Regarding Discipline and Precision Execution

Right discipline consists, not in external combustion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities. -Bertrand Russell

Whenever someone asks what skills I bring to the table I do not return with something that is broad and craft-based. I don't say that I have sales or marketing skeelz. Nor do I try to inflate any position held to somehow convey leadership, management or operations expertise. I think that all of that stuff is important and I harbor deep respect for the titans of these various disciplines, but I view expertise in a particular field as the product of task-dependent learning.

Colin Camerer's seminal 2005 paper on how neuroscience can inform economics included an A/B comparison of brain activity images taken when a subject was playing tetris (Gameboy, natch). In the paper, one image shows a large portion of the brain lit up when first playing the game while the other image shows little activity after weeks of playing the game. The (admittedly) simplistic heuristic here is that when you spend enough time in a space that you start understanding and mastering all the nuances and not-so-obvious *why* behind many of the quirky behaviors. It's the 30,000 ft perspective of what we know about how humans learn and it drives a lot of what we do - whether we do it consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously.

While I don't make any claims towards field-specific expertise (marketing, sales or operations), I do attempt to convey that I know something about executing. It's a *small* something, but still a something. I think that it's the fundamental difference from anything that works versus anything that doesn't work. I personally believe that precision execution is the source of any forward progress. It applies to any industry, any business discipline and at all stages of the venture, government and military process.

Truth be told, I totally lucked into this. Learning to execute with precision is a fundamental core Principle (with a capital P) taught at the Foundry and I happen to have been around when it got started. Ergo, I got imprinted (for better or for worse) with the nuances of precision execution. Nevertheless, it's power and efficacy supercedes the needs for resources, permanent space and mentors. It is the refining fire that transforms cookie-dough diaper babies (like me) into capable and effective individuals who know something about the difference between motion and progress.

We don't need software, fancy flowcharts, books or consulting services to help augment the Precision Execution Principle - it's so hardwired into the architectural and cultural design of the program that the participants hardly notice it... except for the discomfort you feel when you subtly (or not) realize that you aren't as good of a manager as you thought. I personally remember what it felt like to realize that I wasn't as disciplined as I pretended to be. Getting present to the reality that I had much difficulty accomplishing a meaningful chunk of the things I committed to doing sucks and it's not fun. But focusing on just completing the things that I said I would do turned out to be the very thing that started churning out businesses or helping me realize (quickly) when to kill one.

Just the other day, I reviewed one of the early documents that Dr. Robert Wuebker wrote in the early days of the Foundry. The document (coupled with the Foundry experience) will likely serve as the most influential touch points in my professional career. Here's an excerpt:

Foundry management practices teach you precision execution—the capability (forged through practice and reflection) of individuals, teams and companies to predictably achieve the outcomes they want. Curiously, if your company can begin to deliver predictably, we have found that this capability also happens to enable breakthrough outcomes for teams. Thus discipline, incremental learning, and breakthrough innovation are a part of one continuous “management strategy” that full participation at the Foundry teaches you.

So if I believe that much in the power of the Foundry process and its core principles then why do we have nearly 50% wash out in the first six weeks? I'm not sure but I have a few conjectures:

• It's not fun giving up the perspective of being "right", "having it all figured out" and being an "expert."
  
• People choose to engage with the Foundry like do with most of their life: at half speed.
• They simply do not understand that becoming resourceful is more powerful than having resources handed to them.
  
• It's really REALLY uncomfortable to thrash about in front of your peers.
• Fill in the ________________.
  

Foundry is not for everyone. We are just as selective as other "elite" programs, we just don't know who will select out and who will double-down. I've seen entrepreneurs come in with companies pulling in 7-figure revenues opt out within two weeks. I've also seen dopey, non-business-type kids with super simple, non-"high growth" businesses take on the notion of "Full Participation" and will breakthrough after breakthrough into existence.

I personally struggled (and still struggle, if I'm not cognizant) with all of the above bullet points. Every participant faces it. Some push through to the other side. Some don't. But the irrefutable observable that Foundry demonstrates is that anyone starting any business, regardless of socioeconomic status, background or expertise who participates fully and musters the necessary discipline to do what they say they will do (even if they have no idea where to start) WILL discover a durable business hardwired with operational rigor and integrity OR they will quickly kill one that will not work. It's irrefutable because we've been measuring outcomes since day one.

For the 30%-50% who stick around I am lucky to be considered part of the small (and slowly growing) community of individuals who are imprinted with the natural inclination to contribute to others and the capability to coalesce the disparate and ambiguous into increasingly predictable (and scalable) results. It's a growing crew of quiet professionals... and I'll take them over anyone else any day of the week.

If any of this sounds interesting to you or you are an entrepreneur that has no idea where to begin and are looking for a community to help see you through. Drop me a line and we'll talk about how to get you plugged in.

Don't Shoot the Messenger

I was reminded of an article I read in Harvard Business Review titled How to Handle Surprise Criticism. There's a lot of good advice in the article but the most poignant bits are:

1. Look beyond your feelings.
2. Look beyond their delivery.
3. Don't agree or disagree. Just collect data.

It was written about 6 months ago, the day before I shelved my first startup. I was in the thick of a new normal in my daily life experience: I receive a lot of surprise criticism - and I haven't historically been the best at taking it. However, in my quest to be an effective entrepreneur and executive, I've realized that the key is being coachable. Always.

