Mark Suster was a consultant working for Andersen Consulting (Accenture) for 10 years before he found his first company, then it was sold. He found his 2nd company and sold to Salesforce.com and became a VC based in Los Angeles. He talks about his failure, success, and lessons learned as a budding entrepreneur and a venture capitalist.
- Idea – Don’t have to be a genius to start a company unless you want to be a Google…99% of companies are not Google..but you still can do really well.
- Get Started.
- Being an entrepreneur is not sexy.
- You need to be passionate about it.
- Need to do some research.
- Get a prototype built.
- Start on your own.
- Huge premium for taking the first leap.
- Co-founder myth reinforced by selective bias – Sergey and Larry; Jerry and David.
- Make sure technology is part of your DNA if internet or technology is your business.
- Raise capital, but not too much.
- Start lean.
- You can “go fat” later in life.
- Why the “fail fast” mantra must fail.
- Branding
- Avoid the 3 F’s (friends, family, fools)
- Funding – Angels vs. VCs
- How to access investors.
- You need an anchor investor.
- Skate where the puck is going.
- Ship product.
- Test monetization early.
- The sausage factory is never pretty.
- Have fun.
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