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My (Late) Year End Review

Category : Personal Thoughts
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In January 2010, I had just closed out a decade, but was still living in college housing in my home state.  Entrustet was in an alpha version and our informational site was live. By the end of the year, I had moved out of college housing (with a rabies shot issue) and then the country entirely and Entrustet is recognized as the market leader in our industry.  I now live in Santiago, Chile.

New Friends in Chile

2010 was my first full year out of college and I think I made the most of it.   We launched Entrustet in beta in March and Jesse announced our launch by giving a talk at South by Southwest.  Since then, we’ve been featured in over 100 media outlets and blogs, including the New York Times, Mashable, TechCrunch, BBC, Financial Times and many others.  We’ve seen our niche change from a strange curiosity into a real industry.

Press Photo for Entrustet

On a personal level, I continued to travel, knocking two continents off my bucket list.  In June and July, I traveled to South Africa for the World Cup with two of my best friends Andy and Katie.  I’ll never forget Landon Donovan’s last second goal against Algeria to put the US through to the knockout stages.  I even got on tv in the bedlam following the game.  Katie got to ride a police horse to a bar.  I’ll also never forget our safari.  Seeing African animals in the wild is an unbelievable experience.  I know I’ll be back to Africa sometime this decade.

In November, I moved to Santiago, Chile with Jesse as part of the Start-Up Chile program.  I’d always wanted to live in a Spanish speaking country, but wasn’t able to study abroad because of ExchangeHut.  So far, Chile has been great and I’m excited to travel to other South American countries in 2011.  My Spanish is getting better, but it’s still not very good.  I can’t wait to continue practicing in 2011.

When I got back from the World Cup, I got to serve as best man in one of my best friends’ wedding.  I’ll never forget seeing them walk down the aisle and out of the Church as a married couple and then giving their toast at their reception later that night.

In Madison, Capital Entrepreneurs had an amazing year.  Member companies have done some awesome things.  I helped cofound the Forward Technology Conference and will never forget the keynote speech by Fred Foster. CE and Forward have already surpassed my expectations and I’m hoping to see CE continue to lead the Madison Startup Scene.  We were even featured in TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb as an up and coming startup hub.

It was a great badger football season, culminating in the Rose Bowl.  Although we lost, it was still amazing to see the sun set over the snowcapped San Gabriels on New Years Day.

I’ve continued to write my blog and somehow it’s actually starting to gain some traction.  I’ve been lucky enough to write for other website in 2010 and hope it continues in 2011.  I grudgingly started using Twitter and created a Tumblog, but locked down my Facebook account.  I still was able to read, but not as much as I’d like.  I even switched to a Kindle and I can’t imagine buying a paper book again, although it sucks to have to turn off my Kindle during takeoff and landing on airplanes.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to continue to stay in touch with my college friends and luckily we’ve been able to continue our yearly “friendsgiving” Thanksgiving feasts and I got to see my friend Beata who’s been living in London, Thailand and Australia since graduation.  I’ve gotten to meet amazing friends in the Madison startup scene, along with new friends in South America.

I’m thankful for my health and that of my family and friends.  I’m thankful for the perspective that working in the digital death industry has given me.  2010 was an amazing year and a year of change.  If the first week of 2011 is a precursor to the rest of 2011, I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen!

My Favorite Posts of 2010

My First Christmas Away From Home

Category : Personal Thoughts, Startup Chile
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I’ve always been able to go back home to see my family during Christmas, but this year, I’m in Santiago.  I have strong memories of going to my Grandma’s house on Christmas Eve, sitting around a huge table with 10-15 extended family members.  We usually had the same food each year and then would open presents.  The youngest always had to pass out presents, so for a few years I did and then my brother took over for me.  When she moved into a nursing home, we took the festivities to her.  We’d cook at home and then head over and do a shortened version of Christmas Eve.  Although the location changed, it was still the same.