I have found that this is a rare quality among managers and leaders since the autocratic, appeal-to-authority approach is the default mode for most people. I always thought that taking a stand, being vocal and challenging the conventional thought process was a form of strength. It's lionized in movies and NYT bestsellers. Yet I've realized that it takes quite a bit more strength to be cognitively flexible and emotionally mastered in the face of a critical onslaught... especially from someone with formal or institutional power.

For entrepreneurs that operate in the earliest stages of business discovery, you are confronted with a lot of passionate feedback about everything that you are doing wrong. People in general, are not emotionally mastered and they relate to their feelings, thoughts and perspectives as if it is the undeniable reality of what is happening (rather than coming from the perspective that they are just feelings and thoughts, separate from reality). When given the chance to make you wrong, most people will take it. Anyone who has been a server knows this. And I think it's mostly subconscious - most people would be disgusted with themselves if we showed a video of them ripping into someone without the power to defend themselves or dole out retribution.

But we don't have that luxury. What now?

Being able to take criticism as data collection by separating what's being said, how it's being said and the emotional undercurrent of the message connotes, to me, someone committed to mastering the art of living. Here's some recent examples in my life that reminded me of the value this skill will deliver:

* Hearing the faculty constantly create a new complaint about the coffee I deliver (for free) to them while I worked on my laptop in the lobby were it was served. No change was made to the coffee, yet the complaints would change every day. It's interesting hearing what people say about you when they don't think you are around. And over time I learned which ratio of grounds-to-water delivers the least amount of complaints.

*I watched, and loved, the TED Talk that General Stanley McChrsytal delivered on what he's learned in leadership. I've had a number of responses, ranging from inquisitive to cautionary, about McChrystal's questionability as a leader. Frankly, I don't care. Remember, it's about objective data collection - McChrystal gives a great speech AND he's got a questionable past. Sounds like every other human I know.

I learned about the literary fallacy of ad hominem when I got a C on one of my high school english papers. From that point, I opt to separate the message from the messenger. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that holding two seemingly conflicting notions in your mind at the same time is a sign of marked intelligence.

You are free to discount someone based on the way they deliver the message or the fact that they made mistakes at some point in their life. As a result, you may just be missing out on a highly valuable (though poorly packaged) idea or perspective that could make a big difference in our life. You may also be signaling the upper bound of your ability to learn - a potential bottleneck if you want to significantly alter the trajectory of your life.

Leadership is Listening.

I taught a class last week. A class that I've been enrolled in for 13 weeks now.

The people I presented to know me (or about me) more than I know them and it's not fun being in a class with me. For a week they knew that I would be teaching a class on sales/hustling.

There were no adults, grades were already given out and there was nothing preventing them from not showing up. Half the class showed.

Given all the things they could be doing on a Wednesday night, I asked why they showed up to a class that was technically over. The answer amazed me.

They wanted to hear what I had to say.

They granted me 2 hours of their life. 2 hours they could have spent somewhere else doing something more interesting than witnessing me struggle to keep a lively dialogue going.

It was my first true leadership experience. I was their peer, I have no formal authority over their lives to make them doing anything, much less show up. I was overwhelmed with gratefulness.

But they showed up anyway and listened and participated. It was in that moment that I realized that leadership is the simply being granted the listening of the community you serve.

Think about it. Have you ever had a boss that has formal authority (a title) that everybody pretends to listen to but goes back to 'business-as-usual' once their back is turned? That is a leader who has lost the listening of the people he or she leads.

Ever known someone who has no control over anything material in your life and yet you would swallow your fear and show up to contribute to whatever that person needed you to?

That's leadership. It's a powerful feeling when you have it.

Powerful in that your gratefulness is only outweighed by your sense of responsibility.

And that weight is heavy.

The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs: Drug Dealers and Hustlas

If colleges and non-profit programs want to capture and equip the next generation of entrepreneurs, they can start with their local teenage drug dealers.

Yep. Drug dealers. I'm not alone on this one and there appears to have been some research on the linkage between drug-dealing as a juvenile and self-employment as an adult.

I am fortunate to have had a post-hoc peek into the underworld of localized drug dealing through some acquaintances who are ex-dealers. Most of them are now self-employed legitimately (I think). Listening to them talk about their experience is simply inspiring. Talk about resourcefulness:

By the time they graduate high school, these teenage drug dealer know more about margins, sales, customer relationship management, building a brand, strategic alliances, viral marketing, inventory management, supply chain management, product-market fit, negotiations and government regulation than most second-year MBAs. They have more experience in strategic decision-making and maintaining competitive advantage in a fiercely hostile commodities market than 2/3 of academia and know precisely what contributes to the local economy.

My conjecture is that if we tell them to keep doing what they are doing and simply replace the drug(s) they are hustling with some other hard good of their interest, we would see a HUGE spike in high growth startups and innovative revivals in mature/dying sectors like manufacturing and retail. Detroit anyone?

