Posts filed under 'Silicon Valley'
April 6th, 2012
“There are no few of us who find ourselves washed up on the shores of middle age wondering what happened to that bright promise, asking ourselves why we could never fit in the usual corporate slots, why we have always been our own worst enemies–yet knowing, as we’ve always known, that we are destined to make our mark…somewhere.
Here in Silicon Valley we celebrate entrepreneurship. Rightly so, history may well call this place the greatest entrepreneurial explosion in human history. But in celebrating, we often forget the cost: the dark obsessions, the wrecked families, the career failures. Most of all the terror–the daily depressions and nightly sweats, wondering why, why, you can’t fit into corporate life, why you have to shoot your mouth off and go and do the impolite just because you know its right; then wondering if you really have the courage to risk everything to go it on your own.
The most disturbing and least admitted truth of Silicon Valley is that no one wins all of the time and most of us never win at all. That means someday, perhaps every day, each us of will be battered and tired and running away from our destiny, from what matters most to us.
Just what our destiny is–starting our own company, changing our careers, devoting ourselves to our families–only our hearts can tell us. A spring morning, like this Good Friday, with its hum of redemption and renewal, is a good time to start listening.”
Excerpts from Michael Malone’s “A good day to contemplate the rest of life.” April 17, 1996 San Jose Mercury News
I was in the process of re-assessing my life 16 years ago when I first read Malone’s column. It was good advice then and it’s good advice now. The life I have chosen as an entrepreneur is never easy and it’s never dull. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t also strive to become a better father or a better husband or a better brother or a better son or a better grandfather or a better uncle and or a better friend and or a better neighbor. Because I need to better at all of those roles as well.
The full column is available in Malone’s The Valley of Heart’s Delight: A Silicon Valley Notebook, 1963–2001
“Entrepreneurs start businesses because..they have no choice. Passion and energy drive them on good days and sustain them on bad days.”
Barry Moltz in “You Need To Be a Little Crazy“
March 19th, 2012
Saturday March 24, 9-11am
Ground Floor Silicon Valley, located at 2030 Duane Avenue, Santa Clara,
We are launching new Mastermind groups in response to several requests from entrepreneurs who wanted to form an advisory board of peers with a deeper understanding of each other’s businesses and shared accountability.
Come to the meeting and see if you feel comfortable with the other folks that we invite and we will work out times and locations. There will certainly be one group that meets on weekends, there may be others that meet on a workday.
The difference between these mastermind meetings and a Bootstrapper Breakfast meeting is that anyone is welcome to drop in to a breakfast, this will be the same group meeting and holding each other accountable for goals and commitments. Over time, because these entrepreneurs are more or less in the same stage of their business and meeting multiple times they will get to know each better than the average breakfast attendee.
There is no charge for this open house but if you decide to join a facilitated small group there is a small monthly subscription. Want to be notified of future open houses join Bay Area Mastermind meetup.
February 23rd, 2012
Create and Deliver Surprisingly Compelling Software Demonstrations
“Do The Last Thing First” — the recipe for a Great Demo!
When: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 8 am – 5 pm
Where: Moorpark Hotel, 4241 Moorpark Ave, San Jose CA 95129
For out of town attendees: The Moorpark is located 400 feet from the Saratoga Ave exit on Hwy 280, about 7 miles from San Jose Airport and 35 miles from San Francisco Airport Hotels Near Great Demo! Workshop
Cost: $620
Before May. 1: $595
This is an interactive workshop with Peter Cohan geared especially for you who demonstrate B-to-B software to your customer and channels. Bring a copy of your demo and be prepared to present it — we’ll help you turn it into a surprisingly compelling demo!
This seminar outlines a framework for the creation and delivery of improved demos and presentations to enable increased success in the marketing, sale, and deployment of software and related products. Whether it’s face to face, in a webinar, as a screencast, or as a self-running demo the ability to present the key benefits of your software product is essential to generating prospect interest and ultimately revenue. Peter Cohan of The Second Derivative gives us the recipe for a Great Demo!
“I am confident that with the insights gained from your workshop we will land more customers in fewer iterations.”
Lav Pachuri, CEO, Xleron Inc.
“Peter Cohan’s Great Demo method really works. It helped us win DEMOgod, and it has allowed us to explain our offering much more clearly to prospects.”
Chaim Indig, CEO, Phreesia
(See “DEMOgod Winner Phreesia Praises Peter Cohan Training“)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Peter Cohan, Principal at Second Derivative
Community Web Site: www.DemoGurus.com
Peter Cohan is the founder and a principal of The Second Derivative, a consultancy focused on helping software organizations improve their sales and marketing results. In July 2004, he enabled and began moderating DemoGurus®, a community web exchange dedicated to helping sales and marketing teams improve their software demonstrations. In 2003, he authored Great Demo!, a book that provides methods to create and execute compelling demonstrations. The 2nd edition of Great Demo! was published March 2005.
