Venture Voice

Since I have chosen the entrepreneur path, perhaps it is good to learn from those who are still trying but ahead of me, and those who already succeeded.

I suddenly remembered about Venture Voice, a site about entrepreneurship which distributes their material in MP3 format (pod casting). I never quite grow on this site because the MP3 take quite a while to download, and perhaps it is a bit time consuming as well since each interview is about 50 minutes. Anyway, I decide to give it a try. The quality is pretty good, and suitable for people on the go with an mp3 player (perhaps it is a good reason to get one as well)

At first the “Failure” post caught my attention, as I believe sometimes the media over glorify entrepreneur success and discarded their dirty failure. Entrepreneurial Terror is quite a terror, as it seems to be a norm for people to fail numerous times and lost all their money before they found their success. It sounds pretty scary as I had only tried and failed once, and this is my second. And loosing all my money and become bankrupt? OMG!

Then I was led to the interview of David Sifry of Technorati. Basically, this is probably the 4th venture for David, and he is an entrepreneur freak (meaning he will keep looking for new idea to venture, no staying too long with the same thing). Basically, it is his passion to turn nothing into a usable service wanted by others, while being “something to prove” is secondary for him. He believed the primary for a company to exist is to make money, like oxygen, without it the company will suffocate. But as in life, we could do more besides breathing. Besides focusing on what should be done, he focus on what should be done as well (it seems to be an important mantra nowadays, to focus in don’t as well as do).

He said, “If I am not the founder, I’m not sure if they will hire me”. I kinda worry about employment as well. Somehow entrepreneur skill doesn’t quite seem so sellable to future employer. It is a common believe that building a Technology is about the Technology, but it might seems to be a common Myth as well. According to David, is all about building a great team that can churn out wonderful stuff. I believed I read it many times, only through a great team we could achieve greatness. One interesting point he made is, “If I found someone who is better than me in doing what I do, I shall employ him to replace me and move on to my next venture. But sometimes, you shall believe that you are the best person for the job”. If we don’t believe that we are great, how could it be possible for us to achieve greatness?

It seems there is no eternal happiness, but only moment of joy. Basically, the entrepreneur path does not guaranteed happiness, but it does bring in moment of joy. Last but no least, a last word of advise from David, “No matter what they said, if you believe in yourself, in the market, in your service, just do it. I have a lot of respect for entrepreneur, as it is tough, but rewarding”

I hope I did learn a thing or two. Sometimes we already knew or understand a specific idea or concept, but we just need repetition to reinforce it. I once saw a book, “Things I already know but keep forgetting”