I’m currently reading The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman. This quote really stood out to me this morning and is interesting to think about…I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts on this.
“In China Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In the US Britney Spears is Britney Spears, and that is the problem.”
Last night I had a conversation with Larry Chiang regarding ‘The Art of the Business Plan’ chapter in Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art of the Start“. We got to thinking about how plans are useless but planning is indispensable! I jumped over to re-read one of Larry’s posts on GigaOm and found this little tid bit to be a gem. Thanks Larry!
Everyone has a plan until you get hit. A boxing legend friend of mine told me this once (see item #9). It’s good advice for entrepreneurs also, because we all know that defensiveness is kryptonite to entrepreneurship — and obviously to interviewers, too. After you get your nose bloodied, can you “retrack” and reestablish the goal? Can you get back to fundamentals? Founders have to.
This is from Larry Chiang’s post about Sarah Lacy’s failed attempt at interviewing Zuckerberg at SXSW this year. The post was a cheeky commentary called ‘8 Things Sarah Lacy Could Learn From Founders She Covers’. Kind of a tough blow, but watch the interview, so
Seth Godin, author of many great business books, most recently The Dip, wrote a ‘how-to’ that I found interesting and useful on his blog. His premise is that a business book is not like a cook book. It’s not just a recipe, its a recipe for 2 or 3 pages but the rest of the book is the convincing or motivating that needs to occur in order for the reader to act on the recipe. If you are looking at a business book as a how-to, you’re wasting your money. Here is Seth’s recommendations on…
1. Decide, before you start, that you’re going to change three things about what you do all day at work. Then, as you’re reading, find the three things and do it. The goal of the reading, then, isn’t to persuade you to change, it’s to help you choose what to change.
2. If you’re going to invest a valuable asset (like time), go ahead and make it productive. Use a post-it or two, or some index cards or a highlighter. Not to write down stuff so you can forget it later, but to create marching orders. It’s simple: if three weeks go by and you haven’t taken action on what you’ve written down, you wasted your time.
3. It’s not about you, it’s about the next person. The single best use of a business book is to help someone else. Sharing what you read, handing the book to a person who needs it… pushing those around you to get in sync and to take action–that’s the main reason it’s a book, not a video or a seminar. A book is a souvenir and a container and a motivator and an easily leveraged tool. Hoarding books makes them worth less, not more.
“I pitch therefore I am.” This week I read the chapter out of The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki called “The Art of Pitching” (CH3). The chapter is about how an entrepreneur seeking funding from VC’s can optimize his pitch to be most successful. Also, this week I had the first meeting for ActionsTalk and I found the chapter I read significantly helped my pitch to the group at that meeting. Due to the fact that it was the first kick-off meeting I had an opportunity to pitch the vision and the known plan for ActionsTalk to about 7 people who had no idea what we had in mind. No, none of the people at the meeting are potential investors in ActionsTalk (at this time) but it was great practice to throw the idea out there, work through the wrinkles, and receive constructive feedback.
Although I’m at least months out from being in a position to pitch a product idea to potential investors I found the chapter to be very applicable. Guy makes a point in the chapter about how VC’s (the audience) isn’t here for an autobiographical monologue, rather they are there to hear your idea/s. So, he advises that you immediately dive into your idea versus introducing yourself excessively and going into your background. I did this consciously at the ActionsTalk meeting and it worked wonders. The group was captured by the vision for ActionsTalk and moved towards finding out how they could be involved. After the attention of the meeting was placed on the vision of ActionsTalk it was simple to introduce myself and introduce how I will help the ActionsTalk conference become a reality. My story did not take away from, bore, or force the group to wait, rather, it was a building block in the plan of ActionsTalk.
Much of this chapter discusses the best ways to use a presentation in a meeting and Guy lays out ground rules for a Powerpoint presentation. I did not need to use a actual powerpoint pitch in this scenario but will definitely need to in the future and I will surely use this chapter as a reference at that time.
Lastly, one of the best take-aways from the chapter is the idea that you need to pitch constantly. It is stressed that always talking about your idea will do nothing but help you refine the idea, refine the pitch, and increase the likely hood that you are able to communicate your mission clearly and convince someone to give you money, resources, or support. Just another crucial lesson in learning the art of starting a start-up.
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