Every year, the folks at Entrepreneur Magazine name an Entrepreneur of the Year. They’re looking for a person who makes a positive impact and improves their industry, employees, and community with a combination of ideas, leadership, and vision. The deadline for entries this year is June 15, so you’ve got plenty of time to enter and share your story.

Let’s take a look at some quick lessons you can learn from some past winners:

• Don’t give up: 2011 Entrepreneur of the Year Lee Rhodes was a mother of three fighting lung cancer when she was inspired to start glassybaby. If she could overcome those odds, imagine what you can do!
• Ignore the naysayers: People told Rhodes she wouldn’t be able to make a success of a business that sold just one product. She proved them wrong. So did 2008 winner Devon Rifkin, of the Great American Hanger Company, who’s company makes and sells… hangers.
• Empower your team: 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year Daniel Lubetzky, maker of KIND Healthy Snacks,  gives every employee stock options. Every employee gets a sense of ownership.
• Have a cause: Lubetsky is a social entrepreneur who’s companies operate on a “not-only-for-profit” business model, with an economic as well as social bottom line. Rhodes subscribes to this model as well, giving a large percentage of her revenue to programs for cancer patients.
• Find a problem: Rick Alden, of Skullcandy, was Entrepreneur of the Year in 2010. In his acceptance speech he stressed the importance of finding creative solutions to existing problems.

Next year we’d love to feature lessons fellow entrepreneurs could learn from your story. Just click here to enter for a chance to be named Entrepreneur Magazine’s Entrepreneur of 2012.

Winner image on homepage courtesy of Shutterstock

Entrepreneurship continues to be a sexy topic for governments, with every country worth its salt trying to create its own tech hub, mimicking Silicon Valley. The appeal of promoting entrepreneurship is obvious. After all, entrepreneurs can do many good things, not least to create wealth and employment, pay taxes and help the balance of trade through exports.

From a young person’s perspective, with tight labour markets, decreasing barriers to entry, low capital-intensive business models and immediate free access to a global market, the appeal is also compelling. What is there not to like? Not much, it would appear, as evidenced by the growing numbers diving in and starting up, regardless of their skill sets and backgrounds.

There is one major problem with all of this, and it’s a dirty little secret that very few want to talk about: the odds of success remain spectacularly remote. Eric Ries, author of The Lean Start-up, puts it best: ‘The grim reality is that most start-ups fail. Most products are not successful. Most new ventures do not live up to their potential. Yet the story of perseverance, creative genius and hard work persists.”

Sean Seton-Rogers of PROfounders Capital recently claimed that of the more than 3,500 business plans they had received, his London, U.K. -based venture capital fund had just invested in 17 companies. This tiny percentage is pretty typical, and represents a lot of time wasted by all concerned. And besides, obtaining early-stage investment is no guarantee of success, either. Surely we can do better?

We’re all failing this generation of entrepreneurs by not being tough on them. We ought to curb their abundant enthusiasm when needed and force them to answer the hard questions. We should be completely ruthless in our assessment of them. We need to be brutally honest, and tell more people that they need to stop what they’re doing and do something more productive, rather than advise them to “try harder” when facing adversity.

Similarly, we need to stop encouraging entrepreneurship without acknowledging the extremely long odds of success, the numerous downsides and the fact that many of today’s entrepreneurs are tomorrow’s social welfare recipients. Otherwise, we’re just kicking the can down the road until the point when these “entrepreneurs” can no longer pay their bills, their enthusiasm is smashed to pieces and they become yet another business statistic.

I work with entrepreneurs and have a pretty good window into their world. What I am seeing is too many poorly-skilled young people lacking business acumen and trying their hand at starting their own business, when their time could be much better spent on other pursuits such as learning to code.

The signs to me are all too obvious from our conversations. Some entrepreneurs ask me whether we have a business plan for an “internet business”, as if there’s a secret recipe they could use. Others send me unsolicited emails looking for free advice on very specific issues, despite not having met me, nor knowing whether the industry context or country is one I’m familiar with.

