Commenting on How to Select a Startup Person?

Posted on August 18, 2008

I’ve discovered that I wrote about 5-6 articles on hiring in a small business. But that should stop me from adding more resources to it - simply because hiring is one of the most important steps a small business should take to grow.

This time I’m commenting on an article called How to Select a Startup Person? that appeared on Indian Startups, Entrepreneurship, Web2.0 blog. I’m happy to see that most of the views on hiring are common no matter the geography. Lets see:

  • Right Mindset : For any startup, understanding the mind-set of prospective employee/partner is very important. It takes special peoples to work in a startup. I should know best, I’m some sort of startup junkie, loving to do the hard work in the beginning and getting bored once everything is set up. Even if you are a simple employee, working in a startup is harder and riskier. There is no saying if the company won’t go under and next thing you hear is that you have a dark spot on your resume. Of course, it doesn’t mean the company went under because of you, but in a way you were part of the things that didn’t go well.
  • Financial expectations : People with startup mind-set would prefer to delay their financial gains. It’s way harder for a startup company to match the benefits an established company could offer. Luckily, the start-up employees take brain food from accomplishing things and making things matter.
  • Higher Responsibilities : A Startup person would always emphasize his worth and capability to take higher responsibilities. You get to do a little bit of everything. And that especially good if you think about this as a learning experience. If I think well, most of the things I have an idea about today are things that I have experimented while being employed at my first start-up. Better than any college or anything.
  • True Reflection of his aspirations/skill-set : A startup person would try to bring-out real aspirations in front of decision makers. Hm. What?
  • Flexible Mind-set : A startup person is always open to new ideas and approaches. Chances are that sometimes you don’t know how to make things because they haven’t been done before. Or you have to make them different because of limited resources, or because you have enough liberty to do that. No matter how you put this, you’re walking paths than have never been traveled before.
  • Innovation : A startup person would always think in innovative direction. He/She won’t try to solve problems in usual manner. Or as I said, you don’t know how to do stuff, and you… innovate

Good article. Now let me list the other articles I wrote about hiring in a small business.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

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Commenting on Jeff Chavez 11 Killer Instincts of Entrepreneurship

Posted on August 17, 2008

Jeff Chavez came up with an interesting article on what he calls 11 Killer Instincts of Entrepreneurship. As usual, I’m copying them over so I could give you my feedback.

  • The Solution Instinct: This is about ideas and always seeing them. Indeed entrepreneurs should be problem solvers - it’s an ability that can be developed over the years. Most of the times, only the most complicated problems make it up to the entrepreneur level (the rest being hopefully resolved by the employees) and even more, they aren’t limited to an area of activity. You have to solve problems from hiring to electricity problems if there are. If you are looking for a big cool place to store a birthday cake and you think the servers room can do the job (server rooms being especially cooled) then you have the Solution instinct in you.
  • The Detective Instinct: This is about fact-finding and due-diligence. Yes, every decision is based on real life factors. But I believe what sets apart entrepreneurs from regular employees is that they can take decisions based on inspiration, overruling the obvious factors. Sometimes you have to play by your feelings.
  • The Great Communicator Instinct: This is about connecting and constantly selling. While I’m probably missing most of the communicator instinct, I wrote before that the only ability an entrepreneurs can’t miss is the power of selling. As an entrepreneur you start selling even before the products is out on the market, you sell when you hire your first employee and you sell when you a pitching for investment.
  • The Youthful Genius Instinct: This is about doing what you love. Yes, and still there is something wrong with the entrepreneurs minds.
  • The Entrepreneurial Heritage Instinct: This is about how our heritage can reveal some or our natural gifts. I’m not sure about that. Where do entrepreneurship comes from in Easter Europe where we didn’t have entrepreneurship for like 50 years? Sure, I can agree that an Entrepreneurship oriented society can mean a lot as the paths have been traveled before!
  • The Risk-Taker Instinct: This is about going out on a ledge. I had some previous thought on this, and still I’m not convinced that Entrepreneurs are natural risk takers. In fact, in a way they might have a very well developed adversity to risk as everything they do is a calculated decision. And in a way, even if you are an employee and you decide to flip jobs you take kind of the same risks.
  • The Work-Horse Instinct: This is about paying the price. Yah, again, there is something wrong with the entrepreneurs minds.
  • The Thick-Skinned Instinct: This is about being tough. Besides the power of starting something up, an undeniable entrepreneur quality is the power of keep things going even in tough times, just like a marriage: for better and for worse.
  • The Flexibility Instinct: This is about being willing to change. As an entrepreneur you have to do what you have to do to make things work. This means that today  you could be the janitor or the secretary is this needs to be done. And as you are the ultimate goal accomplisher, you will work on your weak spots to improve them, not necessarily as a personal development process, but as an opportunity enhancement process.
  • The Human Instinct: This is about people. Attracting the best people is more important than the business model itself. Well, if you are an entrepreneur you don’t really want to work. Therefore you just need to find the best people for the job that you are sure are able to implement your… dreams.
  • The Knowledge-Quest Instinct: This is about constantly learning. Reading, thinking, listening, observing, absorbing, and applying is a hallmark trait of a great entrepreneur. If you are already reading this, then I don’t have to comment!
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European Entrepreneurs miss… selling lemonade

