tech visionary who couldn't be caught, the genius worshiped by product designers everywhere.  Would-be entrepreneurs as well as famously successful ones (Zuckerberg, Page and Brin for example) desired to learn how to do it 'Steve's way'. 

The Tao of Steve Jobs, as I like to call it, are all those 'core values' that define the way he did things.  All these items are well known and are excellent advice not just for entrepreneurs, but possibly to anyone wishing to make something meaningful in his/her life:

• Focus.  
• You can't do everything, and certainly can't do everything well.  And yes, sometimes the focus is overwhelming and obsessive, but it may have to be so to get the job done.
• Simplicity.
•  Not only because of the inherent beauty in simplicity, but because it ultimately produces a better product, experience, outcome.
• Excellence.
• 'Perfect' trumps 'good enough' every time.
• 'Stay hungry.'
• If you're not striving and yearning for something, if you're not passionate about it, it's not going to happen.
  
• 'Stay foolish.'
• Do what you believe in.  Take the risk to act on it.

 (The last two are from Steve's speech to the Stanford students.  If you've somehow missed it or want to hear it again, here it is - one of the best commencement speeches of all time.)

A long while ago I wrote about what is important to me - create, care, connect (you can read that post here).  I realize how Steve epitomizes each of those.  He was undeniably creative - I've always appreciated Apple more than any other tech company as they tended to create, not copy/buy, successful ideas.  Steve cared deeply about what he did (even if he did not directly show his 'care' in the traditional way for social causes).  He micro-managed (and threw tantrums) because he cared so much about every aspect of what Apple built.  As for connecting, he connected the dots way, way outside the box and saw possibilities others couldn't even imagine.  Despite his imperfections, I admired him and what he represented - an embodiment of truth in design and the entrepreneurial fire.  He will be missed, and it may be ages before another like him shows up, but, like me, techies and entrepreneurs everywhere will be inspired by the Tao of Steve Jobs for a long time..

Upside of Failure

The Sunday New York Times magazine had a thought-provoking article on whether schools should focus on building 'character' and not just academic competence.  I generally applaud the sentiment, though I also believe that kids get much of their character guidance from parents and the community, with the school supporting and emphasizing it.

The article is titled 'What if the Secret to Success is Failure?' and goes on to cover all the character-building benefits of failing at something which then leads to future success.  Again, yes, I do support the concept as I believe it builds resilience, which is a big factor in successfully navigating this fast-changing world.  (I also believe students should be taught compassion, but that's a different story.)  What made this article particularly appealing to me is how much of this approach resonates with successful entrepreneurship.

"True: learning is fun, exhilarating and gratifying.... — but it is also often daunting, exhausting and sometimes discouraging."  Just like entrepreneurship!  "People who accomplished great things.... often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take."  That is the defining characteristic of an entrepreneur.  The concern about children from affluent families having so much done for them that they're unable to deal with setbacks is somewhat like an over-funded startup failing because it never had the pressure of limited resources making it focus on what was really important.  And of course, the idea that failed experiments and uncertainty contribute to the development of grit and ultimate success is one of the reasons that, in Silicon Valley at least, a two-time entrepreneur is respected, even if the first time was a bust.

There is more, for example, 'social intelligence' and 'optimism' are super helpful for entrepreneurs too.  Read the article here - it'll make you wonder if teaching entrepreneurship will do more than just help build the economy.

Once an entrepreneur...

We've heard of serial entrepreneurs who keep founding one company after another.  It's in their DNA, they can't think of doing anything else and they are, mostly, successful at it, so it's all good.

Today's MercNews had a story on a tech entrepreneur who's starting a new company - get this - more than 40 years after the first one.  It is Sandra Kurtzig coming out of decade-long retirement to launch a new venture.

The story itself focuses on the dearth of women CEOs in tech even though Sandra was a pioneer so many decades ago.  And that is a point worth considering and addressing, and maybe I'll add my take on it another time.  But, what grabbed me is that Sandra, apparently living the good life in Hawai'i, had an idea and was ready and willing to give it up to take on the startup challenge again.  Of course, doing a startup is a lot easier for Sandra than for most of us - she's launching with over $10 million in funding from top VCs, light years away from my bootstrapping stories.  Still, the funding doesn't take away from her drive and enthusiasm to take on a brand new venture.  Somehow the entrepreneurial calling didn't fade away regardless of lifestyle or age (maybe there's something to this story that more than 30% of online entrepreneurs are over 50).

It is exciting to see a pioneering entrepreneur come back after so long to lead a new startup and it will be fascinating to see how she steers her company in a world that has changed so much since the last time she was at the helm.  Go Sandra!

From here to there and back

I just read a post (originally published over a month ago) about a non-profit started by a young woman a few years ago.  It 'identifies, trains and mentors' smart, promising girl students from highly disadvantaged backgrounds to complete their education and prepare for careers.  The training sounds a bit like finishing school for business (and entrepreneurship) and the result is a bunch of highly motivated girls dreaming of building the next Google - in India.

The non-profit, Roshni Academy, was founded by Salma Hasan, while she was a junior at college and has significant funding from Silicon Valley philanthropists.  There are a couple of cool aspects to this social enterprise:

• Like other Stanford students, Salma started a venture and got funding while still at school, except this was for a social cause
• The Academy focuses on teaching/building intangibles - confidence, public speaking, conflict resolution (!) - not just academic skills

But what I find most impressive is that Salma wants to bring the same techniques here to the US where there many under-resourced girls with a lot of potential who don't even know the kind of futures they could have.  A model pioneered in India being brought to the under-served communities in the US is fascinating at many levels - including the fact that the idea was hatched by a student in the US to help solve a problem in India and is being brought back to address the same problem here.  It would be interesting to see how well it works in the US and how much tweaking, if any, needs to happen to fit this culture.

Mentoring (along with training) is key to getting students to dream - and achieve - big, especially if they are not exposed to a high-achieving environment in their families or communities.  Fortunately, there seems to be a renewed interest in mentoring in the US, maybe due to the combined pressures of the economy and an under-performing public education system.  The Roshni Academy may be a timely solution.  You can read Vivek Wadhwa's entire post here and watch the video and end the week feeling good about social entrepreneurs who dream and achieve.