In the business plans that I review, I often come across glaring gaps that are simply insurmountable; e.g. plans to launch new alcoholic beverages in the UK without understanding the capital costs or the power of distribution in that industry. The list goes on.

To be clear, I’m not anti-entrepreneurship. I am just a little jaded with the one-sided view that entrepreneurship is a panacea for all employment ills. It is not a victimless pursuit for all and sundry. This cheerleading often comes from those with vested interests, rather than from successful entrepreneurs who have successfully exited businesses and are looking to encourage the next generation. We need a much more balanced narrative.

Encouraging risk taking is to be lauded. After all, as George Bernard Shaw once proclaimed, “progress depends on the unreasonable man” and we, as a society, benefit from those willing to challenge the status quo. Of course, we need to encourage the “crazy ones, the misfits, rebels and troublemakers”. However, we also need to ensure that those who are not qualified to start a business are not encouraged to do so.

As a friend who works in a bank recently said to me, we should force entrepreneurs to take a test before they start. In practice, of course, his suggestion is not very practical. But he, too, was troubled by our collective failure to align entrepreneurship as a career choice for skilled and financially literate entrepreneurs who have some business acumen, rather than as a realistic option for everyone. Of course anyone could give me examples of successful entrepreneurs that left school at 12 and are now worth millions, but these represent such a tiny minority that they are simply statistical outliers.

Instead, we should be encouraging young people to learn the skills they need to build and sell the next generation of products and services that we will consume, rather than encouraging them to jump straight into starting their own business. We also need to revisit traditional university courses and recognise that, in many instances, we are training them for jobs that no longer exist. We should be teaching them more about entrepreneurship including a strong emphasis on cash-flow management and financial literacy.

Entrepreneurship is a phenomenal career choice, but we need to better equip our youth for its challenges rather than blindly encouraging them. Collectively, we need to do better.

For technology entrepreneurs, we need to encourage them to understand the lean startup methodology, as a means to help them validate their assumptions. We should remind them that, as Steve Blank said, “a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.” They need to have a better understanding of the process rather than myopically focus on building something without any clear sense of the market size, the likely demand or their costs of customer acquisition.

At the same time, we need to push back on the growing belief that they can eschew writing a business plan when they are too busy “doing”. We need to insist that they set goals and milestones, create cash flow forecasts and devise ways to test their assumptions. 

We need to remind them of the role of survivor bias in the dominant narrative of entrepreneurship so they recognise that the typical journey is actually extremely challenging and that success stories like Instagram are mere anomalies. As Eric Ries states: “We all know stories of epic entrepreneurs who managed to pull off a victory when things seemed bleak. But we don’t hear stories about the countless others who persevered too long, leading their companies to failure.”

Some of our tech journalists also bear a responsibility, with nascent entrepreneurs receiving glowing appraisals without any rigour as to what evidence of demand they have for their product or service, or whether their claims as to customer numbers can be substantiated, or whether there is even a viable accessible market for their offerings?

These technology publications must do a better job of curating, so we as readers and consumers can learn about the start-up businesses with real potential, which are gaining real paying customers. At the moment, there is simply too much noise, and much of it is taken up by those who have little chance of success. I’d rather our tech journalists recalibrate their focus on those companies that are demonstrably gaining traction (as evidenced by revenue) rather than focus on the latest shiny social media offering with a dubious value proposition.

We need to remind would-be entrepreneurs that raising finance is one mere step on the journey rather than a cause for celebration. 

We should also be encouraging our young entrepreneurs to work in the industry they intend to set up in before they commence. Too many of those I meet have little – if any – experience in the business area they are looking to set up in, which lengthens the odds of survival even further. In short, we need to do a lot more to de-risk the choice for young entrepreneurs and ensure that they have a better sense of what they need to know before they take the plunge.

Let’s teach our young entrepreneurs to walk before they can run; to serve an apprenticeship before making themselves “founder and chief executive officer”; and to learn the skills they need, rather than assuming everything can be learned “on the job”.

