Marc Andreessen recently gave a presentation at Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Ventures program (I’ll definitely have to check that out when I get there 
). Marc is somebody I truly look up to and who I consider a legend in Silicon Valley, having started, not one, but, TWO billion dollar companies. So when he speaks, it’s worth listening to.
In this clip, he talks about the key components needed for a startup to be successful. Marc’s advice was very useful as I’m currently in the middle of launching a web startup myself. Enjoy:
To summarize, the three necessities for startup success are:
This can be broken down into two parts:
It must be a 10x leap happening in the technology landscape. So is your product 10x faster? 10x cheaper? 10x better? In order words, is there a fundamental technology or economic change that causes you to justify having a new company?
You need a founding team of complementary skill sets. This usually includes one or more super-strong technologist as well as a market/salesperson who has a good understanding of business.
You can watch the full one hour presentation Marc gave at Stanford here.
Over the past few months, I have been reading a lot of articles and gathering tons of information about tech startups as I set to launch my first one this fall. I’ve saved many of my favorites and, rather than keeping them to myself, I decided to share my bookmarks to the public.
The list I’ve compiled below have been filtered and I’ve only selected to publish the best of the best articles and videos. I urge all entrepreneurs who is serious about starting their own tech startup to read those articles as there are tons of golden nuggets to be taken away from them.
This list isn’t meant to be consumed all at once. Instead, you should use this bookmark as a resource list that you can always come back and reference. I’ll be constantly updating this list as I come across new well-worthy articles (if you have any article recommendations, please feel free to submit the links in the comments section below). Enjoy:
* Highly recommended
Every once in a while, you come across a presentation that just blows you away – this speech given by Guy Kawasaki on “The Art of the Start” is one of them. It’s not the usual same-old business advice. Instead, Guy cuts through all the B.S. and smashes apart all conventional and corporate ways of running a business – all in a funny and engaging manner. You might have seen this video before, if not, it’s a presentation well worth watching for all tech entrepreneurs out there looking to launch their next startup. Enjoy:
“Top 10 Billionaires Who Dropped Out of College…” - I’m sure you have come across those kind of lists before, whether you read about it on some blog or in the media, convincing you that you don’t need a college degree to become a successful entrepreneur. Sure, there are some who succeeded without having attended college but I personally don’t buy into this whole “you don’t need college” hype.
I mean, just do the maths: what’s the ratio of great companies founded by people who didn’t go to college at all versus those who went (even for just a year or two)? As a young entrepreneur, I’ll be attending college this fall and the decision was an absolute no-brainer – even if you are an entrepreneur who wants to start a business and knows exactly what you want to do with your life . I’ll give a few reasons why I chose to go (from an entrepreneurial perspective):
The media love to single out people like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates as examples of billionaires who didn’t need a college degree. Well, here’s the other side of the story that they usually don’t mention: they actually went to college in the first place. And the irony is that college was absolutely crucial to their business as that is how they met their business partners Dustin Moskovitz and Steve Balmer, respectively. Not to mention Sergey Brin & Larry Page of Google and David Filo & Jerry Yang of Yahoo. College offers a great networking opportunity and is truly the most fertile place to meet your future co-founders. In fact, many colleges across the United States help facilitate this with organizations (a great example being BASES at Stanford University).
But it’s not just about business co-founders. College provides the opportunity for you to meet like-minded people who you would never meet otherwise, exposing yourself to all sorts of cultures, values, opinions and views. It’s also probably the last chance you will ever have to spend time with a lot of smart people at your age.
It’s about the overall experience. You only get to be a kid once so you might as well take advantage of that. Few will ever go to college later on in their lives and if you do choose to go later, you would have missed out on all the college experiences of growing with your peer group. Many people have told me how great their experience at college was like – the parties, the connections, the professors, the events – and how it was their most memorable time of their lives. I wouldn’t want to regret spending the rest of my life having only heard about all the great things rather than living it.
Obviously, you’re there to learn. Sure, you can self-educate and learn as you go along, but college is more about the well-rounded knowledge with its liberal arts program rather than just professional skills. It’s not just about street smart but instead a combination with book smart.
Besides, your life won’t be permanently ruined either way. You don’t have to limit yourself to just studying at college; you can still be entrepreneurial while also being scholastic. Many of the most successful business ideas evolved out of college. For example, Facebook was derived from the “Face Book” that all freshmen get on their first day; Google and Yahoo came out of a PhD thesis project related to computer science.
