Posts filed under 'Quotes'
July 29th, 2008
Continuing my twitter experiment from April, May, and June I continue to select a quote every couple of days that is applicable to the challenges of entrepreneurship. Here are my choices for July:
“Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.”
Gary Snyder
I thought this was more poetic than “find a niche and fill it.”
“Strategy is a hypothesis. Metrics are the data for testing the hypothesis. It is a continuous feedback process.”
Glen B. Alleman
This is a condensed version of a set of bullets from a 2003 presentation “Using Balanced Scorecard to Build a Project Focused IT organization” he gave at an IQPC conference. The net effect is to get IT to take a more entrepreneurial approach to serving end users. It’s no wonder his blog is called “Herding Cats.”
- Strategy is a hypothesis. Metrics are the data for testing the hypothesis.
- Strategy is making a hypothesis about a desired outcome, constructing the measures to test the hypothesis, deploying the experiment to test the hypothesis, then making adjustments based on the metrics.
- The concept of strategy as a hypothesis and the experiments to test the hypothesis may be new to many. But this approach puts strategy in a different light.
- Strategy is not something you do then go off to execute the plan. It is a continuous feedback process. Always testing the strategy with metrics derived from projects.”
“The true object of all human life is play. Life is a task garden, heaven is a playground.”
G. K. Chesterton
Truly creative problem solving, the kind that fuels an entrepreneur’s “creative destruction” is playful.
“The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one’s life and discover one’s usefulness.”
John Cheever
I find that writing down my thoughts and experiences have allowed me to get a better sense of perspective on my life and various business activities. I actually think I do my best story telling at a whiteboard, at least for the first few drafts, but presentations ultimately have to become articles and essays to have broader influence. Re-reading what I’ve written, perhaps edited from a transcript of a talk or a presentation, allows someone as extroverted as myself to really hone my thinking.
“Business is more exciting than any game.”
Kitty O’Neill Collins
I believe that too many technically oriented entrepreneurs neglect the business model and relationship aspects a making a start-up successful. In particular software engineers become accustomed to the total control of their environment, an expectation that does not hold for activities that involve negotiation and persuasion such as sales, marketing, and business development. Activities that are vital to business success.
“You learn something every day, unless you’re careful.”
Tom Van Vleck
Vleck has a great website, I thought this gem was pithy restatement of Fred Brooks’ observation that “Good judgment comes from experience…experience comes from bad judgment.”
“When will you know you have enough, and what will you do then?”
Barbara DeAngelis
I am suspicious of entrepreneurs who are only motivated by money. I am not against wealth, but the Irish proverb “there are no pockets in shrouds” is a gentle reminder of the need to base your life on higher purposes than accumulation and consumption.
“Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin. It should make you jump up and do something.”
E. L. Simpson
Imagination is necessary but not sufficient for successful entrepreneurship.
“All we have is our time. How we spend our time is our priorities, our strategy. Your calendar knows what you really care about.”
Tom Peters
Especially for bootstrappers, we’ve come to appreciate that how you spend your time is much more important that how you spend your funds.
“More important than talent, strength, or knowledge is the ability to laugh at yourself and enjoy the pursuit of your dreams.”
Amy Grant
I think I get better at tasks where I enjoy the deliberate practice that improves my skill and I am able to maintain a sense of humor about my shortcomings. This is not always that case at three in the morning when I wonder why I left the security of a big company, but I think that security is an illusion and no matter what course of action you embark on you can have second thoughts. I have been at this latest venture for five years and continue to make new mistakes, so I am not in a rut.
“The difference between one man and another is not mere ability, it is energy.”
Thomas Arnold
Especially the energy to continue to experiment until you persevere.
July 15th, 2008
Two from “Knots” by R.D. Laing
“What Jacks says about Jill,
Says more about Jack,
Than it does about Jill.”
If I don’t know I don’t know, I think I know
If I don’t know I know, I think I don’t know
Three that I have not been able to source:
“Listen for what isn’t being said.”
“Most communication is indirect.”
The primary barrier to communication is the belief that it’s occurred.
