Howard Lindzon » Entrepreneurship

Deep Entrepreneur Thoughts…Dow 8,000 or 12,000 – Does it Matter ?

Howard — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:03:03 +0000

Since I am way more entrepreneur than market investor the last few years, I have had trouble blogging consistently. A play by play of my life as an entrepreneur has just never felt right. Looking back, that was a mistake.

Since I started this blog in 2005 I have written many times and through many different markets that ‘It’s always a good time to start a business’ and this Labor Day is no different.

While investors/traders worry about the next 100 Dow points, you should be focusing on your business and customers.

I still think back to the year 1999 when the Dow crossed 10,000 and CNBC had a party. Sadly, I remember where I was..on vacation…and watching CNBC.

We spoofed the whole idea on a Wallstrip back in 2006 when the Dow crossed 12,000:

Now the Dow has rallied 50 percent to get to 9,500 .

Now, Michael Moore will cash in on crashing the AIG offices even though we did this same stuff back in 2006 with Goldman Sachs $gs when few cared what went on behind those walls:

Timing is sometimes everything, but not something you can bottle or buy.

Basically we have gone backwards since 1999 yet billions have been made by entrepreneurs not focused on the stock market.

In a global sense, only a handful of people will make money on the Dow moving to 12,000 or 8,000 next.

The market is so fantastic because it is a great way to keep score. That’s why ESPN has been so successful and why the market moves towards 24/7/365 and not 2 days a week. I blogged recently that the world would be more productive if we closed our markets for three more days/week, but it’s just an opinion and would probably lead to further chaos.

Just because the market is open though, does not mean you need to watch it.

Just like time goes faster if you do not watch the clock, your business will grow faster if you stop staring at your present situation.

The opportunities are greater today than ever, whether the world is shrinking or expanding – where there is globalization or localization.

The chaotic and dire market and economic arguments are perfectly documented. To speak of opportunity is taboo. We have 24 hour television networks for EVERYTHING save entrepreneurs. That’s a shame, but also an opportunity (note to self).

Paul Graham had a great essay this weekend on ‘The Anatomy of Determination . If you are not out there making it happen for YOURSELF, than you are just in the prediction business which seems kind of sad. Predicting is fun and can be profitable, but rolling up your sleeves and making shit happen is the road to fulfillment.

The top 100 Entrepreneurs of the last 100 years had a lot of their fortune tied to the stock market, but it was their profitable businesses that made them rich.

Few get rich trading and fewer flipping their businesses.

It’s time we all got back to building and supporting great businesses and the entrepreneurs that will drag us out of this trough in the business cycle.

Web Trends…The $100k for My Kid's Education Better Spent on a Their Start-Ups

Howard — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 04:27:21 +0000

Paul Graham’s essay – The Future of Web Startups – has become pretty viral in the VC and Nerd Community. Rightly so…it’s awesome. Not so much for the thoughts, but for the organization of them and the structure.

Trader Mike linked to it yesterday and this morning I see it on Fred’s blog .

I have spent the last few years thinking and trying to prove that it does not matter where you call home to a web start-up. I still believe that the management and investor group make the difference, but Paul has a different point of view and a great one:

The question of whether to be in a startup hub is like the question of whether to take outside investment. The question is not whether you need it, but whether it brings any advantage at all. Because anything that brings an advantage will give your competitors an advantage over you if they do it and you don’t. So if you hear someone saying “we don’t need to be in Silicon Valley,” that use of the word “need” is a sign they’re not even thinking about the question right.

I have long thought that college for my kids will not be very important. We have lost the education race to China and India. Sorry…over! It’s just not important to our leadership. We try and encourage creativity in our house. We believe strongly in EQ not just IQ in our home.

I love Paul’s take on the subject. For the most part, connectivity, communication and social skills will rule the day for our children in the U.S. We better have them, because selling our culture (a post from May 2006, pre Google/YouTube) is our last great resource . Here’s the excerpt from Paul’s essay:

8. College Will Change

If the best hackers all start their own companies after college instead of getting jobs, that will change what happens in college. Most of these changes will be for the better. I think the experience of college is warped in a bad way by the expectation that afterward you’ll be judged by potential employers.