Before The Second Derivative, Peter founded the Discovery Tools® business unit at Symyx Technologies, Inc., where he grew the business from an empty spreadsheet into a $30 million operation. Prior to Symyx, Peter served in marketing, sales, and management positions at MDL Information Systems, a leading provider of scientific information management software. Peter currently serves on the Board of Directors for Collaborative Drug Discovery, Inc. and the board of advisors for Excellin, Inc. He holds a degree in chemistry.
Peter has experience as an individual contributor, manage and senior management in marketing, sales, and business development. He has also been, and continues to be, a customer.
Agenda:
- 8:00 AM Breakfast & Registration
- 8:15 AM Workshop begins
- Noon Lunch
- 1 PM Workshop Continues
- 5 PM Wrap up
Seating is Limited
For more information: Theresa 408-252-9676 events@skmurphy.com
November 2nd, 2011
A post on Matt Wensing’s blog alerted me to an atypical post on TechCrunch by Mark Hendrickson “Startup School and the Instigation of Entrepreneurship.” Some excerpts
“We are experiencing a generation of entrepreneurs who prioritize the phenomenon of entrepreneurship over its justification; we ought to be concerning ourselves as a community with teaching folks not only how to get into the entrepreneurship game but how to find their purpose as well.”
I think the dominant myth of Hollywood is to be part of a movie. Silicon Valley’s default aspiration is to be part of a venture backed startup. How do you know you are in a venture backed startup? You secure investment from a venture firm and are celebrated in the pages of TechCrunch. This detracts from a focus on value creation, as Jeff Nolan observed in January 2009, writing in “Why the TechCrunch Economy Will Falter” (bold in original): “…a fundamental flaw in the startup economy promoted by a wide swath of pundits and proponents, that starting is more important than sustaining.”
Hendrickson continues, using the phrase “deliberate practice” which echoes Anders Ericsson’s “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance”
We should develop and promote a more deliberate practice of discovering passions worth pursuing and problems worth solving in a less haphazard way. [...] But without it, institutions like YC and its Startup School will likely continue receiving and channeling ever-more entrepreneurs who may be well-versed in tactics but who lack anchoring values that drive their efforts. And that will be a shame not only for those individuals but the investors and customers who await the fruits of their labor, which otherwise could have amounted to so much more.
Tim O’Reilly has also suggested to entrepreneurs that they “Work on Stuff that Matters.” Alas this is easier said than done but essential to making a significant contribution. In “Overnight Success“ I recommended that “if you define success as making a lot of money quickly you should go into sales and cut out the middleman”.
It’s easy to lecture other people about their shortcomings, or at least your perception of their shortcomings. I think the celebration of financing events as accomplishments instead of a sometimes necessary precursor to the start of real efforts is one problem that Jeff Nolan, among many others, has already touched on. One of the difference between the 80’s and today is a condensed time frame caused by a “built to flip” mentality that focuses on “cashing out” in a year or two instead of five to ten years building a real company.
I am reminded of the movie “Hoop Dreams” which documented how entire generations of inner city boys are aimed at a few slots in the NBA. Most that miss are left with few if any marketable skills or fallback options for earning a living. But all along the way they are encouraged by coaches, scouts, and others who are paid to fill the pipeline with new recruits. I worry that a lot of what passes for entrepreneurial advice is given by folks who profit from their participation in the venture ecosystem and it is encouraging an “entrepreneurial lifestyle” that bears little resemblance to what’s needed to create and manage a going concern.
People ask me why we work with bootstrapping entrepreneurs and how we make any money at it. I like the orientation that most bootstrappers have toward creating value for their customers (it’s the only way they can get paid so it’s also a matter of enlightened self-interest). We run our practice on a “low intensity long duration” model that assumes success is going to require perseverance, intelligent experimentation, and a commitment to solving problems that will make a difference in people’s lives (a shorter answer is that we make less than we might serving other firms but we enjoy it more so it balances out).
See also
July 11th, 2011
Silicon Valley is a nicely furnished room in a house that’s burning down, the state of California.
From Joseph Vranich’s blog “CA Business Departures Increasing–Now 5x 2009” June 20, 2011.
- From Jan. 1 of this year through this morning, June 16, we have had 129 disinvestment events occur, an average of 5.4 per week.
- For all of last year, we saw an average of 3.9 events per week.
- Comparing this year thus far with 2009, when the total was 51 events, essentially averaging 1 per week, our rate today is more than 5 times what it was then.
The same tracking system has been in place throughout the three-year period.
The top five destinations are (1) Texas, (2) Arizona, (3) Colorado, (4) Nevada and Utah tied; and (5) Virginia and North Carolina tied.
