Mentations on Mentations

Entrepreneurship - Insight #2

My second (much delayed) insight in this Entrepreneurship series is, Be careful what you ask for.  As with Insight #1, this advice applies not only to entrepreneurs but to everyone.  For instance, it is tempting to look at others who are making more money than us or living more flamboyant lifestyles and to say, "I want to do what they do!"  But do you really?  It is easy to see the "greener grass" but often not to see the responsibilities and obligations that come with the territory.  Another way to put this is, You can do anything you want to in life, as long as you're willing to accept the consequences. 

Something I've heard before and which I think is a great way to go about choosing a career path is to find something you are really passionate about *and* can make decent living at and pursue that.  Those things that you are really passionate about but that won't generate income are better left to side projects or hobbies unless you are already financially secure or don't mind living the life of a pauper!

The bottom line of what I'm trying to say is that passion is as important as potential.  Don't just look at the prestige or money associated with a given position or career but also how interested you are in doing that type of work because thirty years doing something you despise can seem like an eternity!

Entrepreneurship - Insight #1

At the risk of potentially starting off this series with my biggest lesson to date making all subsequent Entrepreneurship postings anticlimactic, and also that you'll think my biggest lesson is lame ;^), my first insight is DO, and THEN receive.

Ok, so on one level this seems obvious right?  Do some action and receive some result.  But that is not what I mean.  What I do mean is that, in my experience, in order to receive some title/position/ranking/VC attention you must already operate at that level.  This is the smart business way of avoiding the fulfillment of the "Peter Principal" (i.e., continuing to promote an individual until they reach the level at which they are not competent, at which point they are no longer promoted; this leads to everyone being promoted to their highest level of incompetence).

Notice the subtle distinction between "do, and then receive" versus "fake it 'til you make it".  With the former, you are legitimately putting in the time and effort to build competence at a particular thing versus the latter where you basically pretend as though you are something you're not.

Before I got into the business world and entrepreneurship, I thought that companies/VCs took a risk by giving you a promotion/money and THEN you proved your value (in that position/role), but such has not been the case for me, and I suspect that in the 21st century this is becoming SOP, especially after countless corporate scandals and the dot bomb!

So what does this mean for you and me?  On the entrepreneurship side, I'm sorry to say that this translates to build your product/service offering FIRST, gain customers/revenue, and THEN [maybe] receive backing from a VC.  I know, ironic isn't it?  But you can't argue that it reduces risk!  ;^)

On the business side, it means that if you wanna be VP at a given organization then you must research what the roles and responsibilities of that position are and then do them AS WELL AS your currently assigned tasks.  Eventually, with a little luck/providence and perseverance, you may just receive what you want.  Receiving what you want leads me to my second insight in fact... so stay tuned!

Entrepreneurship - The Introduction

While I don't consider myself an expert in entrepreneurship, there are a number of insights that have either come to light or that have been validated for me thus far on this journey that I feel are worth sharing with those of you just starting out.  This series of Entrepreneurship posts will detail my findings (and ongoing questions) in this regard.

I personally got into entrepreneurship back in November of 2002 when I finally decided to pursue my vision of making information available to folks at-a-glance through aesthetically pleasing metaphors (i.e., pretty pictures) ;^).  I had recently read an article in PC Magazine about this company called Ambient Devices that was creating 'glanceable' objects that displayed information at a glance.  I had had a similar idea, though software-based versus hardware-based, back in December of 2001 and had sat on it (as usual).  You see, I'm not what I would consider to be a 'natural-born' entrepreneur/businessman; I didn't have my own newspaper route or lemonade stand or side business in high school/college.  Not only that, but I am not even outgoing - in fact, I pegged the scale for introversion on the Myers-Briggs personality assessment test!  I am much more inclined to reside in my own little world than to attempt to foist my views (or products) on the world at large.  Even so, I surmised that I needed to give this a shot rather than wonder about what might have been...

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."     --Theodore Roosevelt