I
worked my way through the first three weeks at the University of Reykjavik and
I probably understand much better what
studying really means for me now compared to the last 3 semester back at my
university in Berlin.
That doesn’t mean that I wasted any minute in my life or regret (almost)
any decision. I will turn 25 next month, I’m in the second year of my Bachelor’s,
I took around 1,5 years off before I got to the point to decide to start studying. And
that’s what life is about, doing things you’ve never done before, making these
unique experiences, building up your own vision of life and setting up all the
adjustments to CHANGE the world to a better place.
So far so good, but how does
that fit to a startup?
Let’s
reflect the last couple of weeks to see what I’ve learned about startups so far
and why I chose this obvious quote this time…
“No school can teach you to be a good CEO.”
Bala
Kamallakharan
Of course a uni can teach you stuff like Management,
Leadership or even Marketing and techniques how to become
what you want, but just listening to that doesn’t turn you into a good
entrepreneur. What really matters is your enthusiasm, your faith in your idea, because that is what keeps you motivated and convinces investors
and founders to join your startup. The 6 counter-intuitive beliefs about
startups Bala mentioned, based on Paul Grahams’ talk a year ago in Stanford University, emphasize what I mean:
#1 Startups are weird ,
don’t follow your instinct
#2 You don’t need expertise in startups to succeed
#3 Gaming the system in startups doesn’t work
#4 Startups are all-consuming
#5 You can’t tell if you succeed doing a startup
#6 Don’t consciously think of startup ideas to do a startup
Well, my conclusion out of the first part of the lecture and
the last couple of weeks is that this fast growing business model is something
special. Everybody can do it, but not everybody will do it the right way
because there is no right way. There is a little guidance available and there
might be a few people who are willing to support and join you. Nevertheless, to draw attention to
your idea and your team you have to bring the idea to life and start talking to the people and
networking.
“SomethingVentured” - the documentary film about the evolvement of the venture
capitalism in the mid-20th Century was a matching second part of the
third lecture. It showed us how everything started. In this highly risky
business, the focus is not on the money, it’s rather on whether the entrepreneur
is able to lead a startup and reach his vision by using Venture Capitalists as mentors and experts as well as their business networks. For instance, many
VCs didn’t see the capability of Apple (or Airbnb and Uber) as a unicorn and neglected
to support Apple as a startup in their
early ages. Now they are surprised at Apple’s success and regret not having
invested in the first place.
Quote
of the movie from Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari) about an investment in
Apple:
“He asked me if I would put $50,000 in and he would give me a third of the company. I was so smart, I said no. Big mistake! “
So it’s up to you if you
wanna call it a mistake or learning for the future.
Like Professor Dave Valliere mentioned in the book "Startup Opportunities":
"... that most VC have a one to ten chance that investments become successful. But most VC investors are unable to learn from it because they are caught in their own over-confidence."
Again, life is about
making these experiences, going a rocky path includes detours towards the
summit. This Reykjavik street art I discovered the other day visualizes the
long and tough way to the summit very well.
