Eric Benhamou's 10 Lessons for Entrepreneurs
Artiman Ventures hosted a nice event yesterday evening. One of the speakers was Eric Benhamou, former CEO of 3COM and Chairman of Palm. Here are his 10 lessons for entrepreneurs:
1) Passion - your idea has to be all consuming. If it doesn't occupy all your thoughts, it's not quite right.
2) Need many iterations - you'll go through lots of iterations before you've got the exact right plan.
3) Not all VCs and partners are created equal. There's huge variation. You need to find the right firm and the right person.
4) Need advice from other people than VCs. Make sure you get informal advisors who have deep operating experience.
5) Instrument your company early. Figure out metrics and dashboard. It should be just enough, not too complex, and very clear.
6) You don't have a business until you validate through a paying customer. Don't fool yourself. Be worried until then that you are smoking something you shouldn't be.
7) Good governance habits are put into place early.
8) Start a global company.
9) Startups spend the most money on human capital. Yet they spend less time being discriminating hirerers than most people spend comparison shopping for a new plasma TV. Many hires are done on gut feel rather than detailed evaluation and a structured process. So take the time to hire great people.
10) Make your vision and values explicit.
On hiring: "I always prefer potential over experience... except in the case of internal auditors."
1) Passion - your idea has to be all consuming. If it doesn't occupy all your thoughts, it's not quite right.
2) Need many iterations - you'll go through lots of iterations before you've got the exact right plan.
3) Not all VCs and partners are created equal. There's huge variation. You need to find the right firm and the right person.
4) Need advice from other people than VCs. Make sure you get informal advisors who have deep operating experience.
5) Instrument your company early. Figure out metrics and dashboard. It should be just enough, not too complex, and very clear.
6) You don't have a business until you validate through a paying customer. Don't fool yourself. Be worried until then that you are smoking something you shouldn't be.
7) Good governance habits are put into place early.
8) Start a global company.
9) Startups spend the most money on human capital. Yet they spend less time being discriminating hirerers than most people spend comparison shopping for a new plasma TV. Many hires are done on gut feel rather than detailed evaluation and a structured process. So take the time to hire great people.
10) Make your vision and values explicit.
On hiring: "I always prefer potential over experience... except in the case of internal auditors."
2 Comments:
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Eric makes valid points, and quite similar to the common sense issues raised by Guy Kawasaki in his book ART OF THE START. I think I would also add another few points in here from IMRAN's theory of "Four 'I's"
"Imagine, Implement, Incorporate, Innovate" ™.
- If people are not telling you it can't be done, you're not doing something really great
- If people are not calling you crazy, you need to get more creative or passionate or both :-)
- If you are not scared that you will mess this up big time, then you are not taking it seriously enough.
- If you are too scared you will mess this up, you'll never get started, much less do it right or wrong.
- If you don't START what you're GOING to do, don't call it a startup (I should know, I do this all the time)
Imran
http://IMRAN.COM
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