College and entrepreneurship can go together, so you might as well go and have fun. What do you think? Is/was college important for you?
Via Shane Snow
So the difference between a tech startup and a rock band is not as different as you think…
The idea of entrepreneurship is applicable to more than just business or making money. It really applies to all ventures and projects where you take a risk, assemble a team, come up with something great and work hard. I think that is really the essence of entrepreneurship.
What do you think? How do you define “entrepreneurship”?
I recently came across this clip from a speech given by Jerry Kaplan. He talks about some of the biggest mistakes tech entrepreneurs make and I found the video to be quite fascinating. You can view it below:
To summarize, the five mistakes are:
While it may sound like something out of a business textbook, setting goals and mission is vitally important as yours may differ from your co-founders. Write down the goals, what you intend to do and what is your measure of success.
The biggest problem with starting a company with the sole purpose of trying to prove you’re smart and capable is that you end up not wanting to share the credit with other people, which means you don’t get their help and support. As I said before, business is a team sport.
You should never start a business for the money. One consequence of that is you end up not raising enough capital because you want to keep your ownership, or equity, of the company. There is an old joke in Silicon Valley that equity is like shit. If you pile it up, it smells bad. But once you spread it around, a lot of wonderful things grow. It really links back with what I said before, do what you love and the money will follow
A company is not a social club. You tend to hang out with people who are like you. So if you hire your friends, what ends up happening is that you aren’t able to bring different skills and different point of views to the table – and that is absolutely critical.
Companies change and evolve as they grow. Being a CEO of a startup is very different to being a CEO of a hundred million dollar company. You need realistic self-assessment so you know when to step aside for the good of the company
For the past four years, I’ve had the privilege to network and work with some of the coolest and biggest names in the industry. I’ve gone through a truly life-changing experience with my internet marketing endeavors, having opened doors to tons of opportunities that I otherwise would never had.
Today, I’m announcing that I’ve decided to leave the internet marketing industry.
The truth is, having been around for four years, I’ve lost my passion in the internet marketing niche as it has become increasingly polluted. In fact, I lost my passion a long time ago – I really haven’t done anything significant in the internet marketing field ever since I sold TheUniversityKid.com back in January. I’ve seen the way the internet marketing industry works – it’s like a sneaky little circle – and it’s just not something I envision myself doing for the rest of my life.
But I think it’s time for me to move on, away from ebooks, info products and coaching programs – this whole “guru” business. Instead, I’m shifting my focus more towards the the technological and media side of the web – developing web startups for more mainstream audience.
Therefore, I’m taking down all of my online properties (except for eMillions - since that is a book) as well as my subscriber lists. I’l be deleting my autoresponder and will no longer send out email broadcasts, promoting some internet marketing product launch. Instead, I’ll be scaling everything down to my blog for the latest articles which you can stay updated via my RSS feed. The redesign of my website is a representation of my shift of focus from info products to technology.
I just want to make it clear – I am not quitting. I’m simply “starting again” in another area of online entrepreneurship. Sure, I’ll continue to adopt internet marketing strategies and post my thoughts about entrepreneurship, online businesses and web trends – but just with more of a technological focus. It’s just that I will no longer be involved with the internet marketing industry of product launches, affiliate marketing and list building.
I’ll be attending Stanford University this fall and committing the next four years of my life to Silicon Valley. My first stab at the technology startup industry is with BuzzBlaze – a social news aggregation website due to be released this September. It’s more of an experiment than an actual “business” as I get prepared for college.
I appreciate your care and understanding and wish every one of you great success in your future ventures. There’s definitely a sense of nostalgia and I may occasionally check back on what’s happening in the IM world. I hope you stick around by subscribing to the RSS feed, following me on Twitter or becoming a fan on Facebook to stay updated with this new chapter of my entrepreneurial journey.
Hi, I’m Stanley Tang – a 19 year old tech entrepreneur, author and student. Since 2006, I’ve been building internet businesses ranging from online magazines to social web applications. I also published a book called eMillions, which was a #1 best-seller on Amazon.com.
I’m inspired by technology, startups, design, innovation, philosophy and business. I love engaging in the creative process of building tech startups.
Right now, I’m pursing a Computer Science degree at Stanford University. Be sure to look around to check out what I’ve been up to lately.
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