About Blue Venture Community

[This was a test post I did while doing a live demo of Zemanta for the Blue Venture community Meetup on March 10, 2009]

Blue Venture Community (BVC) is a private community for Columbia students, alumni and employees interested in all aspects entrepreneurship. The group welcomes members from any school, sector or industry function (e.g., entrepreneur, VC, lawyer, etc.).

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BVC seeks to foster entrepreneurship by facilitating communication, providing access to resources and creating community. Through BVC members meet every few weeks to participate in an array of events. Event formats include idea incubation, demo events, educational panel and speaker events and happy hours.

Individuals must possess a Columbia email address to join.

This group is a privately operated group not affiliated with Columbia University.

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• What do you really want in a VC? (marsdd.com)

Stuff You Don't Get Paid For

This post is about the work entrepreneurs do for free.

It's easy to hoard your knowledge, shield your contacts, or be resistant to helping others unless you're compensated in some way. It's human nature to want to know "what's in it for me?"

But the truth is, we live in a world of abundance, not scarcity. If everybody came to the table asking, "wha-jya get me?" then no one would get anything. If, however, everyone came to give, all would receive.

Sharing and helping others will benefit you by demonstrating your worth and goodwill. The beneficiaries of your advice and support will want to return the favor. At worst, you'll be known as a facilitator (nothing wrong with that). At best, you'll have a large network of people that are ready and willing to help you.

I look at this unpaid work as the price of entry.

Another instance where we end up working for free is when we take risks, such as starting a company - and end up having to shut it down for any number of reasons. It's easy to be angry, disappointed, and embarrassed by this failure. But to move forward, we need to learn from our mistakes and the forces beyond our control.

I look at this unpaid work as the cost of an education.

Zemanta - A cool blogging tool

I'm writing this piece to test out a new blogging plug-in - well, at least it's new to me. I think Image via CrunchBasethey've been around for a year or so. It's called Zemanta and it recommends articles, pictures, tags, etc that are related to my blog post as I'm writing it. It just proposed that I link the word "Zemanta" to their website. I didn't have to leave the browser window that I'm in, and I didn't have to type out the URL.

And I just dragged in that image of their logo. Pretty cool stuff.

I had heard about these guys - vaguely - from reading various tech blogs. But it caught my attention when Albert Wenger at Union Square Ventures (USV) told me about them. USV invested in them a while back.

They integrate nicely with Blogger and just about every other blogging platform out there.
I recommend you check it out.

Early-Stage Education

It's one of those attributes of being an entrepreneur - the desire to start a company. Turning your ideas into something tangible and productive (among other things) drives this desire. As someone recently pointed out, having an idea and executing that idea are two very different things. I can't seem to find the recent blog post on this topic, but the post also pointed out that you may not be the best judge of whether your idea is good or bad. Great points.

I'd like to point out that many early entrepreneurs may not be adept at starting companies. (Ya think?) There are a lot of resources available (books, blogs, and communities). However, I think the best resource is to actually work for a start-up. If entrepreneurship is your chosen path, you would do well to join an existing early-stage company and observe what works, and what doesn't.

I'm not saying there aren't plenty of examples of young first-time founders out there. Certainly the media likes to feature the successful young entrepreneur, but they are the exception, not the rule.

So, if you're strong enough to admit that your idea isn't marketable or that you're not ready to go out on your own, be a student of entrepreneurship at an existing venture.

Board of Advisors - Accountability is the Driving Force

In my work consulting for early-stage companies - or just speaking with entrepreneurs at networking events, the question of professional advisors often comes up. Every early stage company should have a formal Board of Advisors (BoA). Ironically, what I've found is that most entrepreneurs look at these advisors as merely a networking opportunity or as outside validation. These are two very important components of a BoA, but accountability is just as critical.

Established, credible, intelligent, and well connected professionals within an entrepreneur's target market sector can indeed accelerate the development of a business. And getting suitable professionals on board is a must if an entrepreneur's idea is going to sprout legs. If an entrepreneur can't attract an impressive set of advisors, then one should ask whether there's really a business there at all.

