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Gen Y Rockstar

Admin — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:32:19 +0000

Right, so i came up with this not so novice idea of starting a social network for gen y entrepreneurs. My idea for it is to bring every gen y with the entrepreneurship spirit together in one place, so we can all meet each other, learn from each other and recognize the success of people.

I know the name is quite parochial but oh well: Generation Y Rockstar

Have you got what it takes to be an Entrepreneur?

Admin — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:05:48 +0000

Everyone has read tales about how rich a lot of entrepreneurs are striking it these days so as you will expect many people are joining the bandwagon. Everyone wants to build a web 2.0 company or the next 1-800-flowers. I like your thirst and yearn for success and financial security, however not everyone is cut out for it. Not everyone is designed to be an entrepreneur because there are certain traits you must possess to succeed doing this. If you lack one or two of those, you might be wasting a lot of time and money.

Certain qualities will set you aside, so not to doubt anyone or put anyone off, you should ask yourself if these are qualities you believe you possess. They always come in handy.

An entrepreneur is a leader: Marc Andreessen of Netscape once pointed out that an entrepreneur is one who makes things happen. ” If you don’t assign people and tell them what to do, it won’t get done.” An entrepreneur must be one who can take charge and make decisions, if you lack these qualities then it is hard to see how you will succeed in this industry.

Are you a visionary? The most successful entrepreneurs and those that find the most luck with investors are those that see beyond others and know where “the ball will arrive at even before the pass is made, the destination of the game”. Popular investor Chris Sacca said in an interview that he was always looking to put money into ventures but he only wants ventures that are born out of vision, solving problems that affect millions on a daily basis that have yet to be pointed out. A true entrepreneur can see an opportunity and take it.

Are you a trooper or ‘give-upper’: It is in our nature as humans to get frustrated whenever things are not going our way so I am not going to sit here and say if you get frustrated then you will succeed or fail. I get frustrated a lot, but I keep going. If you are one to give up after a set back or two then you should start questioning your career path. As an entrepreneur you will receive a lot of NO! No from potential employees, no from investors, no from potential customers even before you get any yes. If in all of this you know how to tough it out and press on then thumbs up to you. Thomas Edison failed with the lightbulb 1,000 times and on the 1,001th try it lit up. When he was asked, he said he didn’t fail, he just discovered 1,000 times not to invent a light bulb. Always view your challenges in a similar light, don’t consider you setbacks as failures, instead look at them as lessons and please DO learn!

Really, are you lazy? No BS, are you? Ask yourself this question before you try to start anything. If you are lazy, you may need to change your habits and become more useful to yourself and hardworking too. I can tell you that I have had more all-nighters since being an entrepreneur than I did when I was in college. And trust me I did have a lot in school. I was a chemical engineering major, go figure. You must possess the zest and fight to want everything to work because the business is yours, if it fails you fail. Unlike in the corporate world where your coworker can pick up your slack and cover for you, it is not the case here…if you drop the ball, no one else can call the shots so your venture is shattered. If your goods need to ship by 7am and your team is not done packaging by 1am, you don’t leave until they are done. It is up to you to make what you want to make of your business.

Teach yourself some discipline mate: If you will rather go drinking/clubbing with your buddies on Thursday-college night or thirsty Tuesday while remixing your version of Asher Roth’s I love college than finish coding your iphone app, then discipline is top of your worries. I am not saying I don’t have a remix to that Asher Roth’s hit record, infact I have 3 but I write, record and sell them to myself in the shower or in the car. I have set priorities for myself and my business is first on that list. You must teach yourself to focus on the things that matter, if you want to be an entrepreneur then act like one. Prioritize and know when it’s time for work to take precedence.

Confidence: Confidence is key when building a startup. No investor will invest in you if you don’t seem confident in what you are offering. These investors have seen hundreds of people come in asking for money and they have learned to immediately tell those who are confident and those who aren’t. It’s just like a guy going up to an absolutely stunning lady and shivering in his spine at the sight of her utter beauty. When he starts to speak, a girl can tell if he’s confident or not, if he thinks he’s good enough or not and this is what typically triggers the first stage of attraction. It’s not any different with investors, believe in what you are selling then they can believe in you.

Set goals early on and fight to achieve them: If you are able to set goals and fight tooth and nail to bring your dreams to reality, this is what you are made for. Goals usually change a bit during the pursuit but ultimately your dreams are in the same path. If you are prepared to go all the way to succeed then you can beat your chest and be proud.

Young/New Entrepreneurs in MD & other east coast states

Admin — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:19:29 +0000

Are you a young entrepreneur (under 30) or you know one? and you live in the east coast? Generation – Y Startup is planning its first bi-monthly mixer/meet and greet to be held in Maryland. It’s an opportunity for you to meet with other entrepreneurs, share ideas, meet potential co-founders, partners and so forth.

