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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Shake up the market with these key ingredients to a successful startup Entrepreneurship starts with an idea and a dream: a dream of a better world for others, and a life less ordinary for yourself. These days, more people than ever are full of world-changing ideas and, thanks to technology, have the means to bring them to life. But many ideas remain just ideas, and many dreams just dreams. Startup Mixology is first and foremost a book about turning your ideas into action. From the cofounder of media company Tech Cocktail, a veteran entrepreneur and investor who was named one of the most connected people in tech, this book covers the basic "ingredients" of winning entrepreneurship. No abstract theories here -- it shows you how to tackle everything from idea generation to launch to marketing to funding and how to start getting things done. Once you've taken that first step, the journey has only begun. Startup Mixology tells it like it is -- and it's not easy! You'll learn about the harsh reality of starting up: what happens when you offend your customers, get no attention, or run out of money. These are the stories you don't always hear in the media. In the end, Startup Mixology is an optimistic book. You can do this -- and you can have fun doing it, too. Every chapter also shows you how to enjoy the journey along the way - because if you don't, what's the point of it all? From cake baking to workations to llama parades, you'll learn how entrepreneurs around the world stay sane, reduce stress, and celebrate the positive. This may seem fluffy, but it's actually one of the biggest secrets of successful startups. Inside, you'll find the stories of companies like MakerBot, WordPress, Zappos, Basecamp, Uber, and more. Hear in their own words how they survived the startup phase, and learn from the straightforward and conversational Frank Gruber, who has met thousands of entrepreneurs and watched them grow their businesses. In many ways, entrepreneurship will be the most difficult undertaking of your career. But if you can find the right balance of hard work, support, and celebration, it can also be the most rewarding. Startup Mixology takes you through the whole process from start to finish, so you can begin the incomparable journey of turning your great ideas into great startups.
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Seitenzahl: 344
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction
Part 1: Getting Started
Chapter 1: Entrepreneurial Mind
See Problems as Opportunities
Vision
Think Less; Act More
Always Learning
Risk
Rule Breaker
Optimism
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Chapter 2: Ideas
Scratch Your Own Itch
Go After an Industry
Debate: Should You Build Painkillers or Vitamins?
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Chapter 3: Action
Who Are Your Customers?
What Would a Simple Prototype Look Like?
How Much Personal Investment Do You Want to Make?
Do You Want to Quit Your Job?
What Would Your Dream Team Look Like?
Who Else Can Help You?
Starting Simple
How Do You Find a Cofounder?
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Chapter 4: Formation
Forming a Company
Location
Employee Agreements
Intellectual Property
Legal Advice
Bookkeeping and Accounting
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Part 2: Product
Chapter 5: Product-Market Fit
Customer Development
Customer Validation
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Chapter 6: Launch
Strategy
Launch Stages
Build a Community
Partners
Public Relations
Build Relationships with Press
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Chapter 7: Metrics
Types of Metrics
Which Metrics Matter?
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Part 3: Team and People
Chapter 8: Team
Who to Hire?
Outsourcing
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Chapter 9: Culture
Figuring Out Your Culture
Living Your Culture
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Chapter 10: Celebration
Company
Brand
Science
How to Celebrate
Moments of Celebration
Celebrate in Moderation
Final Thoughts
Chapter 11: Relationships
Social Media
How Relationships Can Help You
Tips for Relationship Building
Relationships for the Long Term
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Part 4: Sales and Marketing
Chapter 12: Marketing
Marketing Strategy
Types of Marketing
Putting All Your Marketing Together
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Chapter 13: Sales
Sales Process
Sales Tips
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Part 5: Money
Chapter 14: Bootstrapping
Bootstrapping Tips
What a Bootstrapped Startup Looks Like
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Chapter 15: Funding
How to Pitch to Investors
How Much Funding Should You Raise?
Fund-raising Tips
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Part 6: Growth and Change
Chapter 16: Failure
When Do You Shut Down?
The Harsh Reality
How to Stay Positive
How to Stay Positive When Your Startup Fails
Final Thoughts
Chapter 17: Success
Scaling
The Exit
The Harsh Reality
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
Final Thoughts
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
References
Index
End User License Agreement
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Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1: Getting Started
Begin Reading
Startup Mixology
Tech Cocktail's Guide to Building, Growing, and Celebrating Startup Success
Frank Gruber
Cover image: © Stock/Suzifoo © Stock/Pgiam
Cover design: Wiley
Copyright © 2014 by Tech Cocktail, LLC. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with the respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom.
