Earlier this evening we had the pleasure to attend IdeaMensch 48, a 48 state tour put on my good friend Mario to help gather people who want to bring ideas to life.
In honor of a great evening, we wanted to share a couple highlights from a few speakers ...
Philip Rosedale // Founder of Second Life & Coffee and Power
Philip discussed how amazing silicon valley is for people with great ideas and a drive to change the world.
'People think that entrepreneurs are crazy, but in fact starting a company in San Francisco is a safe bet. There is 10 times the start up density of other American cities here in Silicon Valley -- that's 5 times better than New York City and 3 times better than Seattle.'
'9 out of 10 companies do in fact fail, and being in an environment that is flush with these connections is priceless. San Francisco is a great place to completely bomb a company walk into a bar and meet next employer, co-founder or conceive the next big idea.'
Sarah Lacy // Founder of PandoDaily
The most important thing we pulled from Sarah's speech revolved around hiring.
'I have a 24 hour hiring window. If we make an offer to a prospective employee, they have exactly 24 hours to accept or deny that offer before it is completely taken off the table.'
'We don't want to have to over sell employees. As we recruit new employees, we we hire individuals who are either immediately 100% in or not.'
Aaron Schwartz // Founder of Modify Industries
Aaron couldn't say it enough: customer service is the most important facet of Modify Watches customer experience.
'Customer service is focus #1 of everything that we do. We want to be proactive in the way that we make the customer's experience as great as possible.'
'Word of mouth is the result of a positive customer experience.'
Bring Wong // Founder of Kiip
Brian's discussion centered around one central idea: Getting lucky.
He had a few pieces of advice to help generate some lucky.
- Start Playing: Stop going to coffee, talking about it endlessly or comping up new designs ... Go out and start something!
- Surround Yourself With Other Lucky People: Lucky people surround themselves with other successful individuals.
- It's All About Relative Luck: Seeing the 'big picture' is important, but it's critically important to reward mini-victories along the way.
- Think Really Big: Think really big!