We need to reposition entrepreneurship so young people have a greater understanding of what it entails, “warts and all”. And finally, we need to remind the cheerleaders that starting a business is not to be taken lightly. For those that lack the skills, acumen and wherewithal it is simply not a viable career option.

This Article originally appeared in The Kernel Magazine.

Running image from Shutterstock

I don’t know what it is about Marketing, but everyone on earth seems to think they can do it. And yet I see so many people NOT doing it or wasting thousands of dollars and not getting results.  I see business owners try the same things over and over,  wasting more money, more time, and more energy. If I had 1/10^th of what business owners waste on stuff that doesn’t work, I’d be the most successful marketing consultant on the planet.  And yet, so many business owners would rather go it alone and try and fail and try again and fail again rather than reach out and get professional help. I don’t get it.

I know there are those out there who will always try to do it themselves so, so in the spirit of not getting it, here are the top 21 reasons why most small business owners fail at marketing:

1. Guessing – Great marketing isn’t an accident. It takes research, educated decisions, testing, tracking and measuring. Guesswork will leave you customer-less and broke.
2. Doing what everyone else is doing- Every business is different and your marketing mix should be too.  Following the crowd isn’t going to help you stand out from the competition!
3. Listening to sales people Marketing is a long term strategy, not a special advertisement, publication, or website; but every sales rep you come in contact with will try to convince you otherwise. Marketing is a process – a long term strategy, there is no magic pill and don’t let a slick sales person try to tell you otherwise.
4. Not asking questions –Question EVERYTHING about your business and ask everyone you come into contact with as many questions as possible to learn, grow, and constantly improve.
5. Doing nothing – It’s simple, if you don’t Market your business, you will fail.
6. Putting all your eggs in one basket – Marketing is like investing, the more diversified your strategy, the better off you will be. Don’t invest all your time and resources in one medium or on one marketing tool – mix it up.
7. Not tracking results – How the heck are you going to know what works and what doesn’t if you don’t track the results? If you’re not tracking you’re guessing, and we covered that in #1!
8. Assuming you have all the answers – Yes, I know: you know your business better than anyone. But do you know marketing?  I mean do you REALLY know how and where to reach potential customers and convince them to buy from you?
9. Not talking to your customers – No one knows your value – or faults – better than the people who actually buy from you. Talk to your customers – often. It’ll provide valuable insight and ideas.
10. Ignoring your competition- If you don’t know how you’re different from your competition how are potential customers supposed to? Knowing your competition’s strengths and weaknesses will help you differentiate.
11. Not setting goals –Goals keep us on track; they give us direction. Without them you’re wandering aimlessly and most likely wasting a lot of time and money.
12. Not building an email list – I don’t understand how anyone can market a business in today’s world without an email list! Email is the easiest and most inexpensive way to stay in touch with customers and prospects.  If you aren’t building a list you’re missing out on huge opportunities.
13. Not having  an opt in form – Emailing current and past customers is a great start, but what about the people who visit your website, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn pages and then go away never to be heard from again? Wouldn’t’ it be nice to engage the serious window shoppers in some way? An opt-in form is the way to do it!
14. Selling all the time.  We’ve all met the slick schmoozy salesy types, right? And how long does it take you to high-tail it in the opposite direction? Don’t be one of those. An effective marketing strategy eliminates the need to sell all the time… really!
15. Assuming because you have a great product or service you don’t need a marketing strategy – Sure, some products and services might market themselves, but that’s rare. Real marketing success takes strategy, planning, and work.
16. Assuming that just because you have a good product or service you don’t need a referral system- Again, there are some products and services that people just love to talk about, but building a successful business solely on organic referrals and “buzz” is rare.  Getting solid referrals, consistently takes planning and solid execution. .
17. Assuming anyone with a pulse is your client- Repeat after me:  “NOT everyone is a potential client for me”. Now look in the mirror and repeat that every day! Find your niche – that segment of the population you are born to serve and you will uncover a gold mine!
18. Not building relationships – I can’t stress enough how important this is. Hiding behind your computer screen, desk, or counter isn’t going to get you the level of success you want. You have to get out there – mingle, be helpful, connect people, and build relationships with the right people!
19. Spending all your time networking in the wrong places –Not every networking group is right for you. Find the ones that will help you get where you want to go and avoid the ones that won’t.
20. Ignoring the internet – Facebook and Twitter may not be right for your business, but chances are your target market is going somewhere on line for information about your product or service.  Your job is to find out where they’re going and be there!
21. Not hiring a professional- If you want to build an addition onto your home would you do it yourself or hire a professional?  I mean, you know your home better than anyone, right? So why not do it yourself? Ridiculous, right? So then why would you try to “add on” – or grow – your business yourself?  Hire a professional who has the right tools and knows the ins and outs of growing a business.