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Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
ISBN: 978-1-118-84438-0 (cloth); ISBN: 978-1-118-89873-4 (ebk); ISBN: 978-1-118-89877-2 (ebk)
To everyone out there living with an idea and a dream, big or small. I'm hopeful you'll find the courage to start, and thankful if this book can contribute to your journey and success in some way.
Foreword
I'm a big believer in the 10,000 hours of practice theory.
If you want to become an amazing guitar player, you need 10,000 hours of practice. If you want to become a great golfer, you need 10,000 hours of practice. And if you want to become a successful entrepreneur, you need 10,000 hours of practice.
However, the other thing you need is to make sure that you're practicing the right things. If you spend your 10,000 hours doing nothing, except playing the basic chords, you will not magically turn into the amazing guitar player you imagined at the end of that journey.
Generally, my advice to entrepreneurs boils down to a few simple things:
Make sure that whatever you're doing, you're doing it for the passion, and money isn't your primary motivator. Chase the vision, not the money. If you do so, the chances of making more money are much more likely to happen.
Be unapologetically true to yourself, both in business and in life. This principle will help you build a unique brand as well as a strong company culture.
Trust your gut. Sometimes your gut will be wrong, but that's part of what the 10,000 hours of practice of being an entrepreneur is all about. It's about training your gut.
In my entrepreneurial experience with LinkExchange, Zappos, Delivering Happiness, and now Downtown Project, I've found that there's a lot you can learn from books as well as other entrepreneurs. I wish that the book that you are now holding in your hands had existed when I was just starting out. It contains a lot of great lessons and stories that would have saved me a lot of trial and error throughout my own entrepreneurial journey.
If you're in the midst of starting your own startup, this book can serve as a great guide and roadmap for things you should be thinking about, and ultimately things that you should be practicing as you form and grow your startup.
I've known Frank and Jen from Tech Cocktail for several years now. Not only have they been on their own entrepreneurial journey, they are also in the business of being exposed to and learning from literally hundreds and hundreds of startups. You'll find tons of great advice in this book from lots of different entrepreneurs.
My advice to you is to take it all in, and then chart your own path. There will be a lot of ups and downs, but just remember that it's all part of the journey.
—Tony HsiehCEO, Zappos.com;Author of Delivering Happiness;Appreciator of llamas
PS: The time you spend reading this book will count towards your 10,000 hours of practice.
Introduction
In 2005, just weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, I found myself attending the WebmasterWorld's Search Conference in the Big Easy. At a loss for which sessions to attend, I randomly sat in on a session called Blogging for Fun and Profit. I had never really understood blogging. It was an unusual word, it seemed nerdy, and I didn't get its appeal, but I reluctantly stayed—vowing that I would listen but never blog.
What I didn't know was that this session and what I learned that hour from Yahoo!'s Jeremy Zawodny and PhD Amanda Watlington would be pivotal in my life's trajectory. An interesting convergence of my skills, interests, and new opportunities arose: my computer technology background from Purdue and Northwestern, my inner passion to be the captain of my own ship, my love of writing, and the knowledge that I could launch something online and grow an audience without the help of a large company. Little did I know at the time that attending this blogging session would be the aha moment I needed to launch Tech Cocktail, a tech startup-focused news and events organization, the following spring.
The next few years included jobs for large Fortune 500 companies, as well as numerous projects I “started up” during nights and weekends. From building a spam-blog-fighting tool to building a college-targeted social network that never quite got off the ground to even building a gratitude journal community app before finally creating a media company focused on startups and entrepreneurs, I can't say I've taken the path of least resistance. It's been long, hard, and frustrating but also exciting, gratifying, and fun. I have new gray hairs (or they could be summer blondes) popping up daily that I now attribute to this journey. And along the way, I've taken lots of notes.