My point is that we as a society should not take a position of moral opposition to their current activities but rather praise their resourcefulness and make an attempt to show them the possibility of "legal" enterprises. Based on my discussions with people who have dealt drugs as teenagers, most grew bored with society's traditional models of classroom learning and mind-numbing lever-pulling jobs at minimum wage. Overall, they have vocalized disgust for anything that appealed to authority or followed general consensus.

Conversely, the University of Illinois at Chicago after conducting research on local dealer behavior and impact to the economy found that archetypical drug dealers in depressed metropolitan areas were not motivated to destroy the community but rather (highly) motivated by the same things as "the rest of us" and were simply presented with different opportunities.

My intuition is that drug dealers, regardless of demography, get a high from hustling. This something that I've experienced first hand - a little of which you can read here. There's something about making things happen, making connections, finding a need and delivering on it - and doing so faster, at better quality with the least amount of resource expenditure as possible. Hustling is a form of creating, it is the feeling of being the exception to the Theory of Impossibility, the sense of personal fulfillment when you break the First Law of Thermodynamics: creating matter - economic value - by taking ideas, relationships conversation and resources and rearranging them in a way that only you can. All this to create the existence of dollars in your pocket and happy customers.

There is simply nothing like it. It doesn't matter what you are hustling, simply being in the midst of the process (e.g. "the game", "the grind") is addictive.

This is a good thing. It is at the core of all entrepreneurial individuals that have a chance of doing something impactful and this country has no idea how to channel this type of energy, intelligence and potential. The best that they've come up with so far is ADD/ADHD medicine and sending drug dealers to jail. I have some theories about possible solutions but nothing solidly based in fact.

Except that you could send them to the Foundry.

As I surveyed the landscape for resources/programs that would help me sharpen my talent potential, nothing seemed very interesting. It all occurred to me as another version of a class project: hypothetical and detached. I discovered that there were other students who were going through the exact same experience. This, in part, led to 20 undergrads co-inventing the Foundry with some super cool (and super smart) "adults" about a year ago.

Hustler's like the "realness" of the grind: fear, risk, uncertainty, ambiguity. Everything looked to me like another appeal to authority: some judge or mentor who as no idea who I am or what I've done is in a position to say what is good and what is not.

This is not the way to teach entrepreneurs and it is not the way to allow hustlers and drug dealer to see the possibility of applying their skills, expertise and talents where this country really needs it: job creation.

I think this is why Foundry attracts a certain kind of individual and why graduates weigh in heavily on the cohort formation process: hustlers like being around other hustlers. Iron sharpens iron. We select for people, not for companies because hustlers can hustle anything, whether it's weed and ecstasy or water bottles and recycling bins.

Again, we don't have a resource problem. In fact, I don't think we even have a resourcefulness problem. We have a training problem. Yes it's scary to think about the prospect of training drug dealers to be contributing business leaders. Yes, drug dealers can be dangerous (a function of being in dangerous work) and can smell a feeb from a mile away. The don't appeal to authority (they actually subvert it) or listen to the general consensus about how things should happen. They have a different relationship to fear than most people and definitely not interested in the hokey pokey of Cubiclelandia that modern society has been offering for decades.

Judging by the current state of the union, it seems that even the President agress that we could use less of the lever-pulling types and more of the lever-creating types.

If you are, or know, a 20/30/40-something drug dealer/hustler that might be interest in a new career opportunity hustling something other than drugs and be part of a group where your skills, perspectives and overall approach to life are praised and sought after, Foundry is actively recruiting for people to fill our summer cohort: F3. Feel free to contact me directly or you can submit an application here.

Just leave your drugs and weapons at home - and please don't take my lunch money.

The Foundry: A Word on Resources

I am fully aware of my bias and propensity to brag about The Foundry's accomplishments. Over the last 10 months, there have been some very interesting results generated from the peer-mentorship model and our unorthodox use of resources (which I'll get to in a second).

To this point, some agencies and sophisticated investors are taking note and want to give resources to the program which I think is great. The only advice that I give to any "adult" (whatever that means) is simple: slow down and listen.

My experience in the Foundry taught me that entrepreneurs don't have a resource problem but a RESOURCEFULNESS problem. When I first started Dash & Cooper, I thought that a substantial round of funding would help me solve all my problems. But thanks to the forced scarcity of the Foundry model and culture, I learned that there were a number of smaller, cheaper steps that I could take to incrementally move from the place I was (high ambiguity, anxiety, fear) to the place where most of my business classes start with (defined product perfectly matched with a defined market).

If I had been given a 5-figure investment at the beginning of the program in exchange for equity like most other accelerator/incubator programs do, my inevitable failure would have been amplified, not solved. I was (and still am) a diaper-baby and had no idea what I was doing. Forced to solve the problem with little more than $500, I broke through all the commonplace barriers that people use to explain why starting a company is hard. Being resource starved forced me to be resourceful and in the process I learned something new about myself.

Every person within every Foundry cohort faces this gauntlet. It also helps explain why the participants emerge unstoppable because we have seen (and created) what the world looks like when creative willpower combined with a social system committed to you (not just your company) gets applied to any "problem".

Of all the things that an entrepreneur can receive from the Foundry, the distinction of Resourcefulness (with a capital R) is the most valuable mainly because it costs you the person you thought you were. Which might help to explain why the underlying connection each cohort has with each other is the respect for this process - and why we, the participants, vehemently defend against thoughtless application of outside financing or other resources. Resources rob participants of the precious and painful opportunity to awaken something in yourself that wasn't there before.

