Entrepreneurs Solve Problems.More accurately, entrepreneurs identify problems that need to be solved, and figure out how to build a business around it.
One of the most classic mistakes I see would be entrepreneurs make time and time again, is being overly attached to the first solution(s) they come up with to SOLVE that problem.
When you are getting resistance, negative feedback, lack of adoption to your business idea you should always question the solution you came up with, and be flexible enough to try different solutions.
But, the problem originally identified is typically dead on.
The fatal flaw of would be entrepreneurs is that they get too easily tied to the solutions they first come up with, and too easily abandon solving problems that have not yet been solved.
When we were pitching investors and VCs, I always had 2 big questions related to sharing our business plan deck: Did They Really Read the Business Plan & Who Are They Sharing My Business Plan With?
In response we created the Document Activity Log on Private Documents on Docstoc. Now after you upload documents, and mark them private, you can see everyone who views & downloads your document. Here are the main benefits to entrepreneurs:
Track to see if investors actually open and read your business plan
Monitor who downloads and emails your business plan
See who your business plan has been emailed to
Track every single person who has seen your business plan
For ultimate protection, prevent anyone from downloading the business plan (only allow previewing)
Don’t worry about sending large files through email
After the August Capital TechCrunch Party, I hung out with Michael Arlington and some friends that weekend. We talked a lot about their bold new initiative to create an ulta thin, ultra large, ultra cool touch screen tablet that can be used for general internet browsing purposes.
I questioned Mike on a couple of his assumptions about the product, but overall it seems pretty freggin cool, and if they can make it for the price point they’re talking about, I’d surely buy a few.
It may have been the lack of sleep, but I got this image in my head of Mike as Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with Tablets in hand to deliver his godly message to the masses. The analogy become even funnier to me when I remembered the wrath Moses unleashed on the people when he saw them worshiping a pagan idol.
I had to see what my crazy thought would look like, much props to Juan Aguilar who put together the PhotoShop.
Twiistup is turning into THE so cal tech event you have to be at. Its a a venue for discovering new companies that show off their products/technology in typical LA fashion and an eclectic scene where Hollywood Geek meets Hollywood Chic - bringing out entrepreneurs, investors, stars and everyone inbetween.
Docstoc was on display at the last event and it was a blast. I’ve been to each one so far, but this is the biggest and best and event by far. It’s being held this Thursday at the VIceroy Hotel and there are over 650 attendees with another 500 on the guest list.
And it just so happens that Docstoc has the last two tickets in town.
You can win them in the next 48 hours; just upload documents to docstoc, tag them with “twiistup4″ and the best 2 submissions each win a ticket.
As a recent law school graduate (never practiced law), and a current CEO of a technology company, I have a deep appreciation for both the law and entrepreneurship (although the former clearly won out). I also know first hand that law school and lawyer-ing do not go hand in hand with risk taking, and can have the affect of sedating one’s entrepreneurial spirit.
That’s why I wanted to highlight a few exceptional CEO’s in the tech space, who just happened to get their start in the law.
Peter Thiel is best known as the CEO and co-founder of PayPal. Now he’s a badass VC. But once upon a time he too was a lowly 1L… at Stanford.
Michael Arrington is the founder of TechCrunch (and technically not CEO anymore). But back in the day he graduated from Stanford Law School and practiced as a corporate and securities attorney. Some of my favorite posts of his are stories like, “It’s Time to Rethink Copyright Law”.
Erick Hachenburg is Metacafe’s CEO, which ranks on the first page of Google for the term “sex”… doesn’t get much cooler than that. But before he was ballin like a villan with user-generated videos, Erick was hustling away at Harvard Law… “safety school”.
Richard Rosenblatt is the current CEO of Demand Media, and best known for his role as Chairman of a place for friends called MySpace. Little did he know, while goofing off in law school classes at USC, that he would provide the most popular in-class distraction for a generation of law school students.
Eric Alterman is the founder of Kickaps.com and a graudate of the Washington College of Law. In looking at his LinkedIN profile, I think Erick has founded more companies that classes he took in graduate school.
I’m fortunate to consider Tim Stanley a friend. He’s one of the sharpest CEO’s I know, and was the founder of FindLaw.com, one of the most widely used resources to help the Regular Joe find out about the law. Tim’s not done kickin ass and taking names, he’s heading up another legal/tech venture in Justia.
Al Gore is Chairman of Curret TV, once upon a time he was living la vida loca at Vanderbilt Law School. The consummate underachiever, he went on to serve as senator, Vice President, accumulate the majority of the popular vote for the President of the United States, become a movie star, win a noble peace prize, and save the planet from the likes of folks who believe global warming is a either a left wing conspiracy or the rightful interpretation of the final chapter of the bible.
Thanks to CrunchBasefor helping me with most the research and pictures.
Comedian Ben Glieb, put together a series of viral videos for us. Here are a few of my favorites. More to come in later posts. Big thanks to our good friends at GoPotato.tv for putting these together.
Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) - these are over-hyped in my opinion and few angel or venture investors will sign them, but always helpful to have one handy to bust out at parties.
LLC Operating Agreement - I put my first LLC together myself using this agreement. My advice is to hire an attorney, but if you don’t listen to advice so well, knock yourself out.
Sample Convertible Note - A convertible note is a way to raise debt for your company that will convert into equity. When you are first raising money, if you can use a convertible note instead of having to give up shares/equity, you’ll usually be in a better position later on and own more of your company.