A big trap that entrepreneurs fall into is that they "acquire" a set of advisors, post their bios to the company's website, and then they move on to another task - having achieved a "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" through association with their advisors. It seems silly to have to say this, but advisors WANT to advise. That's why they agreed to be on the BoA. Too often, however, they're ignored or under-utilized. A truly wasted resource.

A bigger issue is that many entrepreneurs - some out on their own for the first time in their careers - have no one to hold them accountable for their actions. They may not even have a Board of Directors yet. Entrepreneurs love independence - being their own boss, on their own time, running the show, and doing it their way. This is a double-edged sword. Entrepreneurs need to have someone there to tell them that they're not progressing quick enough or that they're making mistakes.

So, my advise to entrepreneurs is to document your goals with a timeline of projected milestones - and then send these goals to an advisor. This advisor might be a trusted friend or an established professional on your BoA. The point is that by having them come back to you in 30, 60, 90 days and asking you how you've done against those goals, will make you more compelled and responsible with regard to achieving your dream.

In summary, a Board of Advisors accomplishes 4 things: 1) credibility by association, 2) a source of advice, 3) a network of connections, and 4) accountability for your actions. Leverage them all.

Have You Been Warned About the Meaning of Ads?

I happened to be gazing at a step stool we have around the house - you know the kind that makes it easy for the kids to reach the sink. As with most consumer household goods, it has a warning label on it. And in the spirit of globalization, the warning is in English, French, and Spanish. In each language, the word "Warning" is displayed in bold just above a short paragraph that nobody over 40 could read unless they were within inches of the label.

In any event, I noticed something very telling about the French and Spanish words for "warning". In French it's "avertissement" and in Spanish it's "advertencia". Whoa! These words look and sound a lot like the English word "advertisement". How interesting is that?

It's as if we've been given a clue to be forewarned that ads are coming. See an ad? Watch out. "Be careful, there's an ad in front of you". "These are the ads, avoid them".

So I got to thinking, what words do the French and Spanish use when they mean "advertisement"? The French use either "annonce" or "publicité" while the Spanish use "anuncio". Hmm, sounds a lot like "enunciate", "announce", and "publicize". Makes sense. A lot more sense than the roots of our English word.

Authentic and effective advertising (there's that word again..."Danger, danger Will Robinson") are good at enunciating. Not just announcing, but articulating well. Which brings me to what I think is THE most effective form of advertising: teaching.

Now, I don't mean rote learning or studying for the SATs. What I mean is that the most effective ads - the ones that I will pay attention to are the ones that teach me something I'm interested in. Educate me on why the iPhone is better, and maybe I'll buy it (So far, failing grade). Give me some free information on your product or service (white paper, top 10 tips, etc.) that really helps me solve a personal or professional problem, and I'll pay attention and buy (Thank you Tim Ferriss for the free chapters...I bought the book. And kudos to Flip Video guys for letting test drive their product at SXSW...I bought one.)

Paul Graham on the YCombinator Blog points out that advertising is broken (see item #12) and that's what got me thinking. Advertising, particularly online, has done a good job living up to its semantic roots; we're tuning it out because we've been programmed to be warned.

George Carlin's Theory of Relativity

Yes, another blog post that references the late George Carlin. I guess his quips have inspired a lot of people. One of his "clean" comments that I love goes something like this: "Have you ever noticed that people driving slower than you are all Idiots, and people driving faster than you are all Maniacs?"

I've coined this the George Carlin Theory of Relativity. We proceed through life at different speeds, whether measured in intellect, career advancement, or the pursuit of happiness. And I've observed that we judge ourselves against others who are traveling at different speeds even if we don't have all of the facts.

Those that appear to be traveling slower in career advancement, may in fact be maniacs with regard to the quality of life they have with their families. And the speed demons of intellect, may in fact be idiots when it comes to handling their careers. But figuring out who the idiots and manics are isn't the point.

We shouldn't compare ourselves relative to others. We should compare ourselves to ourselves. And therefore ask yourself, "am I traveling in the right direction?"

Idiot? Maniac? Who knows. Not important. Just make sure you Have a Nice Day.