Posted on August 17, 2008

I’m reading a very interesting article on Entrepreneurship in Europe, called “Europe desperately lacking ‘positive entrepreneurship culture’ “. The main idea of the article is “the EU must work towards changing its attitudes towards entrepreneurship and create a positive culture which encourages people to take risks,” and the positions presented are quite interesting:

EU Education Commissioner Ján Figel’ said: “We need to promote creative thinking in kids’ minds, teach them ability to learn, sense of initiative and capacity to take responsibility to turn ideas into action.”

Matti Heikkonen, chair of the Finnish software entrepreneurs’ association argued instead that: “entrepreneurship is not an educational issue. “You can’t teach a person how to become an entrepreneur,”" and had the idea that as you get more educated you realize more the risks involved in entrepreneurship: “most entrepreneurs are not those with the highest university qualifications and perfect diplomas, precisely because the better qualified the person, the more risks linked with turning ideas into action he or she will see. Entrepreneurs are often generalists who have dropped out from university, who just have an idea they want to realize and go for it, without spending time calculating risks and fearing failure.” he sees a role for the education system in helping “to change attitudes towards entrepreneurship in general and to show both success stories and failures”

Asked whether future global leaders and entrepreneurs are born or made, the president of Microsoft International, Jean-Philippe Courtois, said successful entrepreneurs are immediately ambitious, with the drive to go global from the start. “They take risks, have failed before and are good at attracting talented scientists and other people around them.”

Talking about financing, investing, Mr. Peter Jungen, co-president of the SME UNION, “angel investor”, said that business angels invested some €24 billion in the US and only 200-300 million in Europe.

Thing is that in the same time I was reading an US article on “Young entrepreneurs sell lemonade to raise money for party” - The Blue Buddies Class at Childcare Network at 4225 Brambleton Avenue were excited about selling lemonade, especially Victoria Barefoot and Jennifer Asbury members of the Blue Buddies Class for ages 5 and 6. Rod McGough, teacher of the Blue Buddies class and his assistant Brittany Loyd, use the lemonade stand as a way to teach the children how to county money.

I think most European Entrepreneurs miss… selling lemonade while being children. Selling lemonade gives you the feeling that you can go out there and do money if that’s what you want. Opportunities are around and just wait for someone to start-up.

