If the Shoe Fits: What Entrepreneurs Need
by KG Charles-HarrisA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.
Last week KG Charles-Harris provided an overview of Vator Splash; today he asks questions critical to every entrepreneurs success and sanity.
Am I becoming jaded? Is there something I’m missing at conferences that others experience?
I recently attended Vator Splash in San Francisco, and unfortunately it was a disappointment. Yet another startup conference where some high-powered, successful speaker repeats the “5 Steps To Success” or some other topic addressed in a very superficial or trite manner.
There is never serious discussion around failure or how to deal with it.
I made an informal survey at the conference by asking two questions of most people I met:
“Have you maxed out your credit cards to fund your startup?”
“Have you received VC or Angel financing that has enabled you to get rid of your debt?”
Being a social guy, I made the rounds and spoke to a lot of people. Almost every entrepreneur I met had incurred significant debt to form the venture. And almost no one had received VC or Angel funding.
This aligns with the huge number of fellow entrepreneurs I have gotten to know over the years. Most have sacrificed greatly to see an idea or venture born.
Unfortunately I have never attended a conference that speaks to this topic – how does an entrepreneur get to the next step.
Most of these conferences seem to have a specific business model, i.e.,
- pick a successful entrepreneur as main speaker (usually a Stanford, Harvard or MIT graduate);
- present VC or Angel financing as the primary path to success;
- target people who didn’t attend any of the above mentioned institutions and make them believe that they can attain the same networks and capital as graduates from these institutions.
They sell the dream of VC funding without providing actual advice on how to
- penetrate the networks (let alone provide introductions);
- manage rejection;
- know when to give up before losing it all;
- manage personal finances, etc.
How useful are these conferences? Where can the masses of entrepreneurs who don’t fit the golden mold receive practical advice?
We need more than these events offer – we need something that helps us create success and assists us when dealing with failure.
KG Charles-Harris is CEO of Emanio and a special contributor to MAPping Company Success.
March 4th, 2015 at 11:01 am
The most effective resource at this point in my start-up is introductions to the right people. Meeting them directly doesn’t seem to have the same effect as an introduction.
March 9th, 2015 at 1:34 pm
Hi Ajo.
My apologies for the slow reply, I’m swamped and KG is underwater.
You are right in your analysis that the best connections are the result of introductions and this seems especially true when it comes to investors.
Partly it is a function of trust, i.e., I trust you because I trust the person who introduced us, which is ridiculous as I wrote in Who Do You Trust? in 2008 and KG touched on a couple of years ago in If the Shoe Fits: Facing Reality.
Beyond repeating what you already know, such as working your network, finding connections, etc., I suggest that you put part of your focus on developing your peer-and-below network, not just those who can directly help, by reaching out and helping them. One way to accomplish this is by responding on forums like Quora.
Use your expertise to build your visibility, so that even with no intro you will be a more know quantity when they google you.