They also attract the wrong crowd.

Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't have resources. There are some world class executives circling the Foundry and I would be delighted if the money showed up to bring these people in full-time. I'm sure Matt would appreciate better filming and editing equipment for his videos. Paid subscription to various software-as-a-service products, used laptops, computers, projectors and whiteboard pens have been the most useful for participants and administrators.

And food. Foundry has been known (allegedly) to run up monstrous tabs at Eva's, The Wild Grape and Dick n Dixie's - so I know that this would consume a large line item in any budget ;-)

These are the high leverage items in which resources would make a difference. And that's about it.

Now to address the issue of equity financing and attracting the wrong crowd.

Anyone that want to ports a seed fund on top of the program simply has no idea how a Foundry participant gets imprinted and this becomes the type of entrepreneur investors want to give resources to. Programs that offer resources attract people that want resources. Notice that Foundry doesn't offer resources...

The reason why Foundry participants show up, start companies, and help manage 80% of administrative tasks despite a schedule that juggles full-time school, full-time work, and family life is because they want to get what no other program offers (hint: not resources). Foundry's lightweight and methodical process of repeatedly bathing participants into the nit-and-grit of discovering businesses from scratch is the reason why it exists. It was born of unmet demand not fulfilled by other programs. Not that the other programs are wrong or not valuable - it's just that a year ago 20 of us wanted to start companies, looked around at what was available, voted with our feet and with the gracious help of Rob Wuebker, Matt Hoffman, Ken Krull, Todd Dauphinaus, Brent Thompson and Adam Slovik we invented the Foundry.

There are plenty of places for entrepreneurs to get resources, they are called business plan competitions. And we actually have a business that can help win any competition at will - CupAd. The Light brothers are happy to coach you to win competitions because we, the children, know that those things are not real life, just another variant of class - and thus don't treat them seriously.

There's nothing wrong with investing in strong teams progressing fundable ideas - Foundry is full of these types of teams and there's nothing wrong with being interested in and having financing discussions with a team or company that you want to invest in. There's also nothing wrong with getting a return on one's portfolio, it is the point of a seed fund and the fiduciary responsibility of its managers.

But if your motive is to profit from a bunch of 20-somthings or be a guy that "has a say" without regard to the process that produces the results that got you interested in the first place, then it is a signal to the *participants* that you are "Not Foundry". One earns this scarlet letter by clearly demonstrating that they don't understand (and not interested in understanding) what is involved in the 'forge' part when we say that "Foundry exists to forge entrepreneurs for life."

Focusing on the entrepreneur creates a fundable company as a catalytic byproduct. Fundable companies are the means, not the end.

Someday.

I hear a lot of kids in my age cohort talk about someday.

Someday they'll be on time to meetings. Someday they'll care. Someday they'll do things differently... when it matters someday.

I believe that they are right. Someday you will care. Someday.. when things matter you'll try to do things differently.

But none of that will matter because you won't have the capacity to survive when that opportunity comes. When you have been spending years practicing the art of 'just getting by', you get crushed by opportunities that require everything you have.

Not that there is anything wrong with mastering the art of getting by, in fact, I think that it speaks to the potential of human beings to get whatever it is they are committed to getting. It takes a highly optimized machine to get exactly the outcomes they are striving for. The implied heuristic here is that humans aren't broken - they are actually finely tuned. Aristotle makes this point best when he says,

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

I love how eloquently Aristotle states that we don't do things excellently because we are born with an excellence gene - we become excellent (at anything) simply by repetition.

This is good news and bad news.

The good news is that over time (some people say 10,000 hours/625 days/1.71 years) you can become excellent at anything. The bad news is that you can be excellent at anything.

You can be excellent at avoiding conflict. seeking conflict, just getting by, keeping emotional distance from risky endeavors of the heart. Fill in the blank.

So what? What's the next step?

The next step is doing. Simply doing. Again, Aristotle ('cos he's smart) weighs in:

"We become just by performing just actions. Temperate by performing actions. Brave by performing brave actions."

Someday is NOT some state of being that you wake up to one morning somewhere in the future. Someday does not announce itself with you walking in slow motion through smoke. Someday does not arrive after a montage with the latest Kanye West song playing in the background.

Someday is right now. The choice you make every morning to play for keeps or 'do what you can with what you have'. There is a huge difference between playing to win and playing to not lose.

Because when that once-in-a-lifetime opportunities arrives - when you see that wave forming on the horizon- your ability to simply get on and ride is a product of how you chose to ride every other wave in your life prior to that.

And in that moment, when you are put to the ultimate test of doing something you've never done before when it really counts - getting married, building a company, offering forgiveness - how you decided to live your life 'when it didn't matter' is going to be the difference between getting smashed into the rocks or making history in the narrative of your life.

Mark All As Read.

Turn up the lights in here, baby.

Extra bright I want y'all to see this,

Turn up the lights in here, baby.

You know what I need,

Want you to see everything,

Want you to see all of the lights.

- Kanye West + Rihanna

I just logged into my Google Reader account for the last two weeks. The Google informed me that I had 1000+ unread items. After skimming some articles about startup launch announcements on VentureBeat, I hit the 'Mark All as Read' button at the top.