So what do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
 Want to share?? Please do! Leave your comments here.

By the way, if you liked this post, I’d really appreciate your Retweet!!! Thank you.

Many of my clients are business owners and entrepreneurs, and we often discuss succession planning. If you don’t have a family member who is the obvious heir apparent, what do you do?

I think the question of succession planning isn’t just for entrepreneurs, though. It’s certainly a topic of discussion in board rooms and at meetings. Yet I don’t often see companies of any size with a real focus and plan in place.

It’s more than simply finding the next president or CEO. It’s more than just finding someone to take over your business or buy you out. Succession planning should be considered for every key position within your organization. It’s about how you develop and build managers and leaders. It’s about how you cross-train, develop new skills in your current staff and build bench strength within departments.

Whether you are a company of 20 people, 200 people or 2,000 or more, you cannot build a long-term successful organization if you continually have to replace your people. So what if, as part of your planning process, you included a plan for building new skills in your current staff? Imagine how much less time you would have to spend interviewing and hiring, training and handling performance problems, and determining how you get the workload covered if a person resigns. Of course, as your company grows you will need to bring on additional talent, and as part of the interview process you should consider what their potential is, both short- and long-term.

If you wait to consider succession planning when you are ready to retire, take on a new role, or when key people leave your company, it’s already too late.

Executives and business owners ask me about employee accountability all the time. They want to know how to make employees accountable.

I’d like to give you a resounding yes! Yes, you can improve employee accountability! But unfortunately I can’t tell you that.

I don’t believe employee accountability is a lost cause, but so many factors have an impact on the problem that there is not a simple solution. For example:  Were the employees raised to accept responsibility and be accountable; in their professional life have they worked for a company where accepting accountability was acknowledged or punished when things went wrong; are you certain they understood your request; did someone or something else get in the way? There are many factors to consider.

The single biggest factor in employee accountability, though, is you as the leader. We often believe we communicate clearly and our requests are understood, and I’m betting that more often than not it isn’t so.

I’m also betting that you assume that because they’re nodding their head, saying okay, or just sitting silently, they understand you and have agreed. Not so.

To improve employee accountability you have to begin with your own communication. Make sure you clearly define your expectations and the conditions of satisfaction (by when, how, who, what, color, etc., etc.). The next step is to confirm that they understood and agreed to complete your request.

Until these are handled well you will never be able to have the level of employee accountability you desire.

Yesterday I was sent a link to a study on women owned businesses. While some of the data is a few years out of date, I was caught by this particular piece of information:

In 2004, Women owned 10.6 million businesses in the United States. They employed 19.1 million workers–that’s one in every seven employees and their businesses accounted for $2.5 trillion in sales.

It was shortly after reading that I received information from a friend of Bplans.com – Natalie MacNeil of She Takes on the World. She and Natalie Sisson of The Suitcase Entrepreneur have created an online business system called WE Mastermind.

“It all comes down to persistence, determination, the right tools, the right knowledge, the right systems and one heck of a power team pulling you towards your well deserved success.

That’s what WE Mastermind is all about.”

