Tag: innovation

The Entrepreneurial Push

Category : Entrepreneurship, Top
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Why do people start startups? To solve a problem or fill a need?  To be their own boss?  To escape the 9-5?   To make gobs of money? The answer is different for everyone, but its probably a combination of a few of these factors.  Lots of people I talk to have great ideas, but don’t end up taking the next step even though they would like to make money, be their own boss and escape their 9-5 job.  How come?

I’ve been talking with other entrepreneurs and doing a bunch of thinking about this question for the past few months, but had not completely put it into words until I read  Paul Graham‘s latest post about why he started Y Combinator, an innovative investment fund that gives techies mentoring, an office and small amounts of funding in exchange for small pieces of equity.

The most common reasons for people not starting their own companies are that they think it will be harder than it actually is, they are risk averse or are worried about capital.  For some people, these are real reasons not to start a business, but for many people who have good ideas, they are more excuses and rationalizations than reasons.  They simply do not know where to start or how to move forward with their plans.

This is not a personal failing on the part of people with good ideas who have not moved forward yet.  It is a failing of high schools and colleges for not teaching them the necessary skills and punishing creativity.  It is the failing of entrepreneurs who have been successful for not showing others the entrepreneurial process and its the failing of a society that makes entrepreneurship seem much more dangerous, risky and hard to do than it really is.  Potential entrepreneurs have to get past objections from family and friends who ask things like “why don’t you work for a real company ” or my personal favorite  “when are you going to get a real job.”

This isn’t to say that starting a company is easy and that everyone should do it.  It’s not easy and some people aren’t cut out to be entrepreneurs.  It takes hard work, perseverance and the ability to motivate yourself even when you run into obstacles, but it’s not as hard as people think.  Here is why Paul Graham started Y Combinator:

The real reason we started Y Combinator is one probably only a hacker would understand. We did it because it seems such a great hack. There are thousands of smart people who could start companies and don’t, and with a relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place, we can spring on the world a stream of new startups that might otherwise not have existed.

In a way this is virtuous, because I think startups are a good thing. But really what motivates us is the completely amoral desire that would motivate any hacker who looked at some complex device and realized that with a tiny tweak he could make it run more efficiently. In this case, the device is the world’s economy, which fortunately happens to be open source.

That “relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place” Graham writes about is the Entrepreneurial Push.

I have been trying to give the Entrepreneurial Push to as many people as possible, without having a name for it.  I think it’s important for people who have started companies to share their experiences with others to set an example that it can be done.  I try to use my blog and consultancy to show people that you can be an entrepreneur without a business degree, tons of startup cash and a team in place.  Whenever someone comes to me with an idea for a business, I try to encourage them to start going down the startup path because once they start to write their business plan, they are much more likely to actually start.

While we all don’t have the wealth of resources (time, money and experience) that Paul Graham and Y Combinator have, I think that entrepreneurs should go out of their way to give as many people the Entrepreneurial Push.   I started Capital Entrepreneurs, a network of young, Madison-based Entrepreneurs, partially in hopes that the group would influence more UW students to start companies while  in school or see it as a viable option after graduation.

What should entrepreneurs do to give others the entrepreneurial push that they need to get started?  Here’s a short list of ideas, but please comment with any other ideas or strategies that you have.

  • Advocate for entrepreneurship to make small business and startups more visible in other places besides California and Boston.
  • Give back by helping others who are just starting out to eliminate the “cloud of apprehension” surrounding entrepreneurship.
  • Join local entrepreneur clubs.
  • Speak in high school and college classes.

These small entrepreneurial pushes help smart people who are thinking about start their own companies actually start. They could create amazing companies that could change their lives or even the world.

Note: If you are an entrepreneur in Madison and are interested in joining Capital Entrepreneurs, shoot me an email.

How To “Stickk” to Your Goals

Category : Personal Thoughts
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Have you ever set a goal that you wanted to accomplish, only to give up after a few days or weeks?  How about a New Years resolution?  If you are like me, your probably set a bunch of different goals each year, but are only successful on attaining a small percentage.

Most of my goals are not huge.  For example, this year, I wanted to make sure that I traveled more frequently, played more soccer, read more books and learned how to cook at least one new dish per month, to name a few.  I have done some of them, but all of them and wanted to try to find ways to give myself incentives to actually complete them.  I was reading the Freakonomics blog the other day and remembered an old post about a new website designed to help you follow through.

StickK.com, a website founded by Freakonomics contributor by Ian Ayres and two of his Yale collegues, allows you to set a goal, a completion date and puts some teeth behind failing to complete your goal.  They came up with a “commitment contract” to help make sure that you follow through on your goal.  From their site:

Entirely unique to each person, a Commitment Contract obliges you to achieve your goal within a particular time-frame. Not only are you challenging yourself by saying “Hey, I can do this,” you’re also putting your reputation at stake. If you are unsuccessful, we’ll let your friends know about it.