On Christmas Day, we’d stay at our house, make breakfast and then open presents with just my parents and brother.  Sometimes we’d go to a movie in the afternoon.  I have strong memories of coming downstairs and opening presents with the family.  This year, I missed our family traditions and hanging out with my family, but still had a great time with new friends.

On Christmas Eve, we had an international potluck of Startup Chile entrepreneurs on the 18th floor of an apartment building in Santiago.  Each person had to bring a dish that reminded them of Christmas from home and it was great to share Christmas with people from South Africa, Ireland, Germany, China, Portugal, Canada, Isreal and the US.  As we watched the sun set over the Andes, we were all a bit homesick, but as we talked, it passed.

We were all thankful that we all have “jobs” that allow us to travel the world, learn about new cultures and meet people from all the world, all while working on projects that we enjoy.  One month in, I can’t stress enough how happy I am to have this opportunity.

On Christmas day, most of the crew went over Shahar’s apartment where we grilled and hung out on his rooftop pool.  We spent the whole day sitting in the sun, drinking beer, wine and pisco and enjoying being away from winter.  It wasn’t quite a white Christmas (although a Chilean street musician was playing “Let it Snow” outside my window yesterday).  Judging from my shoulders today, it was a red one.

It was sort of strange being away from home and I missed our family traditions, but it was great to celebrate the season with my new friends and reflect on just how lucky we all are to be able to do what we want with our lives.  Here’s a few pictures from Christmas Day:

Meat
Jesse, Tiago, George, me
Rooftop Pool
Shahar, Me
Enrique and Jesse
George and his dog Gaston

Punishing Failure, Stifling Innovation: How Culture Affects Who Goes into Entrepreneurship

Category : Entrepreneurship, Startup Chile
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I wrote a post last week about some of challenges facing Chilean would-be entrepreneurs because of the culture.  Overall, Chilean culture punishes failure, which stifles innovation.

It got me thinking and I realized that it seems to me that a fixed percentage of people in the world are entrepreneurial.  I’m not sure what the exact number is but if I had to guess, it’s probably around 10% and I’d be willing to bet that percentage is fairly static across the world.  I believe that these 10% have the skills, desire and entrepreneurial spirit to start a business and succeed.  10% of Americans, Saudis, Chileans, Spaniards and South Africans all have the desire to start businesses, so why do some places have lots of entrepreneurship and others don’t?

Why does the US have a higher percentage of entrepreneurs than Chile, Saudi Arabia or other places around the world.  And in the US why do Silicon Valley, NYC, Austin, Boulder and Boston have a higher percentage of entrepreneurs compared to Des Moines, Tallahassee and Phoenix?

I believe that certain cultural values free up the entrepreneurial 10% to actually start businesses and succeed.  For example, in the United States, we reward risk taking, business ownership and making money.  On average, we also love innovation, learning and trying new things.  We love rags to riches stories, even if they are only partly true.  If someone’s business fails, it’s seen as experience, not a black mark.  In the US, these values are stronger in San Francisco and Austin than in Cleveland and Memphis.

In other parts of the world, there are many different cultural pressures that stifle innovation: punishing failure, punishing innovation, closed culture.  Some places even look down on successful people.

In Silicon Valley, I bet 20% of the people are entrepreneurs in some way shape or form.  In Austin, maybe 8%.  In Chile it’s .01%.  I believe that all cultures start out with the same 10% who can start businesses, but some cultures push people who may not have started businesses to do it, while others push people who would have otherwise started a business to shy away.  The most important thing entrepreneurs, government and academics can do is to try to free the people who would start a business, but don’t because of cultural pressures.