In a nutshell – WE Mastermind is a 6-month program designed to not only get your online business up and running, but profitable. “Natalie Squared” have a mission to ensure you find your sweet spot, then package it into a product or service that allows you to create a profitable online business.

Check out the WE Mastermind website for all the information on the course as well as the resources and tools you get in the package. (Full disclosure:  Palo Alto Software’s Start, Run and Grow Your Business software is part of the list of value added resources you get from purchasing the course)

Learn more about WE Mastermind.  Early bird pricing ends THIS SUNDAY (September 10th) so take advantage of this offer now!

I’ve been called many things in my life. Most recently I have been called a “woman entrepreneur,” “mompreneur,” “social entrepreneur,” and a few other things I won’t repeat. Transitioning from freelancer to entrepreneur (not businesswoman—a distinction I will explain shortly) was an exhilarating, frightening, and freeing experience. Through that transition I became a master of my destiny, a creator of possibility in a world wrought with excess and destruction, and forever an advocate for a new way of life–a way to personal and ideological freedom.

You see, entrepreneurs are a special breed. We look at the unknown and say, “I can make something out of that.” We don’t run haphazardly toward the dark abyss of uncertainty as many assume. We see possibility. We calculate the risk, develop a strategy, and attack uncertainty with unrelenting stubbornness. Enticed by the reward only creation can bring, we mold new technologies, challenge paradigms, and build cultures of thought and living that startle the dreary corporate mentality.

Here is where an entrepreneur and businessperson differ. In his book The E Myth, Michael Gerber showed us that a businessperson is not necessarily an entrepreneur, namely because businesses are started for a number of reasons, many of which do not spur from an entrepreneurial spirit. A star employee decides he can do it better and starts his own business. Someone gets laid off and starts freelancing and calls it a business. Someone sees a business in the works and says, “I can do it better” and starts a business. Someone buys into a Multi Level Marketing company and calls it a business. Many businesses are copies of existing businesses. Many people start businesses and never develop themselves as business owners, but instead continue to operate as employees. Many businesses are launched without ever considering market positioning, differentiation, or innovation. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, think of all those things and more.

An entrepreneur charges new frontiers, takes the task of charting new waters into their own hands, and innovates. They are good at starting things from scratch (things that often don’t exist yet) and building them up. They are good at crossing boundaries, strategically developing ideas, and making something from nothing. An entrepreneur is not necessarily a good businessperson (which is why they often sell or step back after a certain point). Nor are they necessarily a good manager (people skills are not a requirement). A businessperson is anyone who starts a business. An entrepreneur is someone who takes the task of creating something original in order to solve a great market or social need into her own hands.

I am a businessperson. I have people skills, can manage projects and a team, and know how to build a business from the ground up and then maintain it. More importantly, I am an entrepreneur. Which is why I take offense to those seemingly innocuous terms of “woman entrepreneur” and “mompreneur.” Do you ever hear someone say “man entrepreneur” or “dadpreneur?” No. Then why do I need that distinction? Qualifying my place as an entrepreneur with the word “mom” or “woman” actually discounts me as an entrepreneur by creating an arbitrary separation based on my sex. I am different as an entrepreneur because of my vision, my drive to use entrepreneurial ideas to solve society’s greatest problems, my brass knuckles approach, and my commitment to building a company culture that supports individual growth and community involvement. My gender, and the fact that I gave birth, may contribute to my ideas and philosophies, but they are not what define me as an entrepreneur. I am defined by what I create.

Recently I formed a strategic partnership with Tech Ranch Austin, a tech accelerator located in my hometown of Austin, Texas. This partnership allows me to make tremendous strides towards my personal mission for a Brass Knuckles Revolution as we build out a community of social entrepreneurs within the Tech Ranch Austin framework, a community of people using entrepreneurship to solve hunger, poverty, injustice, malnutrition, sustainability, and other social concerns both at home and abroad. I’m forming a think tank of people to take on these issues while we build up other social entrepreneurs with their own missions and social problems to address. I can’t express in words how fulfilling and motivating it is to finally make tangible movements toward my life’s goal of affecting widespread, positive change in the world. This is my personal rite of passage as an entrepreneur. Creating on this scale and impacting society at this magnitude is what it means to be an entrepreneur. Now I am creating more than just a business (or multiple businesses). I am creating a legacy.

