Momma, I made it!

Hi everyone,

For those of you who are not Sean Carter fans, the title to this post is a reference to a song he wrote back in his good ol' Blueprint hey days. Lebron James also made a reference to this song when he met President Obama after winning his first championship with the Miami Heat (ahem, second one on the way soon, ahem).

While I don't think I am anywhere close to "making it" yet, I did make it on to Linkedin co-founder Reid Hoffman's slides of the 3 Secrets of Highly Successful Graduates. (Check me out on slide 7!)

The 3 Secrets of Highly Successful Graduates from Reid Hoffman

However, I am not writing this post just to brag, but rather to share the slides and the good advice they contain. I won't spill the three secrets - go ahead and take a look!

Also, here is a link to the song I referenced above. 

Failing Into Success

This interview with Seth Godin touches on so many topics that are important for entrepreneurs and I believe that he absolutely hits the nail on the head. You have to keep trying (which entails failing) to get to success. I'm nowhere near as successful as I want to be, but I know many, if not all, of my greatest successes and experiences have come from just trying.

This may be asinine to some of  you, but you have to ask yourselves if you are really trying. ARE YOU REALLY TRYING? Are you stretching yourself on a daily basis? Are you doing things that really scare you? And not scared in the pee my pants, sweaty palm sort of way, but scare you in the way that you easily rationalize why you should not do something rather than just doing it, scare you in the way that something always comes up to help you avoid your problem, or scare you in the way that you just always happen to forget to do something. When you start procrastinating, avoiding, and fighting something you want, it might just be because you are scared.

Things get easier once you admit this to yourself and realize that it's okay to fail. It's okay to TRY to attain / win / gain something and not get it. The critical factor in the process is that you keep learning. In fact, it's better than okay, it's the first step to success. If you really want to succeed, then start trying. If you're already trying and you fail, keep trying. Finally, if you're trying and succeeding, then keep learning.

It's honestly the best part of the process.

StartUp Weekend Experience

So, I participated in Startup Weekend Bloomington this past weekend, and it was absolutely amazing!




Before I really get into my experience, I have to thank EVERYONE that participated. The organizers, the other participants, the judges, the speakers, the mentors, the people who dropped off the food, the IU Innovation Center, seriously, everyone!

I have to especially thank my teammates Robby and Aarik, Matthew Burris, Jessica Falkenthal, John Adamson, Paul Simacek, Chris Borland, Mark Elliot, Tim Frazier, Raj Kapur, Mike Trotzke, Brad Wesler, Troy Phelps, Bill Brizard, Ben Dalton, Jordan Rothenberg, Danise Alano-Martin, and Chris White. All of these people played an especially important role in the shaping of our idea, building a minimal viable product, and enhancing my amazing experience. I'm pretty sure every time one of these guys (or girls) came up to our table, our idea changed dramatically.

A very, very special thanks to Aarik, who told me to stop being a little wimp when I almost dumped the idea to join another team. Seriously, I can't thank you enough for that. We did a ton of work that weekend, and I would not have had half the experience if there were not only three people on the team.

Okay, enough sappy stuff.

For those who don't know, Startup Weekend is closed schedule event where you spend 54 hours (Friday evening - Sunday evening) starting a company. The event is heavily influenced by Steve Blank's Four Steps to the Epiphany and Eric Ries' The Lean Startup. It's an awesome weekend for someone who has an idea to recruit a great team, get feedback on their idea, and start talking to customers and really really building a product that customers want! You should definitely read these books!



They also offer awesome stuff - check them out at startupweekend.org.

Gratitude

I was speaking with a friend last night and we started talking about our childhood. Every person I know has childhood experiences that are very unique, but because very few people grow up with multiple parents, they believe are ubiquitous experiences. "Your parents never shot at each other? I thought every parent did that." No sir, my parents didn't do that, and you should probably see a counselor.


I spent a lot of time with this book.

Thank God we grew into our heads.

Good ole' Encyclopedia Britannica!