I've observed that there are thousands of people with ideas who want to create something but don't know where to start. At the same time, I've observed massive shifts in technology and business that have reduced the costs and other barriers to starting a new venture. I've noticed that the media has a love affair with successful startup founders and has glamorized tech startups. I've also noticed that many of those who are jumping into the startup game have very high expectations and are ill equipped to handle the realities of the journey, which can have devastating consequences.
Although I'm still very much on the journey myself—and probably always will be—I've learned a lot from my own experiences and those of others. So my goal is to offer a step-by-step guide, filled with my own stories, lessons, and observations, as well as many insights shared with me by fellow startup founders, partners, and industry leaders I've met along the way. Whether you're just out of school and starting to code a feature you think could catch on or have been around the block and need some inspiration or additional knowledge to fuel your endeavor, this book will help you along your own entrepreneurial adventure. No one can do it alone—we all need help and advice. Consider this book part of your extended network, where you can reach in and find nuggets of information whenever you need.
Each chapter starts with essential lessons and advice, followed by a section on the harsh reality of starting up. I want you to be as prepared as possible for the challenges of the journey—and it's a huge challenge. So I'll share stories about those worst-case scenarios and what-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong situations. I've experienced working all-nighters, taking red-eye flights, running out of money, vacation-skipping, bootstrapping, negotiating, hiring and firing employees, and succumbing to stress-induced illness. Although these are real startup life realities, they are seldom discussed.
On the bright side, each chapter also has a section on celebrating and enjoying the journey. We'll cover how to celebrate the startup life and all of your advantages and successes, big and small. I'm a firm believer that the incredible difficulty of starting up is all the more reason to stop, exhale, share, thank, and appreciate all the positive moments along the way.
The purpose of this book is to inspire and give you an overview of the journey you're embarking on. If you have questions along the way, we've designed an online companion at http://tech.co/book to help guide you and provide more resources and tools.
Maybe you'll be the next [insert today's most famous startup founder here] or maybe you'll turn your idea into a product or service that can become a solid business, earning you steady revenue. We all have different goals. My goal is to help you navigate and enjoy the startup journey, staying healthy and optimistic as you pursue your passion. So let's get started!
Part 1
Getting Started
Chapter 1Entrepreneurial Mind
Fortune favors the bold.
—Virgil
My 10-year journey from college to starting up taught me how to think like an entrepreneur and embrace the startup life, a life that I am firmly planted in and thankful for every day. My story may be different from yours, but you'll probably recognize some elements and be able to learn from my mistakes and my observations.
After growing up in the cornfields of northern Illinois dreaming of a baseball career, I realized in college that it wasn't meant to be, so I decided to jump into computer technology. My computer technology degree from Purdue University landed me a summer internship my junior year with a consulting company in what was then the Sears Tower in downtown Chicago. I was getting paid $20 an hour for the summer, which at the time was a lot for a college student who looked more like a 15-year-old.
The internship turned into a full-time opportunity and I took it. It wasn't the Chicago Cubs, but the Internet boom was still young and I was close to home and my favorite sports teams. I learned a number of things working at a fast-paced, scrappy technology consulting business. The first was that you don't have to actually have a product to sell it. We sold work that was not yet created off the idea that we could create it in just a short time. This was a new concept to me and one that has helped me sell our Tech Cocktail vision not based on where we've been but on where we're going.
It wasn't until the spring after September 11, 2001, that I learned the hardest lesson. The company wasn't doing as well as it previously had, and there was a cash-flow shortage, so they had to lay off nearly the entire team, including me and many of the colleagues I had helped hire. It was a sad day. I remember walking home in the cold Chicago rain. Getting laid off from my first job out of college taught me a very important lesson: there is no security in working for someone else. I had been raised believing that if you go out and work really hard, you can get a good job, build a career, and everything will fall into place. What they don't tell you is that some of the companies you work for may also need to make changes to survive, at your expense. You might not get a shot at building the career you imagined no matter how hard you work.
But I still wasn't a rebel yet, so I went to work for a larger corporation, the Tribune Company, with the sense that it would be more secure. It had been around almost a hundred years, and I had grown up visiting the iconic Tribune Tower across from the Wrigley Building on Michigan Avenue. It was a Chicago media icon. So when I landed a job with the Tribune, I was sure I had found the place I was going to build a career—not to mention, they owned the Chicago Cubs. This meant I could see more Cubs games than ever before. I loved working at the Tribune and walking into the tower every day. It was a dream come true for me. But even though Tribune Company adapted early to get newspapers online, I started to realize that they were not aggressive enough—startups like Yahoo! and AOL were land-grabbing for niche industry news eyeballs online, and companies such as Craigslist and Google devastated the online classified and display advertising space.