My cousin Brian recently shared an article titled 5 Ways To Test An Entrepreneurial Idea. It was full of cute and inspiring ideas on how to succeed in the world of small business ownership. “Research an analogy,” “Contact your prospective clients,” and my personal favorite, “Visualize it.” When I read the last one I choked on the cup of Ramen Noodles that I was slurping down for lunch.

What really bothered me is that the concepts are nice, but they are not forged in the relentless heat of reality. I had the impression that the article was penned from the comforts of a corporate cubicle rather than the tough trenches of business ownership. I’ve been self employed for 16 years, have an MBA, and can tell you that you can “visualize it” all you want. It won’t pay the bills. However, a lot of hard work and then some more hard work just might.

Instead of passing on fanciful small-business strategies that only work on paper, I’ve decided to be completely honest and pass on 5 five (somewhat sarcastic) truths about entrepreneurship that no one will tell you. Buckle up:

1. If you enjoy not knowing where your next paycheck will come from, entrepreneurship is for you! The time will (slowly) come when you are getting nice checks, and it makes you feel good. Then you start to pay the employees, rent, inventory, and the phone system that keeps crashing on you. What’s left over is depressing. Quickly you check the numbers to see where it all went and, for the first time, you realize that your secretary makes more money than you do. I realize that this little nugget of information is probably a buzz kill for most of you, but small business ain’t for the faint of heart. Read on.

2. You may be the CEO but you’re the secretary, IT guy and janitor too. What a luxury it must be to drop off work assignments so that you have time to golf with your buddies in the afternoons. Oh wait, you ARE the staff! If you’ve never been much of an accountant, network engineer or HR person, you will be.

3. Your office will be open more hours than a 7-11. If you’re serious about becoming successful, be prepared to be the first one to the office in the morning and the last one to turn the lights out at night. Have you ever heard that song, “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere?” It probably is, just not for you.

4. You are unique, which makes you weird to everyone else. There are few of us out there who are independent, driven, and inspired to live the American Dream. Congratulations, and welcome to the club. While this makes you incredibly unique to us, it means that you are completely out of touch with others. You should remember that there are actual people out there who are satisfied punching a clock, collecting vacation hours and calling in sick so that they can golf in the afternoon with their buddies. Over time we start to see each other as alien life forms.

5. You will be thought an idiot until you start making money. I only have one book that is mandatory reading for my staff: The Little Red Hen. Business ownership is exactly like the story. No one wants to plant the wheat or harvest the wheat or grind the wheat. But when the bread comes out of the oven, people will appear out of thin air. The lesson? Find those people who are hard working like you, who roll up their sleeves and just “do” the dirty work. And because you have read this far, I’m going to offer you a final piece of advice. These people do exist but are rarely found amongst family and friends. Your dream, your passion is not theirs. Accept it, appreciate it, move on and remember The Little Red Hen.

While my five truths may take some of the wind out of your sails, I can also tell you that there are few things more satisfying than building your own little empire. There is a sense of satisfaction and pride in watching your dream become your reality. As Americans we have a propensity to challenge the status quo and to stretch boundaries, limits and imaginations. It’s what makes us unique. Entrepreneurship can be the biggest challenge of your career, but it can be the most rewarding too. “Visualize it” when it falls apart. Roll up your sleeves and get dirty when you are ready to succeed.

Jeffrey Busgang titles his Harvard Business Review post “Should I Become an Entrepreneur?” I admit, it’s not an unreasonable question, and my response — if you have to ask, the answer is no — is probably unfair and too abrupt.

