Despite the dorm-room folklore:

People founding tech companies over the last ten years had an average and median age of 39-years…

I’d like to see success/failure rates along with these figures.

A few parallels worth mentioning:

• The need for patience and persistence - Not everyone is going to buy into your idea the moment you deliver it. By the same token, neither is a trout. Be patient with people as well as finicky aquatica - adjust your presentation to achieve the intended objective. Quit too soon, and you might miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime.
• Betting on your winners - Throw your all into the stuff that’s working. Successful entrepreneurs get a boost from small successes, and by directing attention to the small wins they often turn them into big ones. Commodities traders are particularly good at this - they generally double up their bets on their winners (and yes, I consider traders entrepreneurs). For trout, go for your favorite flies and favorite holes first - the ones you have confidence in as a result of previous successes.
• Knowing when to cut your losses - You can turn a small business failure into a big one very easily. Just keep throwing good money after bad. You can turn stellar conditions into a “no fish” day as well - just stick to the same fly, or stand in the same hole. All day.

…there’s still the hundred-hour work weeks, the race to market, the unexpected competitors, the fights in the hallway with the other founders, the divorce, etc. But, of course, if you fretted about all that minor stuff, you wouldn’t be entrepreneuring in the first place. - from Michael Malone - ABC News: Silicon Insider.

All those things are going to happen, whether you like it or not. Decide whether you and your partners can deal with it before you begin.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” - Thomas Alva Edison

Nobody should feel sorry for the guy or gal struggling in their basement with a crazy idea - they are learning. And for those struggling, well you only have to be right once.

Thanks go out to the contributors.

I have done a few good deals, and a few bad ones. In the good ones, I was best described by my board as a pain in the ass, but I got the job done so there were few regrets in the end. But I never worked with that particular board again, not because I was told to go away, but because I felt I had slighted a few folks (in other words, I was embarrassed, so I just grabbed my hat). Behaviour modification kept me from getting burned in the bad deals, as I learned how to walk when walking was the best option, and in the good ones I now keep my mouth shut much more often. Still, I had some self-doubt - now I wonder if that anxiety was ever justified to begin with.

Michael Moritz, venture partner extraordinaire from Sequoia Capital, has run into some entreprenuers that make me look like an absolute angel. Mr. Moritz goes as far as to call some of the founders he has invested with sociopathic, and frankly I can’t blame him. Among the company leaders he has placed bets with are a CEO who kept a gun in his drawer and trained wolves for a hobby, one with a big drug problem, and another who tried killing his co-founder with a pickup truck.

I am not big on guns or wolves, I run from drug users, and just traded my pickup truck in, so I think I am safe from comparison. But I still busted a lot of balls, and thankfully Stewart Alsop of New Enterprise Associates thinks that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The previous link from the Venture Capital Journal also has some good points taken from other big VCs, with a particular bent on arrogance as one of entrepreneurial qualities that requires careful consideration. I discussed the topic of extreme arrogance some weeks back, and cut to the chase by stating that narcissists are to be avoided at all costs. Longtime angel Roy Conway expounded on the point, and as he was one of the seed investors in Google, maybe I am not so crazy after all.

There are some good lessons to be learned - ones I have taken to heart and I hope other entrepreneurs will too. Venture capitalists invest in people, and people need more than just money. You better be willing to take advice as well as cash. Smart investors are going to check you out (whether you like it or not). If you have some skeletons in your closet, that isn’t a deal breaker, but you better aire the dirty laundry sooner rather than later - you waste everyone’s time otherwise. And integrity is one of the most highly regarded qualities in a company founder - I won’t deal with anyone who smells funny, and top VCs won’t either.

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” - Douglas Adams

Just food for thought…

Losing entrepreneurs have these biases; they are key reasons why open, and disciplined, minds win:

- Confirmatory Bias

Confirmatory bias is the tendency to give greater weighting to information that supports our pet theories and beliefs, while minimizing disconfirming information. People have a natural tendency to filter information in a way that favors their preferred views. Many a failed business venture can be linked with the way in which the proprietor neglected unsupportive information about prospects and overly inflated data favoring the venture.

- Causality Bias

Causality bias is the natural human tendency to view the world as an organized, patterned environment where everything occurs for a reason. This perceptual quality is often extended into areas where such principles do not apply. The best example of this is gambling. Gamblers are very good at perceiving patterns and cause-effect relationships where there are no such processes operating. This bias can result in misjudgment of risks and the development of flawed spending & investment strategies.

- Group Think Bias

Group think bias is where individuals in an organization overvalue particular ideas and decisions because of peer support. For example, a CEO may have a particular view and staff eager to facilitate career advancement may distort their own evaluation of the proposal to fit in with what they perceive the boss expects.

As long as the competition falls prey to these biases, there will be opportunities on which to capitalize.

Hope it helps to keep these ideas in mind - best wishes on the next start-up, folks!

The ideas above were taken from several sources, and cannot be claimed solely as my own.

I have been an entrepreneur and a consultant, and I personally feel I am fair to middling at both. But I have seen some good ones, and have a few observations in the noggin archive.

There is a fundamental difference between the two, which relates to their target audience. It is all about who they have to please.

In general, the entrepreneur has to please him or her self, and his/her customers, but primarily strives for the former. There is a focus on the task at hand, and that effort leads to bias. They convince themselves their direction is correct, and they often fail to adjust before they are in need of help. Their vested interest in the venture acts as a blinder.

If the entrepreneur has a board, spends a lot of time listening to them, and takes recommendations in stride, some of this bias can be checked. If they don’t push back on their board when they have very strong convictions regarding a course of action, then they are weak, and should go into the consulting business.

The consultant on the other hand, has neither a vested interest (and if they want to be successful) any bias. The best of them can assess a situation based on empirical data, provide a succinct list of recommendation, and then wait for a decision. In some cases their compensation is based on some gauge of success, but most often not.

If the consultant wants short term success at the expense of the long term, they will kiss their clients’ behinds, and wait for their paychecks. These are the consultants to avoid. If you are an entreprenuer, and realize you need help, the last thing you need is someone to agree with all your false thinking.

The most dreaded combination is the ultra-biased entrepreneur and the butt-kissing consultant. This is a receipe for disaster. If you are lucky enough to find this combination in a public company, where the founder is still running the show, you can short the stock and make a bundle!