June 29th, 2008
Continuing my twitter experiment from April and May I try to select a good quote every couple of days that is applicable to the challenges of entrepreneurship. Here are my choices for June:
“Starting a business? Don’t call VCs: call on customers and figure out how to solve a problem they are willing to pay for.” Greg Gianforte (slightly paraphrased from SandHill.com interview to fit in Twitter’s character count)
“Create more value than you capture.” Tim O’Reilly
“Communities already exist…think about how you can help that community do what it wants to do.”
Mark Zuckerberg (quote from slide 29 of Neil Perkins slideshow “What’s Next in Media“)
“Identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.”
Chartered Institute of Marketing’s definition of Marketing
“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”
Michael Jordan
“Skrenta’s Law of VC Fundraising: seeking VC funding for a new market creates new competitors.”
Rich Skrenta, condensed from this paragraph in his “Spice Girls VC” blog post
“I formed a theory that the process of seeking VC ended up calling your own competitors into existence. You’ll meet with many more VCs than the 1-2 who end up funding you. But after seeing a company or two get funded in your space, the VCs who passed or weren’t able to get in decide they want to have a bet in the space too. Fortunately they have the benefit of having heard your pitch and the opportunity to personally grill you at length on your approach.”
June 15th, 2008
I thought of my Uncle John today and some of the things he used to say.
“It’s generally accepted, so generally accepted, that it may not be true at all.”
Which I think is particularly good advice for an entrepreneur to look beneath the surface of the common wisdom to see what’s really going on.
“If we had cake, we could have cake and ice cream, if we had the ice cream.”
So many people wish for things, or say to themselves “if only” instead of “next time” or “starting tomorrow.”
He was a doctor and a Korean War veteran. I didn’t get to see much of him growing up, he had settled in Pendleton Oregon after the war and my family was in St. Louis.
The night of the junior prom I was backing out of the driveway to pick up my date and there was a bump and I looked in the rear view mirror and he was sitting in my grandfather’s car with an expression as surprised as the one on my face. It was a strange moment where I felt overjoyed to see him again, worry because I was late, and embarrassed because I had backed up without looking. We both hopped out and there was no damage so I went on to the prom.
The summer I turned 16 my brother and I spent fishing and camping with him. It was a lot of fun. I visited him twice during college and had great times. I always meant to call or write or visit him again. Perhaps I did once or twice. One day a few years later he was dead of a heart attack.
Don’t wait to reconnect with folks who have made a difference in your life.
June 8th, 2008
The emotional ambience at DAC (the Design Automation Conference) is what you get when you pour the excitement of a high school science fair, the sense of the recurring wheel of life from the movie Groundhog Day, and the auld lang syne of a high school re-union, and hit frappe.
Some related quotes–at least I believe them to be:
A glimpse is not a vision. But to a man on a mountain road by night, a glimpse of the next three feet of road may matter more than a vision of the horizon.
C. S. Lewis
Knowing is not understanding. There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.
Charles Kettering
Knowledge comes by taking things apart: analysis. But wisdom comes by putting things together.
John A. Morrison
The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second is to know that which is true.
Lactantius
Maturity means reacquiring the seriousness one had as a child at play
Friedrich Nietzsche
June 3rd, 2008
I had the pleasure of reading “Three Men in a Boat” and “Three Men on a Bummel” by Jerome K. Jerome last week, two great books that I heartily recommend. Although they are more than 100 years old (Boat was first published in 1889 and Bummel in 1900; many of his works are available from Project Gutenberg) they are proof we haven’t changed much in a hundred years.
This passage in Chapter 15 of “Three Men in a Boat” on Work captures the spirit of perfectionism and that can hinder startup founders, especially those that are bootstrapping out of a spare bedroom or study in their house.
It seemed to me that I was doing more than my fair share of work on this trip, and I was beginning to feel strongly on the subject.
It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It’s not that I object to work, mind you; I like work; it fascinates me, I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me, the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.
You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become a passion with me; my study is so full of it now that there is hardly an inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw out a wing soon.
And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn’t a finger-mark on it. I take great pride i my work; I take it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do.
But, though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask for more than my proper share.
May 31st, 2008
Continuing my twitter experiment from April I try to select a good quote every couple of days that is applicable to the challenges of entrepreneurship. Here are my choices for May:
“Practice is the best of all instructors.”