We are also calling on successful entrepreneurs of all ages who are willing to come in and share their stories, important tips and generally mentor some of our freshies. If you are an investor or a potential investor as well, this event is for you. You get to meet young entrepreneurs in a more social environment and get to know potential investment opportunites.

If you would like to be a part of this, send me a DM or tweet @genystartup.

or if you are not on twitter, then send a message directly to Tolu at tolu@genystartup.com.

You can also fan us on facebook, and leave a comment.

Marketing your new Startup

Admin — Mon, 25 May 2009 00:31:46 +0000

So now your business is up and running on the internet, you have gone live, there are no bugs and you are ready for the money to start rolling in so you can pay off those loans, investments and so forth. You are now faced with selling yourself so that people know about your services. I have been asked this question a lot and so I decided to cover it on here. I had given a speech at a small gathering of hopeful entrepreneurs about 2 months ago and atleast 6 people came up to me at different times after the events and asked the same question. “I have developed and designed my website, everything is in place and ready to go, I just have one little problem…how do I get people to know about it?”

First of all I must clarify something before I proceed. For new entrepreneurs, this is very important so listen up, getting people to know about your business is NOT a little problem. It infact is the most difficult and important part of your startup as far as I know. It is difficult in the sense that it requires hours upon hours of research and work to promote your services. It sometimes will require you spending money and it could get very frustrating when you see your efforts not being fruitful (this is typically the case at the beginning for most startups). It is also the most important part of your startup because you must carefully seek and find your customer base and these are the people you want to market to. Marketing to people who don’t care about or need what you are offering will just be a waste of time and effort. As a new entrepreneur you have tones of stuff you need to spend your time, money and effort on anyway, and wasting that on anything that will be futile and can shatter you.

From the experience I have gathered over the few years I have been involved in startups, I have seen a few strategies that have worked, some for me and others for friends/colleagues of mine…here we go.

Close your eyes, then read the name to yourself: Imagine you were a customer or just another web surfer and you came across the name of your company, can you tell the purpose of the company or not? This is an important aspect of starting a company. The first time I tried my hands on building a social network, I experienced the pain of not having a name that related to my business. I had come across cool sites like xoom, joost, twitter e.t.c. and thought those names were notoriously catchy so I indulged. I realized that I hadn’t got the money or track record like these startups to market my company and so all I could do was SEO and use other free marketing mechanisms. I learned that it is very helpful to have keywords you want to optimize for your website placed in the title and name because the search robots like this. Optimization was really slow for me because of this, coupled with my lack of experience with startups at the time. This doesn’t just apply to online businesses either. If I was walking down a road looking for a store I could buy some ‘sick’ sneakers and on my left I see a store called “besnizzled” and on my right I see “house of sneakers”, I will obviously go into the store on my right even though I have never heard of either store before. The fact that their product is in their business name catches my attention …regardless of if “besnizzled” had the best sneakers in the world. In a nut shell, it’s easier if your business name tells people what you do right off the bat.

Is your online presence strong enough?: You must put your business in a position where people feel comfortable patronizing or even window shop with you. The first thing is to make sure your website is not garbage. Your website doesn’t have to be the best designed or most expensive one in the industry but it has to be appealing, it has to be attractive enough to make people want to stay, tell others about it and come back themselves. Make your users able to subscribe to your emails and services, try giving gifts that will be attractive to your customers/fan base e.t.c.

It is also important that you build a community on the web. Exchange links and banners with more patronized websites in your niche. I know most times you will get turned down by a lot of these people but keep trying and ask a lot of sites. I remember I asked collegehumor when I started my college forum site and ofcourse they said no. So don’t take those things personally, just keep asking and you will find atleast one or two. They might not be terribly popular sites, but atleast they have a better google rank and position than you. The more you link, the more attractive your website is to search engine crawlers.

Spread the word: Perhaps the most powerful tool for marketing. I find that a lot of people neglect this tool, advancement in technology has made everyone want to type rather than speak. Most young entrepreneurs will rather spend money of google adwords, affiliate marketing and so forth than actually telling people about what they do in person. I am not saying adwords or affiliate marketing don’t work because they do and they do quite well actually. I am just saying in my position when I started out I didn’t have the money for that so I don’t believe it is the only/best way to go about it. Go around, tell your friends and family about it, and let them tell their friends and so on.

Make flyers, business cards, banners and place them strategic locations where your customer base visit. I once went to a club and I swear I snuck behind the bar and placed a banner with my funny tee-shirt designs right next to the Budweiser banner. It was there all night! All I am saying is, you don’t have to get as crazy as I was but make yourself popular in places where your prospective customer base always patronize.

Be prominent on Social Media sites: If you have a twitter, facebook, stumbleupon, linkedIn, digg account, you are on your way. These are some of the most powerful marketing tools in their own right. Make a lot of friends on these sites, use the power of status of facebook, twit your website name to your followers, share your website and business with all your friends on stumbleupon/digg and have them share with their other friends. Trust me this works tremendously, if done right.