While still at Tribune, I started my own personal blog called Somewhat Frank to review startups and better understand blogging, and I started to see things that needed improvement in the fast-paced blogosphere. And I was a developer, so I was in an interesting position. I realized I could literally develop a product to solve a problem, launch it via my blog, and acquire new users instantly. So I did just that.
At the time, spam blogs, or splogs, were a problem. I noticed that popular entrepreneur, investor, and blogger Mark Cuban, also the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, had been posting in the blogosphere about it. He was hot on the topic of splogs because he had invested in a blog search engine called IceRocket, which was getting infiltrated by spam blogs. Sploggers were churning out thousands of landing pages filled with ads for popular search terms, polluting the Web.
When I realized this, I sprang into action. A friend of mine and I spent our nights after work creating a simple product called Splog Reporter, with the mission of helping clean up the blogosphere one splog at a time. The term splog hadn't existed more than a few days earlier, and we had already built a product to help tackle it. It took off! Within days, I started getting interviews and Splog Reporter was covered by the Wall Street Journal, Wired, and a number of other publications—even the Toronto Star picked up the story.
Splog Reporter lasted only about three months before we had to pull the plug. I realized that in order to really help IceRocket and other blog search engines clean up their indexes, while creating a sustainable business, I would have to build a comprehensive search engine, which was a bit out of scope for my first venture. It was a good decision, as Google then added their own blog search engine, crushing the competition, as it would have done to Splog Reporter.
Although short-lived, Splog Reporter had two pretty big impacts on me. First, I got to connect with Mark Cuban—that was a pretty memorable experience. Being mentioned in the same Wall Street Journal article as him was amazing. Second, Splog Reporter was my own little startup 101 course. It was a huge aha moment for me. I started to see problems as opportunities to build something. I now knew that with my coding abilities, I could launch a product, get users, and make lots of noise. I had a voice. What did I need my day job for, again? Oh, that's right: to make money to pay my mortgage, student loans, and car payment. But this was when I realized I could do it—I could startup.
All these experiences, and a few others I'll get to, rewired my brain from believing I needed someone else to give me a stable job to being excited about venturing out on my own. I learned that you don't have to follow the old ways and rules—rules that were making traditional companies struggle. I was finally ready to start Tech Cocktail, which is how I came to write this book and share my stories with all of you.
So what lessons can we learn from my story? Let's dive in and look at what it means to think like an entrepreneur and how to make sure you have the right mind-set to build a startup. Although not everyone is comfortable with the uncertainty or adventure that comes with entrepreneurship—or has the vision it takes to create something from nothing—it's possible to train your brain to be more alert to opportunities, question rules, and constantly be in learning mode. Just being aware of this mode of thinking should help you better understand your own thought patterns and slowly and gradually shift them to the creative but focused, risk-taking but prudent, optimistic but failure-embracing attitude of the entrepreneur.
See Problems as Opportunities
Thinking entrepreneurially starts with thinking a little differently. Most people get caught up with self-imposed barriers that blind them to what's possible. This type of thought might start out with, “I'd like to, but I can't because…” Entrepreneurs don't allow their minds to be shut off by these types of “I'd like to but…” statements. They understand there may be potential barriers, but they're able to look past them. They see barriers as adventures, as the beginning of something big, and as the means to make something amazing happen.
Vision
I've witnessed two types of entrepreneurs: those who love the process of entrepreneurship, no matter the product or service (they just love the challenge), and those with a strong background in a particular field who see a way to improve it. The former is a creator, someone who probably couldn't fathom the idea of working for someone else and may be a lifelong serial entrepreneur. The latter often has a stronger vision, as this person knows the field better than anyone else and sees something that no one else can.
Do you have a strong vision for a better world? The vision that has propelled Tech Cocktail is to help entrepreneurs gain visibility locally and nationally and enjoy their startup life journey. To do that, we provide them with connections, community, and resources (news, reports, events, and more).