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Commenting on an Are you an Entrepreneur article

Posted on August 17, 2008

Funny how you get different perspectives on the same thing. I would like now to comment on an article written by Earl Stringer & Rachel Bishop - Are you an Entrepreneur? I will copy paste the main ideas below and give you my comments:

  • Entrepreneurs can be any shape, size, age, race or religion. They do, but always there are at least some business environment factors that alter the entrepreneurship ways. For example, Eastern Europeans are less entrepreneurial than Western Europeans.
  • What makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur is commitment, the willingness to lead and the passion to succeed. And money (or the desire of have some)
  • Great Focus - True entrepreneurs have great focus. I have to agree, my mentors became successful as entrepreneurs in the moment they discovered something to focus on. They didn’t get that from the beginning but somewhere on their entrepreneurship life they discovered the right direction and they focused on following that path.
  • Creative - Most entrepreneurs have a seemingly effortless way of being creative. Creativity and business innovation is what makes companies stand a part and take the lion share on a market. This doesn’t necessarily mean coming with a completely new idea for a product or a service, just getting to do something better and serve a need somewhere in the simplest way possible.
  • Good With Money - Being able to keep track and manage money wisely is another well-known characteristic of an entrepreneur. If as an employee you’re probably thinking to buy a new car, buy a vacation or something like this once you got a rise, a real entrepreneur will always think about new investment opportunities or about growing the business. This doesn’t mean that entrepreneurs do not lose money or make mistakes, they do, but they think about money as a resource for even better bigger things.
  • Decision Maker - One who can make big decisions on their own without worrying about others opinions. Well, if you are in a decision making position as an employee, you probably got about half of what taking a decision mean to an entrepreneur. First of all, when you are an entrepreneur, chances are that only the most difficult decisions make it to you. Second, because you are not an employee you could take decisions in a different way - an employee will follow the rules, while you might not.
  • The Ability To Lead - Most entrepreneurs put themselves in the position of being the boss. No matter if you hire the best managers to control your business, you will still have the lead position. Sometimes people do not expect management decisions from you, the entrepreneur, but expect to be a leader.
  • Always Learning - True entrepreneurs never stop learning. I’ve always thought about things and ways to do things as a learning experience for something bigger that sits around the corner. And this way of thinking that there is something else to follow teaches you to learn from anything that happens, good or bad.
  • Fearless - Having no fear is definitely a characteristic of a entrepreneur. I completely disagree with this. Fear of failing, fear of risks is what a real entrepreneur feels. Entrepreneurs are not real risk takers, because everything they do is after a calculated thinking. Sure things might work or not, but fear is real, it just matter how you are handling fear.

The original article.

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Elevator Pitch for Entrepreneurs

Posted on August 17, 2008

I’m sure you know what an Elevator pitch is. Wikipedia says:

“An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).

The term is typically used in the context of an entrepreneur pitching an idea to a venture capitalist to receive funding. Venture capitalists often judge the quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of its elevator pitch, and will ask entrepreneurs for the elevator pitch to quickly weed out bad ideas.”

To me, an elevator pitch is just like a blind date. You are pitching to a person that you don’t know and met by chance. And just like on a blind date, the first impression counts and it needs to bring you a “second date”.

I’m not what you could say en expert on elevator pitching as here were I live (Eastern Europe), investment and funding happens on a much different way. However, even without knowing it, almost everybody does at least a couple of elevator pitches at family reunions, social or business meeting when you are asked: “So what do you do?”. And you have to come up with a very rapid answer, that is not complicated and explains in a few words what you are doing.

In this environment (family or social meetings) you have to prove yourself that you are worthy and did something with your life. In real cases scenarios when you pitch a potential investor, things are a little complicated: you have to make them give their money to you.

There are plenty of articles on how to make an elevator pitch. I do however think that an elevator pitch is not a “poem you should learn”, but it gets self-crafted over a series of trials and errors pitches during your entrepreneurship life. My 2008 elevator pitch is way different from the one I did 2007. And the 2005 elevator pitch actually makes me laugh.

There are some things you should have in mind when getting out your elevator pitch: what needs do you cover, what’s unique about the way you are fulfilling the need and how much money it will make.

Here is a story about a successful pitch and a video that says things better than I do.

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I'm Cristian Dorobantescu, a part time entrepreneur living in Bucharest, Romania. This blog is about entrepreneurship, start-ups and small businesses.
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