"Yes Google, I am sure that I want to do this."

"No Google, do not ask me again. I'm an adult."

Clean slate. Sometimes it's just better to get a new sheet of paper than dig yourself out of a hole.

To be fair, the hole is self-induced and totally worth the dividends I received by focusing solely on a research project for the U. It was a hard effort. It was terrifying. It stretched me and introduced me to new possibilities cognitively and physiologically. Most importantly it was fun and satisfying.

It's been said that construction workers have the greatest job satisfaction of any profession. I would say that entrepreneurship and academic research are the same. Just like my friends who find satisfaction in pointing to tangible evidence of something they have produced - like driving down a road they paved or past a building they built - I have the same satisfaction in seeing a startup start to find its place in the market or watching someone present some findings that I helped contribute to.

I love the long hours. I love mulling over the floating puzzle pieces to see if they'll come together. I love the uncertainty, the ambiguity, the fear, the failure. I love the fascination, the possibility, the wonder of it all.

I love the act of producing.

Everything else - the accolades, the potential for wealth, the reputation (or something) - they are "nice-to-haves"; catalytic byproducts of doing the work I love and wish to excel at.

But sometimes, I let things go unmaintained for too long. My Google Reader and Gmail Account are certainly lightposts to indicate how well I am managing other areas of my life.

If I have made a commitment to you that I didn't follow through on - a promise to call, or meet or further a task - I appreciate your patience and I ask that we 'Mark All As Read' anything that's incomplete between us a result of my lack of focus. I recommit to complete what I originally said I would do. And I as I work through my email and other communication channels, expect to find a message from me about getting done what needs to get done.

Thanks for your love and patience.

-T

Internships vs. Starting a Small Business

***This is an article that I wrote for {Branded} Online Magazine. Feel free to cruise on over and check out the great writers contributing to the publication (there will be another link at the bottom of this post).

Today’s job market is fierce and in order to be competitive I find a lot of people my age are looking into internships as an experience-based stepping stone into their post-college job. Adding some “real world” experience to your resume as you are exiting college is great – which is why I am suggesting that you take that same six months and start a small business instead.

Most people initially get soft about this kind of possibility because they have some notion of entrepreneurs as swashbuckling risk-takers. Not only is this gravely inaccurate, it also prevents a lot of capable people from exploring the beauty of creating and being at risk to learn something about themselves. Starting and running a small business poses no more risk than an internship while delivering an experience that is an order of magnitude greater than working for free at CorporateAmerica.com.

Internship	Small Business
Conduct an internet search to find companies that might want to hire your skill set.	Conduct an internet search to find people/businesses that might want your product or service (coffee, cupcakes, car-detailing, etc.)
Reach to your personal network to find connections within potential companies that you want to intern at. Often you are cold-calling companies, asking for interviews.	Reach out to your personal network to find connections with potential customers that would find your product valuable. Often you are cold-calling sales leads out of the phone book, asking for meetings.
Face a lot of rejection, get a couple of interviews, face more rejection – maybe you get some offers.	Face a lot of rejection, get a couple of sales meetings, face more rejection – maybe you get offers for a second meeting.
Land a position (maybe).	Get a sale (eventually).
Work long hours for minimal or no pay.	Work long hours for minimal or no pay…at first.
You are the office bitch. No one cares about your feelings, just your ability to get coffee and bagels and occasionally be a spreadsheet jockey.	You are your customers’ bitch. No one cares about your feelings, just your ability to deliver a quality product on time and make things right when mistakes happen.
Build skills necessary to be a peon in a corporate machine and that the only way to be successful is to be politically astute enough to place your name on winning projects and subtly shift blame when things go wrong.	Build skills necessary to be a manager by applying all your “boring” undergrad classes that are now critical components to make the whole business work. If you don’t you will run out of money...fast.
Learn to appeal to authority and pull a lever.	Learn that you are more self-reliant than you originally thought. You experience ownership, working smart and creative problem solving on-demand.
Maybe you get offered a position at the end of the internship.	Maybe your company shuts down, maybe it succeeds, or maybe it sits somewhere in the middle. – the cool part is that you have much more say about the enterprise’s outcome.
Repeat. Try to explain to new employers why you didn’t get offered a position at the end of the internship.	Repeat. This time it’s easier because you avoid all the mistakes you made last time.

See? There’s not much difference in the effort required to start and run a small business over interning at a company. From a learning perspective they are the same except that they are on opposite ends of the continuum. Both put you at risk to learn something about yourself. What you want to be at risk to learn is entirely up to you.

If you plan on getting a job in Corporate America, there is (seriously) nothing wrong with that. In fact, I recommend that you still start a small business instead of interning. The reasoning behind this suggestion is rather simple: everyone you are competing with has been interning at or has been laid off from Corporate America. Think of how easy it will be to stand out from the bland crowd and get a job when you roll in with some hard-earned entrepreneurial experience.

If you want to create your own internship and want some tips for the next steps, feel free to check out my other article on {Branded}: Start Up in a Box.

Business Planning v. Business Discovery

He never risked sh#!,

He hoped and he wished it,

But it didn't fall in his lap,

So he ain't even here, he pretends

That airplanes in the night sky

Are like shooting stars.