Think Less; Act More
The idea of going out and getting started is encapsulated in slogans such as “Just do it,” made popular by Nike. Sayings such as “Get shit done” or “Ready, fire, aim” (also the name of a book by Michael Masterson) have helped make these ideas more mainstream in the startup world. I always like to use “just start” as a battle cry for anyone sitting on the fence about the best time to unleash his or her idea into the world.
Saras Sarasvathy, an associate professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, has done extensive research into how entrepreneurs' brains work. She studied 27 entrepreneurs who had companies that had revenues ranging from $200 million to $6.5 billion and had started multiple companies with both successes and failures. She gave them case studies of problems faced by startups and asked them to talk through the problems while being recorded. And she found a major difference in the way entrepreneurs and nonentrepreneurs think.
What Sarasvathy observed is that entrepreneurs use effectual reasoning. Entrepreneurs assess the tools that they have, come up with goals on the fly, and keep adapting to new circumstances and new information. In other words, thinking and action happen at the same time. Nonentrepreneurs tend to prefer causal reasoning, kind of a cause-and-effect way of thinking, where they start off with a long-term goal and plot out the best means to achieve it. In essence, nonentrepreneurs think before they act. Although this continues to be the model many parents and educational settings thrust on young minds, entrepreneurs are less likely to follow it.
Always Learning
Remaining curious has helped me tremendously throughout the years. If I hadn't sat in on that important blogging session in New Orleans, explored the various blog platforms on my own, and learned about RSS and what it was doing to deliver content to people, it would have been harder for me to understand what this little but disruptive RSS-enabling startup named FeedBurner was doing in Chicago. I never would have met Dick Costolo, Matt Shobe, Steve Olechowski, Rick Klau, Don Loeb, or my Tech Cocktail cofounder Eric Olson. I never would have been introduced to Jen Consalvo, who was at AOL building products that leveraged RSS and working with FeedBurner at the time. She would never have joined me to take on Tech Cocktail full-time. I didn't know where all these things would lead me. But I let curiosity and serendipity be my guide. Looking back everything looks so logical—like I planned it out that way—but I didn't.
Dick Costolo
In 2003, Dick Costolo cofounded the RSS tool FeedBurner with Eric Lunt, Steve Olechowski, and Matt Shobe. FeedBurner was acquired by Google in 2007, and Costolo went on to spend time there working on ads. He left to become chief operating officer (COO) of Twitter in 2009 and replaced Evan Williams as chief executive officer (CEO) in 2010. Costolo is based in San Francisco.
Jen Consalvo
Jen Consalvo is the cofounder and COO of Tech Cocktail. She has worked in product development for more than a decade, leading large and small teams in a range of areas such as digital imaging, community and social platforms, syndication, and personalization. The majority of her career was at AOL, planning and building products used by millions of people globally. Jen also cofounded Shiny Heart Ventures, which developed Thankfulfor, a gratitude journaling community. Jen is an angel investor in the DC group NextGen Angels and author of Love Your Photos: A Simple Guide to Photographic Happiness.
In life and in business, I am a firm believer in lifelong learning and keeping an open mind. In business, you need to take in and learn as much as possible from customers, competitors, and even other industries. At the same time, you need to constantly add on new skills such as leadership, marketing, funding, accounting—everything in this book.
Risk
To startup, you need to be at one with risk. That doesn't mean being a risk lover. I'm certainly not—but I do have a high tolerance for risk. You have to be okay with being tight on money, time, and resources.
There are a few things you can do to minimize risk. Being passionate about the idea actually lowers the risk, because you get more intrinsic value and happiness from working on it. For some people, the real risk is staying in a dead-end job and regretting it later in life. There will always be another great-paying, comfy, 9-to-5 desk job waiting for you if you ever want to quit the startup life.
On the business side, entrepreneurs actually minimize risk as much as possible by testing hypotheses and talking to customers. In fact, Sarasvathy identified something she calls the affordable loss principle: entrepreneurs choose courses of action where they can afford to fail, limiting risk. Like the poker player who leaves most of his bankroll at home, they don't bet the farm on any one uncertain decision.
