VCball

How to Create Your Own Luck

This week I picked up a book, called Lucky or Smart, written by Bo Peabody.  Bo was the founder of Tripod, a "user generated platform company" in today's parlance, which he sold to Lycos for $58M.  At the time, Lycos fortuitively put into a lockup, against his desire, so by the time he was able to sell the stock, it had gone up 10X.  I have to tell you I was skeptical as I often am with books about entrepreneurship... a skepticism which Bo shares ironically enough as he mentions in his book.  But I took a whirl, as I had met Bo a couple times and I admire and respect entrepreneurs (especially ones that join the dark side and become a VC like myself!) and you know, the book was pretty damn good for 58 pages.

In a nutshell, I think he touches on some key success factors for an entrepreneur, that I mostly agree with, so I'll paraphrase:
1/ Lucky business things happen to entrepreneurs more often than average who start "fundamentally innovative, morally compelling and philosophically positive companies".   This vision attracts great people, customers, partners and supporters; such companies tend to be more lucky. 
2/ Entrepreneurs are made, not born.
3/ Lose the ego, be gracious at all times, the world is a very small place
4/ Know what you don't know
5/ Don't believe your own press
6/ Work very very very hard
7/ Recognize that if you are a great entrepreneur, you are likely to be a "B" student, good, but not great, at everything; so hire "A" student managers that are great at a few things to build a stellar team.   As Bo puts it, "a few As and a B is a pretty good report card".
8/ Recognizing when something lucky happens and distinguishing it from skill or smarts is incredibly important part of entrepreneurship.
9/ Get used to rejection, it's part of the drill.

I can't do him credit here in a post, and don't agree with everything he says particularly the point about entrepreneurs being born vs made; I feel that entrepreneurship teachable just like salesmanship is learnable.  But if you have a spare 60 minutes and want to find out for yourself whether Bo was lucky or smart, this book is worth the read.  Also,it's available in audio format on audible.com and I think iTunes.com, and it's a good format for the book, a format I've taken up lately for my commutes to work.   

If you have read the book or after you do, please do comment, I'd love to hear your perspective.

Why Smart Business People Need to Go Virtual

Much has been said about social networking, blogs, and the use of email lists, and other online media from a business model perspective.  Some VCs think it's the future, others just shrug.

However, after reading David Teten and Scott Allen's new book The Virtual Handshake, I have to tell you I've become a big believer that these types of online virtual relationship management tools can push an existing business further.  And from a business career perspective these online tools can be leveraged for significant professional advancement.  Intuitively, I've believed for a long long time that premise, and have experimented a bit with this blog and other online media; however, this book is the first time I've seen it spelled out in black and white the advantages of adopting some of these tools.  If you don't use these tools, it's highly likely your business and your career will lose out to those who do.

Scoff, below, if you want, but before you do please read the book.