- Eminem

For a majority of my undergrad career, I've turned in some pretty stellar plans. Marketing plans, operations plans, accounting plans.. name any part of the business and I've made a plan for it. I thought that this made me equipped to start a business so I ventured out into the elements, equipped with faux-optimism and faux-fearlessness, to start my first company, Dash & Cooper.

Let me just say that I was not equipped. The root cause for failure were twofold: I was scared out of my mind and all the plan development trickery I learned in my classes didn't help - in fact, it might have hurt me.

This is not to say that my education was useless; these classes laid a foundational understanding of basic business management concepts - many of which I use to optimize my metrics and provide the form of tracking my progress as I find product-market fit. What was useless was thinking that I was smart enough to know how the business was going to work and then take actions to accomplish that.

Unfortunately, common literature teaches this exact thing to nascent entrepreneurs.

To me, I see the following problem with writing plans: 1) they discount the value of customer feedback (rather than put a premium on it) 2) they typically assume that resources are not constrained or easily obtained 3) they assume that the business has already been running (as opposed to creating from scratch).

Thankfully I took Business Development this semester and it's not about writing a plan as an artifact to execute (erroneously) from. The class assumes that the plan is a catalytic byproduct of the pivoting that occurs as you race to find what your market wants - something that's called business discovery.

The big insight from the class last night is that business plans are mythical post-hoc documents that make logic out of the thrashing that occurs in the early days. It's a convenient narrative for founders and managers to say after the fact that they had a 'vision' and just 'got it done' when in reality, they happened to discover (often by accident) something new that was valued by others. Most human beings aren't that smart enough to have a 'vision' for Amazon.com, Groupon or Coca-Cola. These companies, as we know them today, began as something else and they pivoted back and forth until they found something that worked. THEN they scaled. They couldn't write a plan about what would happen, because no one knows how the market is going to respond to anything that you introduce to it.

There's nothing wrong with "Business Plans", they are a great byproduct that documents the experiments you are making to discover what's actually going to work. But to assume that you can write one and actually execute well is like driving backwards down the freeway and using your rear-view mirror to direct your actions: it's possible but increases the likelihood of crashing and burning.

To further my point, I recommend that you watch the following video about how the Groupon founder thrashed for 3 years before focusing on a small portion of his initial idea that would eventually become Groupon.

Innovations in the Venture Capital Industry

Somebody bring me back some money please, hey

I got a million ways to get it, choose one

Hey, bring it back, bring it back

Now double your money and make a stack

I'm on to the next one.

- Jay-Z

I don't know a lot of about the nitty gritty of the Venture Capital industry but I presume that a majority of the decisions are made around optimizing returns for limited partners like large banks and pensions. This is appropriate - it's called a fiduciary duty - because these institutions have to manage the deposits of the customers and have fixed timelines of when they need to have the cash returned, depending on their balance sheets.

Unfortunately, this mechanizes behavior incentives to make investments in companies that would make a lot of money but don't really doing anything because they can easily attract and retain users (Twitter, for example). Because most venture capital funds have a hard deadline of returning the funds within 10 years, a firm must be VERY focussed in its ability to make good investments. Most firms specialize (appropriately) in a particular stage of company growth (seed stage vs late stage) and do not deviate. This forces them to pass up opportunities that are objectively good ones but don't fit into their investment strategy because they have to answer to their LPs and worry about having a good track record so that they can easily raise money for a new fund.

But there are some people innovating in this area:

Union Square Ventures just announced that they raised a new Opportunity Fund to keep capital in reserve for investments that are good opportunities but don't fit within their investment strategy.

Additionally, Andreesen-Horowitz announced a few weeks ago that they raised an astronomical $650M for an all-stage fund. Ben Horowitz, GP for the fund stated on his blog the reason for this:

"As a matter of core philosophy, we invest in companies, not stages. We want to be in business with the best entrepreneurs going after the biggest markets and we do not care whether they need seed money, venture money or growth money. We believe in great entrepreneurs and the products and companies they build. We do not focus on special return profiles for various stages of investment. As a result, our fund is stage agnostic... we are excited about investing $50,000 in new seed deals and we are excited about investing $50,000,000 in companies like Skype."

Specifically with the new Union Square Ventures Opportunity Fund, it is an interesting fund model: non-commitment of the entire fund, pay-for-play fees only on the money that's invested and a loosely defined investment strategy (opportunistic).

It might be interesting to align LPs, VCs, and the ever growing demand/need from entrepeneurs and early-stage companies to have on-demand investment as they pivot their direction towards reaching market validation AND be poised to make an investment to ride the upside once (if) the companies get on rails.

Of course, it's easy to talk about. Much harder to raise. Even harder to manage. USV and Andreesen-Horowitz are rock stars with great track records in building companies and good investment decisions - they have the clout to convince people that they can pull this stuff off. It will be interesting to see if the rest of the industry follows suit and tries to convince the LP community to engage in this type of risk profile in an attempt to align investment incentives with the reality of the entrepreneur.