Rule Breaker
I loved coloring books as a kid. However, I didn't like staying in the lines, preferring to add personal flair to the images and make them my own. In some ways, those were my early rule-breaker startup genes oozing out. Startup founders are rule breakers; they don't stay in the lines. Look at the commercials for iconic companies, such as Apple, which says, “Think different” and “Here's to the crazy ones.” These are geared at people who reject rules and the status quo in an effort to change the world—people who won't be ignored.
Entrepreneurs often have trouble working a regular job, and don't want to take directions from bosses they disagree with. They're generally stubborn in the sense that they believe their ideas and creations are better than the current options. It takes a little bit of an ego to think this way.
Entrepreneurs reject the rules about what can and can't be done; they reject the corporate standards of marketing, public relations (PR), design, work hours, and dress codes. They prefer to be fun, funny, or original; they work whenever they want, wearing whatever they want.
Optimism
Optimism is another characteristic trait of entrepreneurs. According to a survey done by Deloitte in October 2013, 82 percent of entrepreneurs thought their business would grow by at least 10 percent in the following year. This is some optimism, given that so many businesses fail. Along those lines, research by Harvard Business School senior lecturer Shikhar Ghosh suggests that 75 percent of venture-funded startups don't return investors' money and 30 to 40 percent completely go out of business. With such high failure rates, entrepreneurs have to be optimistic.
LivingSocial
LivingSocial is a daily deals website that offers discounts to consumers based on a group buying model. The DC-based company grew out of a studio called Hungry Machine (launched in 2007), which built apps for Facebook. When they saw that deals could be a huge opportunity, they set aside their other efforts to focus solely on LivingSocial. Today, LivingSocial has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and has more than 60 million members.
Although entrepreneurs don't believe in predicting the future, their optimism tells them that they can create it. This stems from seeing failures as learning experiences: even if they have a failure, they can still keep going. They're unstoppable because there is always another option. LivingSocial cofounder (and CEO until January 2014) Tim O'Shaughnessy says, “Until you don't have any more money as a company, there's always a play…One of the best characteristics of a CEO is [knowing] there's always a play—people may not see it, but you have the ability to.”
How can you cultivate optimism? Michael Buckbee of Optimization Robot One suggests a trick from Conan O'Brien and improv comedy. He says to act as if what you're doing is completely normal: meeting big-name investors, huge corporate partners, or high-profile journalists. Just tell yourself it's normal, like it's a comedy act. Pretend the obstacles aren't a big deal—mind over matter.
Whenever my COO starts to worry or get consumed by the challenges ahead, she stops and writes down as many positives about the company she can think of. She says it stops the fear in its tracks. You need this optimistic outlook to make it through the ups and downs of the startup journey.
The Harsh Reality
Even if you think like an entrepreneur, it doesn't mean you're not afraid. Fear can be a great motivator. Chris Sonjeow, cofounder and chief marketing officer (CMO) at LoveBook, calls entrepreneurs confident worriers. NewFoundry CEO Richard Chang says, “Does it scare you? Good. If you aren't afraid, then it isn't challenging enough.”
Sarah Evans
Sarah Evans is a “social media freak,” consulting on social media and media training through her company, Sevans Strategy. She was the creator of #journchat, a weekly, live Twitter chat for public relations professionals, journalists, and bloggers. Evans runs and writes for FAVES + CO., a blog about social and tech news, and is the author of the book [RE]FRAME: Little Inspirations for a Larger Purpose. She also spent a year as chief evangelist at Las Vegas startup Tracky.
Sarah Evans takes this attitude. A PR and social media expert, she decided to create a life mission statement: “I run unabashedly free through this one life without fear. I believe in the unexpected, I believe in abundance.” But that doesn't mean she doesn't fear anything. Instead, she uses fear as a compass—telling her to head in that direction, because it will make her a better person. “Fear is also something that can motivate me. As soon as I feel afraid about something, I know that I have to do it,” she says, whether that's move across the country to Vegas, do public speaking, or take on more responsibility.
Dina Kaplan
With a background in TV reporting and production, Dina Kaplan cofounded Blip in 2005. As it grew, Blip transformed from a video platform and distributor to a video destination, showcasing the best Web series. Based in New York and Los Angeles, Blip now attracts more than 30 million viewers per month. It was acquired by Maker Studios in 2013. When we last heard from Kaplan, she had gone on a life-changing trip around the world and was contemplating her next move.