One of the most obvious changes will be in the meaning of “after college,” which will change from when one graduates from college to when one leaves it. If you’re starting your own company, why do you need a degree? We don’t encourage people to start startups during college, among other things because it gives them a socially acceptable excuse for quitting, but the best founders are certainly capable of it. Some of the most successful companies we’ve funded were started by undergrads.

I grew up in a time where college degrees seemed really important, so I’m alarmed to be saying things like this, but there’s nothing magical about a degree. There’s nothing that magically changes after you take that last exam. The importance of degrees is due solely to the administrative needs of large organizations. These can certainly affect your life—it’s hard to get into grad school, or to get a work visa in the US, without an undergraduate degree—but tests like this will matter less and less.

As well as mattering less whether students get degrees, it will also start to matter less where they go to college. In a startup you’re judged by users, and they don’t care where you went to college. So in a world of startups, elite universities will play less of a role as gatekeepers. In the US it’s a national scandal how easily children of rich parents game college admissions. But the way this problem ultimately gets solved may not be by reforming the universities but by going around them. We in the technology world are used to that sort of solution: you don’t beat the incumbents; you redefine the problem to make them irrelevant.

The greatest value of universities is not the brand name or perhaps even the classes so much as the other students you meet there. If it becomes common to start a startup after college, people may start consciously trying to maximize this. Instead of focusing on getting internships with companies they want to work for, students may start to focus on working with other students they want as cofounders.

What students do in their classes will change too. Instead of trying to get good grades to impress future employers, students will try to learn things. We’re talking about some pretty dramatic changes here.

The whole section brings back memories of one of my fave Rodney Dangerfield movies.. ‘Back to school’ where in his keynote to graduating schools his advice is to “GO BACK”.

$100k for My Kid's Education Better Spent on a Their Start-Ups" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="horizontal" data-via="">

Trivop.com is Awesome…Need one for GOLF COURSES

Howard — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:17:22 +0000

I am ready to angel this idea if someone can bring me the right plan.

The good news is that Trivop.com is already doing this for the hotel industry.

I have not seen this idea done yet in many verticals that need it. Golf would be a winner. Good demographics for advertising dollars and great exit potential.

Business 2.0 magazine has a great look at 31 of the hottest global start-ups . I love looking through these lists. Great way to start a week.

Wallstrip is out west this week putting some great shows together and interviews with Silicon Valley insiders. Stay Tuned.

Is the Glass 'Half Full' or 'Half Empty'

Howard — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 06:32:43 +0000

Trading the markets can make your head screwy. Reading Bill Fleckenstein or Jim Rogers can make you look at the world as ‘All Empty’. They can afford to think like this. Remember that!

I have learned that I am a ’3/4 Full’ guy. I am naturally enthusiastic and although I know guys like Bill and Jim are smart and successul, reading them does not make me money. It actually messes with my head.

It’s good cocktail banter for an asshat party.

Same thing in the entrepreneur world I live in. I have blogged about it somewhere, but I believe it is always a good time to start a business.

I was surfing my blogroll tonight and Brad linked to Dick Costello, CEO of Feedburner , and this great post on entrepreneurship .

Here’s a snippet:

It seems silly to me that one would worry about the general market when starting a company, but obviously it’s a bit of a common theme. So, that led me to wonder what would cause you to have that kind of mindset, and what I think I am really hearing is fear of failure. I think the questions are really “is this environment one in which it will be harder for me to succeed?”, and I will therefore provide a simple answer to this question: Every market is one in which it will be harder for you to succeed. If access to capital is plentiful, then there will be more companies chasing that capital and more well-funded ventures against which you must compete. If access to capital is scarce, however, it will be harder for you to raise money and you will have to endure more investor-friendly terms on financing and have to show more business model progress in advance of further funding. If there are few competitors in your market, then you need to evangelize your value proposition more passionately to the market in order to gain traction. If there are many competitors in your market, then you need to distinguish yourself from competitors more thoroughly. If you’re a first-mover, why should anybody need your new service, if you’re a follower, why should anybody switch to your service?

Lot’s of awesomeness in this post. Dick’s a cool guy and I have chatted wih him a few times. Glad he is blogging regularly.