All jokes aside, my friend looked at me in astonishment when I told her about the Super Workbooks my parents made us complete and the encyclopedia articles that we had to read out loud every Sunday. I was honestly surprised that she was surprised. I knew it wasn't a common experience, but I didn't think it was so unique. My parents made us embrace learning at a very early age, and the lessons my siblings and me learned were immense. I actually sat down and wrote a letter of gratitude to my dad this morning simply because I had to say thank you for making us work. It was a great experience for us, and we are all the better for it.

With that said, push your kids to work harder people! They will (literally) thank you for it one day. On a related note, don't be afraid to discipline your kids. Notice I didn't say whip (don't come for me CPS), but different kids respond differently to different types of discipline. As everything else in life, note what works for each child and adjust accordingly.

Okay, that's enough from me, back to dissertating.

Also, a great idea from StartUp Weekend Bloomington is called simplethankyou and you can just go and say what you are thankful for. They are great guys and you should check it out and say what you're thankful for. I already posted mine.

Update

So, I just happened to check out my blogger statistics and it seems that I have been getting some traffic to this blog without ever intending to. I have had thousands of visits (I'm surprised too) for a few blog posts that I wrote either for a conference or because I had a few minutes on my hands and a few thoughts in my brain. The traffic from multiple countries has inspired me to take this blogging thing a bit more seriously. With that said, look out for more blog posts from me. Probably not a whole lot more (I am writing a dissertation, you know), but more nonetheless. And of course, thanks to everyone who has visited the site. Hopefully, you found information that was valuable!

Thanks again,

Sola

My Favorite Entrepreneur

Raise your hand if you have heard of Elon Musk?

*Peers into the crowd*

NO?! C'mon son!

The face I'm making at you right now...

Elon Musk is my FAVORITE entrepreneur right now...PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, he is literally attacking and breaking THE LARGEST industries that exist.

I think entrepreneurship, at the end of the day, is about making the world a better place and getting paid for it. It's not about the money, it's not about being your own boss (all the time), it's about making the world better than you found it and Elon Musk is doing that.

He's creating companies that form the financial backbone of the Internet (PayPal), send regular people into space (SpaceX), and making electric vehicles SEXIER than Sofia Vergara (lordamercy)!

The craziest part is that he's running TWO of the companies AT THE SAME DAMN TIME!

Alright, I'm done. I'm dropping the mic Randy Watson style to let you ponder on the greatness and to peep his mindset.

Wired.com: At the end of the day you're still zero for three; you have so far failed to put a rocket into orbit.

Musk: We haven't gotten into orbit, true, but we've made considerable progress. If it's an all-or-nothing proposition then we've failed. But it's not all or nothing. We must get to orbit eventually, and we will. It might take us one, two or three more tries, but we will. We will make it work.

Wired.com: How do you maintain your optimism?

Musk: Do I sound optimistic?

Wired.com: Yeah, you always do.

Musk: Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.

(Thanks Dustin Curtis and Dexter Zhuang for the link)

Till next time

Resources for Young Entrepreneurs

Hey BFTD'ers, I hope you enjoyed my session. Here are a list of resources that are useful to young 'treps interested in creating businesses. Enjoy and Thanks!

Websites

Inc.com (also a magazine)

Entrepreneur.com (also a magazine)

How to Make a Million Dollars (Presentation by millionaire Marshall Brain)

TechCrunch.com

BusinessWeek.com (also a magazine)

Young Entrepreneur

GenJuice.com

PaulGraham.com

Mixergy.com (update 11/13/2012 - don't know how I forgot this)

Earn1k.com (update 11/13/2012)

Magazines

Inc

Entrepreneur

Fast Company

BusinessWeek

Books

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Upstart Start-ups: How 34 Young Entrepreneurs Overcame Youth, Inexperience, and Lack of Money to Create Thriving Businesses by Ron Lieber

The Young Entrepreneur's Edge: Using Your Ambition, Independence, and Youth to Launch a Successful Business by Jennifer Kushnell

The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino

The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz

Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk

The Knack by Norm Brodsky

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore

Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank

Clubs

Young Entrepreneur Society

Kairos Society

Young Entrepreneurs Alliance

US Youth Chamber

Young Entrepreneurs Network

SCORE

Young Entrepreneurs Council

What else am I missing? Please leave comments!