Dina Kaplan, a cofounder of Blip, struggled with crippling fears early on but didn't realize it. Overwhelmed and overloaded by work, she was afraid to hire employees because she feared she didn't deserve them and would be a bad manager. Kaplan never invited her entrepreneur friends to hang out, because she feared they didn't really like her. When Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg e-mailed her asking to meet up, Kaplan didn't reply because she worried about wasting Sandberg's time. This all led to panic attacks, and Kaplan becoming afraid of simply walking down the street.
But like a true entrepreneur, she learned to conquer her fears. She took time off to travel and forced herself to go scuba diving, zip-lining, and bungee jumping, all activities she was deathly afraid of. And it changed her life. Now, she asks for what she wants. Instead of saying what people want to hear, she is authentic and honest—even with venture capitalists. Every day, Kaplan now asks herself: “What would my life look like if I lived without fear? What would I do if I lived without fear?”
In school we are generally taught to be causal thinkers, in Sarasvathy's words. An MBA program teaches you to have a predetermined goal and figure out the best means to achieve it—for example, deciding on a target market for an advertising campaign. We grow up learning to think like good employees, which includes following the vision of others, following rules set by others, repeating the same tasks over and over, and doing more planning to avoid risks.
It's hard to rewire our brains and change the way we think. It took me a decade, so don't be hard on yourself if you don't jump off the entrepreneurial diving board upon reading this book. It might take some time to get your wires reset.
Celebrate: Enjoy the Journey
As an entrepreneur, I am grateful for every day I have the freedom to create and share ideas that could have a positive effect on the world. I think gratitude is an important part of being a happy entrepreneur. A few years ago, I felt so strongly about it that I developed a gratitude community and application called Thankfulfor (http://thankfulfor.com) with Jen Consalvo, my partner and the COO of Tech Cocktail. The idea was to create a simple place to capture and share your gratitude—and in doing so, celebrate the things you have. It's a passion-fueled side project that helps remind us that no one can do anything alone.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Born in Belarus, Gary Vaynerchuk grew up in Edison, New Jersey, and eventually started helping out with his father's liquor store. That led to his creation of WineLibrary.com and the popular video series Wine Library TV. In 2009, Vaynerchuk and his brother AJ founded the social media agency VaynerMedia. The company has since grown to a team of more than 250 and worked with brands such as GE, Pepsi, and the New York Jets. Based in New York City, Vaynerchuk is an angel investor in startups such as Tumblr, Path, and Uber, and he's the author of Crush It!, The Thank You Economy, and (most recently) Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.
Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk—CEO of VaynerMedia and author of The Thank You Economy—knows that better than anyone. His life is infused with gratitude for his parents, who brought him from the former Soviet Union to the United States. And his attitude is an inspiration to any of us who forget to be grateful. “People have this entitlement thing—what are you going to do for me and then I'll give you something. I hate that!” he says. “Being an immigrant, you're not entitled. I didn't expect anything. We had to claw and scrap for everything, and that's how I roll now. And even as I've become a bigger presence in this space…I'm still so grateful.”
The principles of gratitude can apply to your everyday life as well as your entrepreneurial life. One of the ways to enjoy the startup life—despite the roller coaster of challenges and stress—is to remain grateful for its enormous benefits. For example, you don't have to deal with a bad boss or worry about losing your vacation days. You are in charge of your destiny; you get to experience that feeling of ownership, pride, and potential for growth and huge success.
Bo Fishback, the CEO of Zaarly, says, “I can't even imagine working in a big, slow company right now. Whenever I get too stressed out, I think, ‘What else on earth would I rather be doing?’”
Final Thoughts
Whether you're creating a teleportation device, building an app, or running a new media company—no matter how small or big your project—realize that you're changing the world.
“You become a true architect of life. You get to create ideas, create jobs, find better ways of doing things, so it's really an enjoyable experience,” says Uassist.ME founder Alfredo Atanacio. And I couldn't agree with him more.
Chapter 2Ideas
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
—John Steinbeck
We've all been there—something happens, we lose the keys, burn the eggs, or kill the car battery. If only there was a way we could prevent or quickly remedy the problem. Brainstorming begins—boom!—and an idea is born from necessity.
