Fall 6 Times Get Up 7

When I hear most people talk about entrepreneurship, they often forget to talk about one of the most important aspects, which is failure. Now talking about failure is not like a baseball announcer talking about a no-hitter (you’re not going to jinx yourself). The truth is short-term failure (possibly over and over and over again) is just a part of long-term success. If you can embrace failure as part of the learning process and learn from your mistakes, then you’re ahead of most people.

It’s the rare (and lucky) breed of entrepreneur that can find overwhelming success on their first venture. For the rest of us, it’s a difficult journey paved with peaks and valleys. The question is why does it have to be so difficult? That’s a tough question to answer, but if it were a lot easier, then everybody else would be doing it. The truth is 95% of the population will never take the risks of an entrepreneur. Most entrepreneurs put everything on the line in the belief that their idea, their dream, can make a huge impact.

Since failure is inevitable, you mind as well learn from it. You need to be honest with yourself (it may help to address the following questions truthfully):

Does my idea fill a need? Are customers willing to pay for it?
Is my product/service superior to my competition (in terms of price, quality, service, experience, etc)?
Have I successfully been able to reach my target customer? If no, how can I better reach them?
Does my business have enough resources/money to have a chance?
Have I assembled the right team/Do I have the right partners?
Have I made any execution mistakes?

How you correct your mistakes and bounce back from failure is the true test of an entrepreneur.

Twiistup! Coming to Santa Monica

I'm excited to announce that Twiistup! 1 will take place on Wednesday May 9th at Zanzibar (www.zanzibarlive.com) in Santa Monica.

We are still working on the details for the event and plan to launch Twiistup.com with more information within the week. Here is what I can tell you so far:

This ain't going to be your boring, pay $40, exchange a few business cards in an awkward way type event.

The focus of the event is entrepreneurship; bringing together innovators, investors, job seekers, the media, and industry leaders

Thru a contest, we are going to select 5 exciting start-up companies to demo their new products.

The event is going to be fun -- featuring gift bags, prize giveaways, dj entertainment, and networking in a cool relaxed environment.

Price will be less that $25

I will keep you updated as we begin to market the event. There will be sponsorship/advertising opportunities. If you are interested, send me a note.

Focus, Focus, Focus!

I’d say the two most important things in launching a new company/venture are actually starting the idea and staying focused. The Internet is a great tool; within seconds you can have the culmination of human knowledge within your fingertips. Also, with the proliferation of Blogs within the past few years, you as a researcher have instant access to the pulses of people throughout the world. The problem with all this, of course, is information overflow. While you may be searching for an answer to a simple question, the Internet may lead you in 20 different directions and get you easily off-track.

So, how do you properly utilize the Internet for business, while not getting distracted? First, you need to prioritize your business focus. What is the most important thing that needs to get done to move your idea along and create positive momentum? For example, you are searching for a business partner/web designer to help bring your ideas to the web. While searching for your web designer, you find information related to marketing your web business. While this info is important (maybe enough to bookmark), right now your time is important; you really need to focus on the next step, rather than getting ahead of yourself. If you spend too much time planning for the future and don’t take care of the immediate needs of the business, you’ll find yourself going nowhere fast. This is where most entrepreneurs end up, and why good ideas often never get off the ground.

What Yelp! Is Doing Right – Building a Successful Online Community

Ok, I never really got into Myspace. Sure, I signed up (because all my friends were on there) and was an active member for a couple months, but I felt something missing. It was useful for keeping in contact with friends and people I had not talked to since college and some of the videos and clips were pretty funny. Unfortunately, it just didn’t add much to my life (in terms of meeting interesting people, or learning valuable information – other than of course Jean Claude Van-Damme dance moves from the 80s). When it comes down to it, between all the social networking sites and blogs, you can find an endless amount of information. But at the end of the day, have you really done anything more than entertain your brain and spend a lot of time that could be used towards fulfilling your goals?

So, about a month ago (granted a short period of time to accurately review), I discovered the social community of Yelp! While MySpace is geared towards the legions of baby busters who were raised and live on the internet, Yelp! is more of a hybrid; an online community built on creating and reviewing experiences in the real world. Now, we’re getting somewhere. In addition to the site having a great layout, look, and feel, the community is full of people who want to do things, rather than have life pass them by. The question is will it be able to scale on the level of Myspace of Friendster -- probably not as their average demographic is 25 – 40, a group that had considerably less free time to waste than MySpacers. Also, the community requires more of a commitment from its users than a Myspace or similar site.

In terms of popularity, the 2 year old company faces some competition from CitySearch, Judy’s Book, and Google. But, Yelp! leads the game in site sophistication and local marketing; with community managers hosting regular parties for the regular (elite) contributors. The site started in San Francisco, and has proved successful in other cities like Los Angeles and New York, and is expanding nationwide. Now the most important question, can it make money? Well, Silicon Valley seems to think so. Yelp! is well financed and former Paypal co-founder Max Levchin is an original backer. What is for certain is that your local Yellow Pages are a dying dinosaur. Nobody uses the Yellow Pages anymore, and they will be obsolete within the next decade. If companies decide to shift that targeted advertising money to sites like Yelp, the company will be well positioned to profit.

Great Ideas vs Profitable Great Ideas

People often confuse a great idea with a profitable one. Wikipedia is a great site; eBay is a profitable great site. Both sites lead their segment, fill a need, and provide value to the customer. The difference is that Internet users will pay money to find a buyer for their product, while most people would not pay a significant amount of money for information that can be attained for free from another location. While, it can be argued that Wikipedia (as part of the Wikipedia foundation) is a non-profit and could make more money with additional advertising, I would say that most of its’ success is because of the non-profit title.

So, am I saying that you should only start a business if it is going to be a hugely profitable one? Absolutely not, just make sure your goals (personal and financial) are aligned with the reality of your business idea. There are certainly more important things in life than money, and there is something to be said for starting a really cool company that makes the world a better place, and allows you to pay your bills (and live comfortably, not luxuriously). But, if you’re goal is to make as much money as possible, be realistic with your new idea. It may be easy to get customers by giving it away, but is your product so vital that customers will pay for it?

Relating to the internet, very few companies can make a lot of money with eyeballs alone. Advertising is only going to make the gatekeepers (ala Google) the big bucks. Advertising dollars can complement your web business, but to build a strong company you need to be able to sell a product or service (hopefully on a reoccurring basis) to potential customers.