Harnessing Entrepreneurial Manic-Depression: Making the Rollercoaster Work for You. The sky is falling! Ever since the media’s Chicken Little response to the tremors in the financial markets, I’ve felt like shouting from the rooftops “now you know how it feels to be an entrepreneur!” I just lost 9% overnight?! Fill a bathtub and get the toaster. I’ve had enough. Wait… I actually gained 13% while in the bathroom? I’m f**king Superman! This is a guest post on capitalizing on — vs. countering — the “entrepreneur’s disease” (manic depression) through 4 cyclical stages. The author is Cameron Herold, former COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, whose professional resume includes: -Helping build revenues from $2 Million to $105 Million in 6 years (no debt or outside shareholders) -Building a PR team that landed more than 5,000 stories in those same 6 years -Hiring 220 people in 4 months -Leading the sale, branding, and integration of 450+ franchise locations.
I encourage you all to read this, especially with the fear mongering that is just getting started. Cameron: Stage 1 – Uninformed Optimism. Startup Advice. How New Ideas Almost Killed Our Startup. Odysseus resisting the Sirens Vinicius Vacanti is co-founder and CEO of Yipit. Next posts on how to acquire users for free and how to raise a Series A. Don’t miss them by subscribing via email or via twitter. On my three year startup journey that lead to Yipit, I had over 30 other completely unrelated ideas. Each time I got the idea, I would immediately start sweating profusely for three straight hours in a ridiculous state of unbridled excitement and optimism. Sounds great, right?
To be clear, the “ideas” I’m referring to are the ones that have nothing to do with your current startup. In our case, Yipit had always been about organizing local information and we had been working on it for a while. Social version of delicious (summer of 2007)Tool to recommend the best version of the online video you were currently watching (spring 2008)140it.com: Bookmarklett that smartly shortens your tweet to less than 140 characters. I now think of these new ideas as the Sirens of the startup journey. The Strategy Trap: Why focusing too much on strategy could be ki. “They were worried that I would get bogged down in wanting to do things, not just create strategy.”- David Polinchock / @lbbinc One of the topics covered during the #LikeMinds Summit this past weekend was precisely this: The chasm between strategy and execution, especially as businesses struggle to understand how to leverage, integrate and operationalize Social Communications (what you do with social media platforms) in the coming 6-24 months.
Unfortunately, because the C-suite tends to look to itself when it comes to “strategic masterminding,” the focus too often shifts from execution at the customer level (the most important thing a business should be focusing on on) to… being the guy who came up with the game-changing strategy that will secure more funding and increase influence within the organization. When this happens, strategy becomes a product, and that’s bad. Strategy isn’t a product. Strategy exists mostly in support of execution. Um… yeah, except… no. - or another choice - 1. 2. A Compilation of the Web's Best Advice for Entrepreneurs. Transition-curve-slide1.jpg (JPEG Imagen, 720x540 pixels)