Our losses are occurring at an accelerated rate. Also, no one knows the real level of activity because smaller companies are not required to file layoff notices with the state. A conservative estimate is that only 1 out of 5 company departures becomes public knowledge, which means California may suffer more than 1,000 disinvestment events this year. The capital directed to out-of-state or out-of-country, while difficult to calculate, is nonetheless in the billions of dollars.
From Joel Kotkin’s “The Golden State’s War on Itself” in the Summer 2010 issue of City Journal:
California has long been a destination for those seeking a better place to live. For most of its history, the state enacted sensible policies that created one of the wealthiest and most innovative economies in human history. [...]
Recently, though, the dream has been evaporating. Between 2003 and 2007, California state and local government spending grew 31 percent, even as the state’s population grew just 5 percent. [...]
Since the financial crisis began in 2008, the state has fared even worse. Last year, California personal income fell 2.5 percent, the first such fall since the Great Depression and well below the 1.7 percent drop for the rest of the country. Unemployment may be starting to ebb nationwide, but not in California, where it approaches 13 percent, among the highest rates in the nation. [...]
Silicon Valley, for instance—despite the celebrated success of Google and Apple—has 130,000 fewer jobs now than it had a decade ago, with office vacancy above 20 percent. [...]
And Cisco, whose fortunes rose supplying the “picks and shovels” of the Internet revolution plans to shed 10,000 employees, or about 14% of its workforce by laying off 7,000 and getting 3,000 to accept early retirement according to a report by Ashlee Vance “Cisco said to plan cutting up to 10,000 to buoy profit”
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), the largest networking-equipment company, may cut as many as 10,000 jobs, or about 14 percent of its workforce, to revive profit growth, according to two people familiar with the plans.
The cuts include as many as 7,000 jobs that would be eliminated by the end of August, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t final. Cisco is also providing early-retirement packages to about 3,000 workers who accepted buyouts, the people said.
And Joint Venture Silicon Valley noted on Valentines Day 2011 that “Structural flaws in local government budget threaten to sabotage the regions gains.”
A growing crisis in state and local government finance is undermining the economic recovery in Silicon Valley, according to the 2011 Silicon Valley Index released today by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network and Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
The comprehensive yearly study on the economic strength and overall health of Silicon Valley shows signs of a slow comeback from the deep recession, but it also reveals a precarious road ahead for cities, towns and counties in the region as public revenue drops while the demand for services climbs.
“Silicon Valley’s economy is making slow but noticeable progress recovering from the major blow delivered by the recession,” said Russell Hancock, CEO of Joint Venture, “but unless we address the fundamental structural issues in our local governments we cannot sustain continued growth.”
As entrepreneurs we have to identify and pursue the opportunities that are available, not lament the loss of earlier ones we may not have taken full advantage of. But I wonder if we paid a little more attention to local and state government policies and decisions, it might pay a significant dividend in improvements to the economic environment that is the necessary platform for our new business efforts.
Update July 14: I have
reflected on this post and realized how difficult it can be to restrict your focus to those issues you can control or at least affect. As Stephen Covey points in “
7 Habits of Highly Effective People” under the first habit of “Be Proactive” your circle of awareness is much larger than your circle of influence.
It’s not my intent to start a political discussion or to to start a round of “Ain’t it Awful” but I worry that these structural issues were identified by independent observers with a stake in California’s ongoing economic prosperity, not people trying to complain or generate page views. I take them very seriously. I worry that the challenges they have identified will not be easy to address much less fix, and that for the most part the situation continues to deteriorate. Without thoughtful and concerted action a new equilibrium may be reached that looks closer to today’s Michigan than the California of the last few decades.
May 24th, 2011
SDForum June Event Information:
Title: SDForum Workshop Series “Networking for Lifetime Career Success”
Date: Tuesday, June 28, 2011, 7:30 AM – 10:00 AM
Description: During times of change, the ability to naturally and effectively network to identify new opportunities and develop professional relationships can be critical to success. In this interactive session, Next Step CEO, Jennifer Vessels, will provide proven tips for successful networking that attendees can put into practice immediately at the event.
This hour long program will include tips to you can use immediately to:
- Create a memorable first impression.
- Develop a compelling elevator speech to gain attention and be remembered.
- Leverage ‘keys to networking success’ to stand out and be noticed (positively).
- Utilize follow-up as foundation for long term relationship building
With time for networking, interaction and feedback built into the program, all participants will leave with an action plan and approach they can most effectively utilize for networking.
Confirmed Speaker: Jennifer Vessels, CEO of Next Step
Location: White & Lee, 541 Jefferson Avenue, Suite 100 Redwood City, CA 94063
Registration Link: http://www.sdforum.org/workshopseries