Posts Tagged ‘Gary Whitehill’

Becoming an entrepreneur is a funny business, isn’t it?

Everyone tells you that you need to be determined, to follow your heart in spite of the odds, and if you encompass passion for the idea, success will follow. Yet, then those same folks will turn around and advise you to pay attention to your inner critic.

The truth is, this is just one of many challenges faced by entrepreneurs in their quest to find the right balance that ultimately brings success. Below details why you, the looney entrepreneur, must pay attention to the little voice of reason in your head (yes, the one that really does talk to you) – sometimes.

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If you are planning to make entrepreneurship your future, then you probably think that you’re a fairly adaptable, fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy (or girl). That’s a good start, however, to achieve real success as an entrepreneur, you’re going to have to learn to change direction practically mid-sentence.

Here are the reasons why, as well as a few tips on how to make it a little easier.

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Mix and mingle, be inspired and learn from more than 1,500 rsvp’d entrepreneurs and 100 rsvp’d investors from across the nation at New York Entrepreneur Week (NYEW) being held November 8th – 12th, 2010 at Scholastic Auditorium in SoHo.

Confirmed investors represent the following industries:

• Biotech
• Business Products & Services
• Consumer Products & Services
• Distribution
• Financial Services
• Green
• Healthcare
• IT

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Over the years, I’ve been privileged to be surrounded by many accomplished entrepreneurs. All of them have different stories about why they chose their path of entrepreneurship, and how their business grew, but all of them have one thing in common – instead of giving up when things went wrong, they learned to roll with the punches, and adapt to the given situation.

You see, the truth is, becoming an entrepreneur, or a small business owner, is a scary proposition. Whether you have capital lined up or you’re bootstrapping, and whether you’ve taken the plunge voluntarily or been forced to try your hand at entrepreneurship because you were laid off, there is always an element of fear involved.

Successful entrepreneurs leverage fear to their advantage. They feed off the excitement and exhilaration like an adrenaline junkie would when sky diving, leveraging the emotional high to keep them going, even when the chips are down.

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In the previous post we looked at what seeds funds are and why they are important.

In a recent blog post, Paul Kredowsky voiced his disapproval of the seed funding phenomenon. However, his post is less about the entrepreneur, than the seed funding companies themselves.
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The debate about whether the seed funding phenomenon is a bubble waiting to burst, or whether it’s a viable means of funding pre-revenue/start-up businesses still continues. This is my take on the landscape.

There was a time when if you wanted to fund your company you had four options, approach:

1. A bank
2. An angel investor
3. A venture capitalist

4. OR …… have an asinine risk tolerance and fund the project yourself with your own money.

At a certain threshold of funding, there was a catch twenty-two because banks are notoriously risk averse, and don’t normally fund businesses that have yet to prove themselves. Meanwhile, traditional VC firms couldn’t justify investing less than $3M-$5M in a Series A round, mainly because ROI based on growth trajectory (when investing in small amounts) wasn’t worth their while, especially when holding $700M+ under management.

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There is a trait among entrepreneurs that people both love and hate at the same time – their optimism.

Let’s face it, taking the leap from security into the unknown must be backed by a healthy dose of optimism. If that wasn’t the case, most people wouldn’t do it, would they? No one would start a business if they weren’t completely convinced deep down in their gut that they were sure to succeed.

However, if you want to build a strategic plan, access funding through angel investment or venture capital, and deal with those first few tough years, you need to temper your enthusiasm with a healthy dose of reality.

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The best sales associates, regardless of industry or length of sales cycle, are always cognizant of one reality when they begin their sales journey: time at their job is finite unless they continually meet their sales targets.

It’s worth reading previous posts in this series before continuing:

• Sales is Not Magic: Identifying Sales Triggers
• Sales Magic is Bogus: Understanding the 80/20 Rule & Trigger Points
• Sales is Not Magic: Understanding the Discipline of a Sales Connoisseur

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