Board of Advisor Agreement - A good board of advisor can be worth their weight in gold, a bad one can be worth their weight in radioactive fluid.
Financial Projections Template - This document is “da bomb”. My good friend and previous business partner Mike Sheridan put this together in our prior consulting company Venature. This is a fantastic financial model template to build your basic Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow statement. Needless to say he paid a LOT more attention in accounting classes in our MBA program.
Application for Employer Identification Number (EIN) - Basic government form you need to fill out to get set up with an Employer Identification Number (EIN) so that you too can hire folks and pretend to be a badass at cocktail parties (don’t forget to pull out the NDA).
Start Up Pitch Presentation - there are no graphical elements here, but this doc lays out how to describe your business in a presentation format. Business Plans are dead, use a PPT Deck, see graphic examples below.
Business Plan Presentation Template - This doc has a sample layout you can use to pitch investors/partners (plus its got a cool effect of color changing bars on the side - that only took me 4 hours to figure out one law school class)
Business Plan Deck - I stripped down the docstoc deck and left all the graphical assets in the presentation so that you can download it and use it however you like. We paid a good amount of money to get this done, so I hope you can take our graphical starting point, and raise LOTs of money for your own company with this. Upload Documents to Docstoc and we’ll call it even.
Oh yah, I should probably have some legal disclaimers around the use of these documents…. use your best judgment and hire a qualified professional to review or customize where needed. Or don’t.
There are some undeniable facts and historical trends that seriously indicate the economy is in much worse shape than most “experts” would have anyone believe. On top of that, throw in a dose of religious mythology and doom-saying, and we have the makings of how the seven deadly sins could lead the United States into a depression, not recession.
GLUTTONY
Wikepedia defines Gluttony as “the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste….it is considered a sin because of the excessive desire for food, or its withholding from the needy.” For the past 4 decades the United States has implemented an inane policy of farm subsidies; we’re literally paying farmers to destroy livestock and crop. All this in the midst of a world wide food shortage and crisis. World War I was often blamed on the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but the more significant underlying cause was the rising food prices throughout Europe that caused great unrest.
GREED
The meteoric growth of the United States stock market in the 1920’s and its ensuing crash was the catalyst for the Great Depression. One of the primary drivers was the absolute lack of any common sense regulations. Fast forward 80 years, and we have a housing market on the verge of collapse, because every yuppie family in the US wanted a house just a big as their neighbors, even if they didn’t have the income to justify it.
This comical and scary presentation is the best explanation I’ve ever seen of why we’re having a real estate market crash.
Besides our troops and their families, over 300 million Americans have never been asked to make a single sacrifice, despite being at war for the last 5 years.
WRATH
We’ve become an angry ass nation. We hate abortionists, we hate pro-lifers. We hate gays, we hate traditionalists. We hate science, we hate religion.
Sometimes I find myself watching Fox News just to see how angry I get.
ENVY
Who are we envious of… ourselves.
40 percent of American families annually spend more than they earn.
The average per household debt in the U.S., not counting mortgage debt, is about $14,500 (before the 1930s, most middle and working class people had no major debts)
The national debt is approaching 10 Trillion Dollars
Our manufacturing industry is in steep decline and we are an increasingly less self-reliant country.
Traditional services based jobs (legal, accounting, call centers) which drive the economy now vie for competition all across the world.
The dollar is at historic lows, and the most likely path to curb crippling inflation will be a steady increase of interest rates, which will eventually cause a rise in unemployment and the price of consumer goods to skyrocket.
In spite of all these historical indicators, we remain overly optimistic, overly abundant, and overly prideful of our economic hegemony in the world.
The US has the most vibrant, innovative, and resilient economy in the history of the world. A serious economic downturn is NOT a foregone conclusion, but it is a likely one if we don’t take heed of historical trends and deadly sins.
what about..
LUST
Actually, that one is not that bad. Check out my last blog post.
I’m obviously a fan of the docstoc feature to embed documents, but this just kicks its ass. Rotating hot chics in an embed from Chickipedia, GAME OVER!
I just saw Webkinz a Ganz Website uploaded to docstoc (presentation embeded below), and I started looking into Webkinz. Who knew it was one of the most trafficked sites on the web (Alexa Ranking.)
The site’s traffic increased from around 300K unique visitors in 2006 to likely over 5M uniques/month today. I haven’t yet joined the site (I have to draw the line somewhere), but it looks like a Second Life for Kids where they raise, feed, clothe and play with virtual pets while chatting with their friends.
The really interesting part is that this community was likely not started by a bunch of teen geeks in silicon valley, but rather by its corporate parent Ganz, they promote themselves as “from lovable animals to decorative accessories GANZ offers you the best gifts in the world”
So the really interesting part of this web company seems to be the real business behind it. Ganz is partially in the business of selling these cute little toys. My guess is that the Webkinz site is a huge driver of products for Ganz.
There are countless examples of entrepreneurs starting web communities and subsequently looking for products/services to sell. There aren’t as many examples of it working well in the reverse (or the latter for that matter). It looks like Ganz has hit on something here, and may very well be a great case model for other companies to follow
Jason is the Co-Founder and CEO of Docstoc.com, the premier online community to find and share professional documents. Before starting Docstoc, he was a partner in a venture consulting firm in Los Angeles where he worked with dozens of startups. He holds have a BA from UCSB and his JD/MBA from Pepperdine University, where he was the Student Body President of both Universities.