Oh but wait, there’s more…

Sometimes losing face with your friends might not be enough to keep you on track. So, what is the one thing no one can stand to part with? You guessed it! Cold hard cash.

As a true test of your commitment, stickK will let you put your money on the line for any Commitment Contract. Achieve your goal and you don´t pay a thing (and you´re much happier than before, aren´t you?).

But if you aren’t successful, you forfeit your money to a charity, an anti-charity or even that neighbor who keeps stealing your newspaper.

Adding money into the situation is a really interesting idea, but the idea of an “anti-charity” is what makes this website unique and innovative.  For example, if you are a hardcore Republican and you want to lose 15 pounds, you can make your contract say that you will donate $100 to a gun control advocacy if you do not achieve your goal.  The anti-charity adds so much added motivation for you to complete your goal.  If you fail, you are not only letting yourself down and spending money, but you are helping a cause that you do not like.

I decided to try it out today to see if it works and set up an account.  They only have a few anti-charities, so I used the “friend or foe” option.  Since I am a proud UW grad and a huge Badger sports fan, if I do not achieve my goal, I will donate $200 to the University of Michigan Athletic Department.  I will keep you updated if I accomplish my goal or if the University of Michigan Athletic Department will get $200 of my hard earned money.

Do you think StickK is a good idea?  What anti-charity would you donate to?

Giving Anonymously

Category : Entrepreneurship
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After a three week hiatus, I’m back to blogging.  I just got back from an amazing three weeks traveling in Europe, followed by one of my best friend’s wedding.  I’ll have a few posts about where I went and some observations about the contrasts between Europe, the UK and the United States, but first, I had to write about this because its so cool.

I was driving back from my friend’s wedding today, listening to NPR and heard about Giving Anonymously, a website dedicated to letting people give money to their family and friends, without their knowledge.  From their website:

Giving Anonymously is a non-profit organization facilitating generosity between people. We are a volunteer organization; each of us donates our time without pay to keep Giving Anonymously running.

Giving Anonymously began in 2005 with our website up and running in early 2007. We began with a few goals in mind: We wanted to relationally connect people through giving, to make it fun, and in the process protect relationships from feelings of obligation. Giving to others in need can be full of mixed motivations and our hope is to facilitate Pure giving.

Anyone who enjoys putting cash under a friends door or in their mailbox will often times not know if their friend actually got the gift and they cannot hear what it meant to them. So, we came up with an idea to have a messaging line where recipients could call after receiving their gift. When a recipient doesn’t know who gave the gift to them they are even more free to express their gratitude and we capture this through voice files that we email to the donor.

I think this is an amazing idea with lots of potential, especially in a down economy.  Although the non-profit changes credit card processing fees of 3% for gifts over $500, its still loads more efficient than many charities that take up to 30% of donations in overhead.  The only hitch is that these gifts are not tax deductible.  Since you are choosing who gets the money, it is not deductible.  I understand why the rule exists, but it would be cool to see some sort of exception in this case.  Its good to see innovation coming out of our current downturn to help people in need.

I Trust Google With My Life…Almost

Category : Technology
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My internet went out the other day for a few hours when I wanted to get some work done (thanks Charter!). I couldn’t access my email, so I figured I’d do some work on my business plan. I quickly remembered that I store most of my documents on Google Docs, meaning that I couldn’t access them from home either. I spent the next few minutes writing this post on old fashioned college ruled notebook paper.

I trust Google with my life….almost. I have my email, calendar, documents, contacts, advertising campaign, photos and website analytics all in Google’s hands. I use Google maps to find out where I am going (google maps), view business reviews (search), and upload and view videos (youtube). I get my news in part from Google News. I used to use blogger, another Google service, to host my blog, but have since moved to hosting my own site on a wordpress platform. Google is so much more than a search engine and millions of people around the world trust google to protect and store their important data. Google Creep, as I like to call it, is Google’s amazing ability to become useful, if not necessary, to our daily lives.

I’ve never been one to put all of my eggs in one basket, but I realized I pretty much have with google. In the unlikely event of Google’s bankruptcy, failure due to hacking or natural disaster, I would be pretty much screwed. I bet millions of others would be in my shoes, too. Its amazing that we have not only allowed a company to permeate our entire lives as much as Google has, but we have embraced it, always asking for Google to do more.

Google is now pushing into electronic medical records, mobile phones and even renewable energy. It will be interesting to see if there is any backlash in the coming years about how much we depend on Google. As people move from hard drives toward storage on the internet, more and more people will become dependent on Google.

After I got my internet connection back up, I backed up all of my contacts and google docs onto my hard drive, which is backed up by Mozy. This is not an anti-google post and I doubt anything bad will happen to Google, but it was shocking to find how dependent I had become on Google and its services. I probably won’t change anything, but its pretty amazing. I can’t think of any other company that took over like Google has in the history of America.

What do you think? Are you as dependent on Google as I am? Do you have any strategies to combat Google creep as it takes over even more facets of our online lives? Do you think it is a bad thing?