Here is what’s important though, I have learned that it is never helpful if all you do on these social media is submitting your own site. Feel free to always share them with your friends but when you start submitting your site all the time, you start depleting in value, people see you as a parasite, using them for your own benefit. Instead, submit other people’s site in your niche. If your business/site is about photography, submit and stumble or digg other webpages and businesses in this category. Subscribe to them, review them and usually they will return the favor. When they see that you reviewed and submitted their stuff, they are grateful and usually will show their gratitude by doing the same for you. Don’t get too desperate or in a rush to see traffic, it takes time and submitting yourself to achieve this never ever works!

Use Blogs and forums: You do not have to create your own blog or forums even though the former is usually advisable. However bookmark blogs and forums in your niche, visit them regularly and make reviews, comment and make friends there. In time they will get comfortable with you and patronize you. If you are leaving a comment on a forum, you can have your webpage as your signature…it will be seen by everyone anytime you leave a comment. This process is not an immediate source of customers, it takes time. But don’t give up…if you are so quick to give up, then you must re-evaluate whether you are really able to be an entrepreneur.

Track your traffic/customer source: Find out which marketing outlet is bringing you not the most but the ‘real’ customers. Customers that actually hang around and come back regularly. These are the ones you need to focus on anyways, not those who visit for 5secounds and disappear, or those who shoot your bounce rate to the moon. If you are an online business, utilize the google analytics package…it is amazingly useful. If you are an offline business, you can utilize a feedback form. Ask your customers how they like your services and somewhere before your “thank you for patronizing us”, sneak in the “how did you hear about us?” line. Always works.

New Entrepreneurs and the Recession

Admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:01:21 +0000

Believe it or not young entrepreneurs seeking funds are the ones that will feel the effect of the economic downturn the most. With money more difficult to come by these days, even filthy rich investors and VCs know the value of every quarter. They are all being more tight fisted and more careful about who gets their money. Don’t get me wrong there’s still money swimming around Silicon Valley in large quantities. Infact so far in 2009, well over $5billion has invested in several companies in various stages of funding. That is a whole lot of money, however the focus of VCs and angels these past few months had been on companies like twitter, olx e.t.c. companies already in existence and well established. They are quite confident that these companies will bring returns and that’s what every investor seeks at the moment.

One can also look to the several local funds and loans set up by government agencies and private consortium set up for the sole purpose of helping new companies grow.

I have been talking to a lot of people, reading a lot of books and articles on what new entrepreneurs can do to secure some funding as well and here’s a few things I found:

1.) Build a confident and relentless team. In previous posts I had talked about the importance of having a team rather than go solo. For some reason you are more “attractive” to angels and investors if you have a team in place compared to you being alone. It’s an unspoken rule in silicon valley that the more people who find the idea and venture worthwhile (regardless of if they are part of the project or just admirers), the more worthy the venture is likely to be.

Once you have a team in place, you have to ensure that confidence is instilled in each and every member of that team about the quality of the product you intend to deliver. If the confidence is there, trust me, it shows whenever you talk about your venture and this is always a good quality. Now you’ve also got to make sure you and your team are relentless. Never give up or take no for an answer. I know of an entrepreneur who currently builds gaming platforms on Facebook that required some funding to bring his ideas to life. He spoke to several angel networks and VCs and all he got was no. Did he give up? Did he look for something else to do? No…he and his team pressed on, they sent “thank you for reading through our resume and business plan” letters to all the people that said no, and 3 days later they resent the plans to these people. They kept at this routine 4 times until a Boston based angel had enough and decided to meet with them. 5 minutes into their meeting the “young, hip and game geek” angel was sold and invested several millions in their venture. Now they rake in well over $10million in revenue from the entire social network clientele.

Never give up! You and your team MUST keep at it.

2.) Are you in a business that doesn’t respect the recession? Certain industries thrive and boom whether it’s the recession or not. Technology, science, biotech are only a few examples of sectors that are not really affected by the recession.

3.) Build and use your contacts. I once had the opportunity to sit in on a startup 2 startup conference in California early in May 2009 and a veteran investor was speaking on what he looked for in an entrepreneur. He went on and on, but what really concerned me is if he was interested in investing in a freshie or not. I knew the answer even before he took the microphone so it was no surprise when he said it. I don’t know if he planned on saying it or not but as he went on in his speech he said “the chance of me investing in a new entrepreneur is zero and that is the case with every other investor I know”. He went on to say he only invested based on referrals. This is not news to anyone except new entrepreneurs obviously and that’s the point of this blog.

As much as I will like to say otherwise, your chance as a new entrepreneur to secure funds is pretty much non –existent if you don’t have that inside connection. Build your connections now!