Simply put: it seems like institutional investment is like traditional education in that they both understand that learning and growth is non-linear but seem to invest and teach in batches (investment round, classes of students) as if it was linear. *Why* we invest in rounds is something that I know nothing about (hopefully someone can tell me). Maybe because on opportunistic investment strategy provides less certainty for GPs as well as LPs and humans naturally opt for structure and the "known" even it is not optimal (ex: investing in bonds vs stocks).

One thing that might be interesting to examine is the relationship between firm performance (revenue/profit growth, probability of an exit, value at exit) and how close to on-demand investment the company receives (smaller round size, frequency of rounds and frequency and size of bridge loans in between rounds).

We have schools of thought around running lean: just-in-time inventory management, on-demand production and lean startup strategy. Why don't we have lean investment?

Maybe it's possible only in certain industries (both the firms mentioned here invest in hi-tech companies). Maybe it's possible only in certain investment stages. Maybe it's not possible at all or it's so hard that it might as well be considered impossible. But it seems like the logical move for the at least part of the industry and I imagine that we'll be seeing some retooling with the business model in the medium term.

Now I'm just a kid and I don't talk to investors and I don't have the professional experience or track record as these guys. So I wouldn't say that I'm the first to ask this question but I think it's an interesting possibility to drill down on and then build up from.

The question for me personally is whether or not anyone could do this. Could anyone follow the template model that Union Square is leading with to build regional micro-VCs? Could I help contribute to this? Anyone else interested in this?

The Foundry - A Graduate's View

It’s a good idea to be yourself, not only because everybody else is taken, but because trying to be anything else doesn’t usually get you very far. - Chris Guillebeau

What is The Foundry?

It's a question that is easy to ask but hard to answer. What's amazing is how glib and cheesy it sounds when you try to describe its state of being its state of being. Foundry is not so much an organization as it is an experience; it focuses more on "doing" rather than "being."

So what is The Foundry? How about I start with what we do:

Participants are trained in the form and function of high-end, lightweight management technology. A high-leverage, precision-execution oriented set of documents that are easy to manage from, communicate the weekly snapshot of the company and allow managers to document their process as they push the frontier of their company forward. We use two documents, each are no longer than two pages. The quarterly planning document is called a MOKR (Mission, Objectives, Key Results) and a weekly planning Management Report that progresses the company to accomplish the quarterly objectives it sets for itself.

CEOs (and Foundry admins) are required to prepare a Management Report each week and upload it to their file within the Foundry Dropbox Folder by 6pm SHARP each Saturday. These documents reviewed by each CEO within a cohort. Each participant views the document with "revision marks" turned on and holds each other accountable for spelling, grammar and format defects. They also review each company's progress, plans and problems, keeping in mind that they are looking to contribute to assisting in any way possible.

On Monday morning they meet at 7:30am SHARP ready to add value to each other by providing insight, solutions or introductions within the their respective networks over the course of an hour so that the group progresses and learns faster together than any one individual would otherwise.

Foundry's role in that meeting is cultivate and batch together commons problems or challenges the cohort is facing ans solve them collectively - often leveraging a group discount or small sponsorship if the solution must be purchased.

The last requirement is to conduct a project review every 4 weeks which serves to model a board meeting. CEOs are encouraged to invite mentors, advisors, potential investors and other participants to engage in a dialoge about the monthly progress (things that are DONE and NOT DONE), personal and organizational learning, forward thinking plans and problems. It's typically a proverbial ass-kicking about your efforts to manage and guide your growing baby.. er, startup. It's an exhausting hour and a half but it provides clarity.

That's it. That's what we do. No fancy pants stratitegery. No superlative "crush it" dialogue. It's that simple. And it's effective.

Here's proof: 7 out 10 startups fail within the first year. 7 out of 10 Foundry companies survive.

So how do we generate the results that we do? The participants do everything. By participating in the Foundry, the act of contributing to each other creates their ownership in its existence. When participants no longer decide that the mechanics laid out above work for them, then we cease to exist. So far it's working.

That's why you can't talk about what it is unless you've been in it. To read and conceptualize what it's like is an order of magnitude different than to actually DO it - just like building a rocket ship out of legos doesn't qualify you to work for NASA.

Yes, we are a cult. Yes, we have rolling enrollment. So with these results and open-source management technology, why doesn't everyone join? The Foundry experience augments the startup experience which, like Fight Club, is confronting. Our management techniques aren't glitzy fancy pants Web 2.0 apps. They are 8x11 pieces of paper and they force you to publicly call yourself out to execute and announce to everyone when you don't. This alone confronts a lot of people who think that "getting the right answer" or "checking off a list" or " appearing to do complicated things with ease" makes them a good person.

For example I have seen experienced entrepreneurs get their asses handed to them in a Project Review or Monday Meeting by a 20-something student founder. And vice versa. This is a culture in which you learn, from everyone - ESPECIALLY when the message is packaged poorly. No one does that naturally, some stick around long enough to be transformed into someone that eventually welcomes this. Which is why most Foundry graduates are seemingly carved out of wood.

All of your inner demons, the thing that you have resistance around, will show up and be present in front of you and everyone else. Those uncomfortable and slimy "realities" that you do a good job of pretending aren't there, start announcing themselves loudly. What you decide to do at that point is what it means to be at risk to learn: you learn something, not about management or your company, but about yourself.

You will do this constantly, day in and day out.