I’ve seen it first hand in Madison.  When I was 19 and just starting with ExchangeHut, there were not many young entrepreneurs.  I only knew 4-5 students and recent grads who were starting businesses.  After JellyFish sold to Microsoft, Networked Insights started to have some success and young entrepreneurs like those in the Burrill Business Plan Competition started to get press in national publications and have some success, other people started to see that they too could start a business.  Capital Entrepreneurs has accelerated the process, along with all sorts of cool initiatives from the startup community like barcamp, forward tech festival, high tech happy hour and more.  I think Madison went from a 1% to a 3% city in the last five years.  We still have a long way to go, but by unlocking the pent up entrepreneurial talent, we’ve seen an explosion in entrepreneurship.  Just wait until we see what Madison looks like at 5%!

In Chile, I’d estimate that we’re at .1%: for every 1000 people who are entrepreneurs at heart, only 1 starts a business.  That’s 1/1000!  In Silicon Valley, it’s probably 200/1000, Austin 80/1000 and so on.

Part of Start-Up Chile‘s mission is to introduce entrepreneurs from all over the world into Chile’s culture to try to break the cultural pressures that punish failure and stifle innovation.  I believe that we should be focusing on the other 9.9% of Chileans who might start a business if they were not afraid of being punished for their failure.  If we can double the amount of entrepreneurs who start businesses, it will be a huge win for Chile.  I see similar parallels to Madison and the entrepreneurial community is starting to take shape.  People just need the entrepreneurial push!

What do you think?  Are entrepreneurs distributed equally across the world or are more entrepreneurs born in one country compared to another?  What can you do to help free up the rest of the entrepreneurs who are scared to make the leap?

Punishing Failure, Stifiling Innovation [Part 1]

Category : Startup Chile
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Ever since we’ve gotten to Santiago, we’ve heard from all sorts of people about Chile’s penchant for punishing failure.  Jesse wrote a really good post a few weeks ago about this topic called Punishing Failure and the Ramifications on Entrepreneurship and I wanted to add some more thoughts.

I met a 26 year old Chilean who graduated from one of the top universities in Chile with a degree in engineering.  He spoke great English and wanted to start a business.  He even had a good idea.  I asked him why he hadn’t started his business yet and he told me that he had a good job at a consulting firm and that he couldn’t risk failure because he would never be able to get another good job if his business failed, even if it failed because of factors outside of his control.

He told me his plan was to go back to the US to get his MBA and then come back to Chile to start his business.  He said that if he failed, he would still be able to get a job because he was so over qualified and would have better qualifications than his boss.

So, in order for this 26 year old to feel comfortable starting a business, he had to graduate from the best university in Chile, work at a top consulting firm, learn english, get an MBA from a top US university and then he could start a business.  He told me that if he started a business and failed, a potential employer would rather have a 22 year old recent grad with no experience, instead of his work and entrepreneurial experience.  Talk about overhead!

In the US, companies would love to hire someone who tried to start their own business out of college, even if they failed.  They would call it “real world experience” and employers would like that the potential hire was a “go getter.”  I’m confident that if I decide I want to get a job instead of doing startups, I could.  Here, it’s the opposite.  People believe that if a business fails, its because the owner was either corrupt, stupid or both.  People shun failures.

It’s not exactly the best environment for creating new businesses or innovation.  Many people here have good ideas, but they don’t believe it’s worth it to take the risk to start a business.  I also learned that making a ton of money is sort of looked down upon here.  Multiple people have told me that Chilean President Sebastián Piñera had to fight off attacks from the opposition that he was TOO successful.  Not that he was corrupt, but that he was too successful.

It’s a very difficult cultural difference for people who want to start businesses, but it’s an opportunity for Chileans who are willing to take risks and shun the cultural pressures to make money and be extremely successful.  There are so many opportunities to create amazing businesses here in Chile that people who can break free from the cultural pressures will be able to create some amazing businesses.  That’s part of the reason we are here:  Start-Up Chile was created to show Chileans that starting a business is an option, failure is ok and that Chile is a great place to start a business.  We’ll see what happens.

Part 2 in this series will have some thoughts about why some places have more entrepreneurs than others.