Publilius Syrus
“You can’t hire someone to practice for you.”
H. Jackson Brown, Jr. see also his “21 Suggestions for Success”
“Being yourself is not remaining what you were, or being satisfied with what you are. It is the point of departure.”
Sydney J. Harris
“Innovation is the first reduction to practice of an idea in a culture.”
James Brian Quinn in “Intelligent Enterprise: A Knowledge and Service Based Paradigm for Industry”
“The First Step Toward Getting Somewhere Is To Decide That You Are Not Going To Stay Where You Are.”
J. Pierpont Morgan
“Intelligence is defined by prediction. ”
Jeff Hawkins
“HTML is now the default document format: a WYSIWYG editor for it is long overdue”
Kevin Marks in “Misunderstanding the Innovator’s Dilemma”
“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”
Roy Amara Note: also called “Amara’s Law” and often incorrectly attributed to Paul Saffo among others:
April 30th, 2008
I have been trying to select a good quote every couple of days that is applicable to the challenges of entrepreneurship. What follows are the balance I selected in April. For the first part see Quotes for Founders
“We are not human beings have a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“Originality and the feeling of one’s dignity are achieved through work and struggle.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Life is too short to work at a job you hate, but everyone has to do something someone else is willing to pay them for.”
Sid Emmert
“While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, another is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.”
Henry C. Link
“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
Sydney Harris
“It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.”
e. e. cummings
Nothing happens without personal transformation.”
W. Edwards Deming
“Your twenties are always an apprenticeship, but you don’t always know what for.”
Jan Houtema
“Leadership is the art of inspiring people to cooperate and enthusiastically take action toward uncommon goals.”
Col. John Boyd (OODA loop)
April 28th, 2008
A couple of interesting variations on a theme. First off from a Hacker News comment by redorb in response to “Quit Your Job”
“Life is too short to work at a job you hate,
but everyone has to do something someone else is willing to pay them for.”
Sid Emmert
Bearing in mind Barry Moltz’s observation that “Entrepreneurs start businesses because..they have no choice. Passion and energy drive them on good days and sustain them on bad days.” We come to this gem from Evelyn Rodriguez
“Life’s Too Short To Stray Off Your Passion.” Evelyn Rodriguez
which titled a post that contains this observation attributed to James Michener:
The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion.
He hardly knows which is which.
He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.
To him he’s always doing both.
It certainly sounds like a great prescription for happy entrepreneurial existence. Since entrepreneurship blends into (takes over?) much of the rest of your life, you might as well enjoy it, and pursue it in ways that are consistent with your values.
One final quote, this one from Benjamin Disraeli’s “Coningsby or the New Generation”
“Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervour.”
Rare is the entrepreneur who can keep his mouth shut or act in a half-hearted fashion: as Keith Herrmann observed about the corporate steeplechase “the difference between a good career and a great one is the ability to leave some things unsaid.” Bold action coupled with frank expression has inadvertently launched many a deeply felt entrepreneurial career.
And as life is too short for long blog posts I’ll stop this one here.
April 24th, 2008
VentureHacks offered three “micro hacks” today that I thought were very good operating principles for bootstrapping ventures as well.
Don’t ask investors what they think. Ask your customers.
- It’s easier to get money from a customer than an investor.
- It’s easier to get real feedback on your offer as well.
- Customers are much less susceptible to fads and have more of a stake in your success.
Traction speaks louder than words.
Be aggressive in signing up your first paying customer. Not many prospects want to continue the conversation when your answer to “Do you have any paying customers” is “No” or “We hope that will be you.” If you want to sign up a partner, bring the first deal (typically from an existing customer, or at least a solid prospect).
Competitors copy success, not ideas.
Many new market entrants are fearful that an incumbent is going to react to their arrival with their launch or first announcement. Rarely. The first time you win an account, or take a customer away from them, many competitors will shrug it off as a fluke, or console themselves internally with “we didn’t want that customer anyway.” And if you’ve done your homework, you are aiming, at least initially, at customers that an incumbent finds less attractive. Normally it takes three wins to arouse a real competitive response. Ian Fleming’s fictional villain Auric Goldfinger advised James Bond in this regard as follows:
“They have a saying in Chicago Mr. Bond “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”
Previous Posts