We make a claim about forging entrepreneurs for life. On the surface it looks like company building but it's really the things that one learns when he or she is engages in the trench warfare of starting a company.

This is why Foundry accepts PEOPLE starting companies, NOT companies.

The Man Behind the Myth

This is a funny email conversation that I had late last night with fellow Foundry brother, David Oldham, CEO of O-Codes.

Dave: Would be cool to have a Dropbox folder for resumes/bios where people who wanted to join a startup could post their background and skillset for teams to review and then follow up with the individual if it's a good fit.

Me: Noted. I'll talk to Matt and Rob about that possibility and see if we can get something done formally.

Dave: You are the man behind the myth.

Me: Ha ha, indeed. What is the myth?

Dave: The myth: that a brilliant, ambitious young entrepreneur wander the dimly lit, cubicled halls of the Foundry late at night scheming up the world's next great invention; and if you happen to see him, touch his North Face jacket sleeve and you too will be imbued with magical entrepreneurial powers.

***

The funny thing about this is that I was wearing the exact North Face jacket he was referring to when I read the email this morning.

Let it be known though, that the character I play in life: the ambitious young entrepreneur, is in fact a myth. I am not out to create a world-shifting invention for the sake of personal accolades and bragging rights at cocktail parties. In fact, I'm not out to create a world-shifting invention at all. I just like building things that I find fascinating.

I am just a guy, who likes tinkering with machines that look like entrepreneurial endeavors. The ambition is often misinterpreted as "nerd-fervor" for seeing things come together on a spreadsheet. And young is often misinterpreted as... well actually I am young so there's nothing to say about that. As far as the North Face jacket, it probably won't imbue magical entrepreneurial powers, but it will help protect you against the cold.

So feel free to engage with the man (boy). Because that's who I am.. with a few foibles and flaws. Just like every other human being.

Perspective

I love experential knowledge.

Learning something through an experience is an experience in itself, often because we didn't expect to learn anything as the events started to unfold. Sometimes, this learning, at an even more basic is really the just the identification of something we didn't know was there before.

The thing about experience is that it takes your preconcieved notions about anything and changes the angle by which you view it. Sometimes that means just being closer to that object or notion. I think that often we think of a change of perspective as a matter of degrees but I have found that the world, your thoughts, your biases shift significantly when you get closer to something. The details of an ideal become more visible, as if you placed an HD lens over your perspective. You notice that it's not glossy, but rough and textured. Even more importantly, you realize that it's not as solid as you once thought in your former persective, but something that can be prodded, poked, and probed.. even molded; like slightly moist clay that you need to exert significant pressure to alter. You take a moment to reassess your surroundings, gauge your reaction, then reconcile them to previous thoughts and assumptions, then move on a slightly different person.

I have many ideals that have changed the closer that I moved to them. One moment you are at a seemingly significant distance from a lifestyle (group of actions, behaviors, thoughts, value system, consequences, etc), then a conversation throws you into the center of it. Now you are experiencing it from the inside looking out. Whereas you were previously looking at it from the outside at what you thought was an solid, opaque shell; you are realizing that your assumption was wrong: it's a permeable membrane that where you can move freely.

As I get further along in my college career, I also get closer to the "real world." My chosen profession is 'change agent', the world calls it entrepreneurship. I want my job to be invovled in start-ups. To many, this lends a sense of arrogance. I know because I felt the same way last year, when I was on the outside, looking at what were my (erroneous) assumptions about the entrepreneurship lifestyle. But I have been allowed to continue getting closer, and it's not some sugar-coated shell of wealth and adventure. Sure there's adventure, but there's massive sacrifice. I have learned about personal burn rate. That there is no trade-off, no tit-for-tat on focussing on one area of your life at the expense of another. In order to do this you have to change your perspective. Because of my passion for making awesome ideas a reality, I can align my personal life (what's that?) with my "work life".

To drive the point further, I am realizing that being an entrepreneur is an "all the time thing, not a some of the time thing". For those of us who played sports and excelled at them, we know that phrase is often Vince Lombardi's mantra on winning. Excellence, a critical component of anything that amounts to anything you do in life (should you so chose), is a state of being not something you turn on and off at will. So I have found a way to make my passion be the solvent and dropped the things in my life I thought I could compartmentalize to be dissolved into a whole new solution, spinning in the beaker of my life.

For years, up until a few weeks ago, I had no idea that I would have learned the things I just described, mainly because I didn't know they existed -that they were constant elements you had to accept as you walked through that membrane. Does it sound harsh? Well it depends on your perspective... The same company looks very different if you are viewing it through a corporate or entrepreneurial lens. Even more so depending where that particular lens is positioned.

But then again so is life. I once read that you actually train yourself to be a fatalist or opportunist. Even more interesting is that you can, through training, change. Your perspective, the lens in which you view anything, can be changed. Sometimes you move it under you own choice (intentional or not), sometimes life moves it for you. Or give you another one.

My challenge is this: take anything, anything, in your life that you feel absolutely certain on and change your perspective of it. Move the lens, adjust the focus, or get a new one altogether. See how things change and take notice of how you change in reaction to the new information. Then do it again. And keep doing it and see if you can alternate between all of these perspectives quickly and accurately. Then move on to something else, then let me know your reaction.