Even so, I answer that way to point out that entrepreneurship is so often something that happens to you, rather than something you choose. You fall in love with a business idea, a product, or a challenge, and you can’t resist. Or the opportunity arises, suddenly, and you say yes to it.

The idea that you choose entrepreneurship like you’d choose a sweater is acceptable, I suppose, because so many of us choose careers by establishing our interests. And “I want to own my own business” certainly comes up a lot.

My own three decades of entrepreneurship did not start me asking that key question. From the beginning, it was looking with eager anticipation at the possibility of making it on my own. I knew I wanted to do what I liked. But could I cover expenses? Keep the kids in shoes? And then for years it was a matter of making the next mortgage payment, not knowing for sure where the money would come from. And being progressively more unemployable as the years rolled on.

I like this: in the post, Jeffrey says:

I have concluded that being an entrepreneur is an irrational state of being. If human beings were purely rational, evaluative, value maximizing individuals, they would not start companies. If they sat down and did the expected value calculation by laying out the probability-weighted outcomes of being an entrepreneur as compared to taking a safe job, it would not pencil out.

How delightfully business-school-like to put it in terms of maximizing expected value calculations. However, I read humor there, Jeffrey’s tongue in his cheek, a suppressed grin.

I also like the series of questions Jeffrey asks to answer the main question. Including:

• Do you have an idea that no one can talk you out of?
• Are you prepared to endure with modest or no salary for a few years?
• Are you bored with your current work environment/life situation?

I think he’s got it right, except perhaps his title, because as you look at the content he’s got entrepreneurship as something you can’t resist.

Think of it this way: do you dare to escape boredom? Can you? Will it work for you?

This is our third post on startup lessons from David Fincher’s new film about the founding of Facebook, The Social Network. We’ve already seen that business ideas aren’t protected, and that startups, especially, need to be clear on partnership agreements, and whether partners are actually a good idea. Today, the important lesson is about actually shipping, getting to market, and seizing opportunities.

Doing, marketing, selling is what makes a successful business
While the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendr focused on the idea of the business, Mark Zuckerberg actually coded and launched a product. When his friend and partner Eduardo Saverin dragged his feet on investment and expansion decisions, Zuckerberg cut him loose to move faster.

The success of Facebook wasn’t about the idea. Business ideas aren’t actually worth very much. “If you have a good idea, a thousand other people have the same idea. You’re in a race to take that idea and make it happen, make it real. You build the business, you don’t just have the idea.”

As one commenter wrote about the case back in 2007, “I have taken a look at ConnectU and their script…anybody could write such a script..what makes Facebook facebook, is not because of any code or script…it’s Faceboook’s strategy and [how they] positioned themselves.”

Zuckerberg himself credits Facebook’s success to three things:

* Boldness
* Speed
* Focus

Zuckerberg used his technical savvy to take an event that was already happening offline – college students socializing – and move it online. Boldness and speed were apparent even in the one-day success of an earlier experimental site, Facemash, which he created in a weekend while at Harvard. According to the Harvard Crimson, Zuckerberg intended to share the site only with a few friends, but it quickly spread across campus to get 22,000 votes. No doubt that early feedback (and the fact that more than half of all Harvard undergrads joined Facebook in its first month) helped encourage him to moved quickly to expand beyond his initial market (Harvard) into other colleges, and then to non-college students.

Of course, as reviewer Richard Corliss says, “Zuckerberg would make billions selling friends — and if need be, the film reckons, selling them out.”

Making it, getting it launched and to market, is especially true for startups now, in a down economy, as venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki explains.

“In today’s economy and tight credit markets, there is a much greater emphasis on getting to revenues fast and more emphasis on business models than before,” Kawasaki says. “You also meet companies that are further along. Whereas, a few years ago the accepted practice was you raised a bunch of money, then you went away for a year and built your software. You needed the money to hire people, buy tools and all that kind of stuff.”

Will you follow through, or foul up?

Sara Prentice Manela
Editor

P.S. Speaking of Facebook – Have you joined our fanpage?