Jason Clarke

This session was an unexpected treat. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing Dave Sifry (of Technorati) speak before now, but it’s clear he was born to do it. He made great use of the time he had. The first half of his talk was a brief lecture, lessons he has learned in being an entrepreneur, encapsulated into a set of rules. The second half involved getting people involved in sharing a bit about what they’re about, and a “leadership hack”. Here are my notes:

Dave’s “Rules for Entrepreneurs” (stolen right from his first slide)

• Find your passion
• Team, team, team (A players hire A players, B players hire C players)
• Lead, don’t manage
• Develop leaders
• Prepare for the scalability traps
• Back of the napkin it! (A business model should fit on the back of a napkin for it to be viable, otherwise it’s too complicated)
• Remember, it is a business
• Vision is easy, execution is hard
• Fail fast
• Be of Service

Notable quote: “Starting a new business is an intensely egocentric act; you’re basically saying ‘I know better than all of you.’” (funny moment; Dave delivered that line with his middle finger extended). “So you’d better be passionate about it.”

Leadership / Entrepreneur Hacks from attendees:

• Give it away, it’ll come back 10x
• If it’s not working, change it
• Get passionate about what you’re doing
• Tell the truth, be willing to cut your losses when something goes bad
• Never underestimate the challenge in getting something off the ground
• Make listening and communication top priorities
• Never underestimate the motivation of a noble cause
• Say “thank you”
• Find out what motivates people
• Patience – you may have to wait for the market to be ready for your idea
• Be willing to reinvent yourself
• Figure out how to get customers from day one
• Once you have customers, listen to them
• Document your assumptions, so others working with you know what’s going on
• Hire people that are passionate about your product or company
• Keep (make) it real – getting out of the basement into an office can clarify and solidify your resolve
• Always build the bare-minimum product necessary to ship
• Keep perspective
• “Indecision is decision” – “I’d rather make a wrong decision than no decision” (’cause then you can fix it)
• Create a culture that makes meaning for your employees and customers
• Whether you’re conscious of it or not, your corporate culture is being built – so be conscious of building it
• Figure out what your mantra is – for Technorati it’s “be of service”
• If you’re going to go to the trouble of hiring a good team, then trust them
• Ship the bare minimum, and don’t be afraid to iterate
• You not only need to be open to serendipity, you need to invite it.
• Once you find a thread of interest, follow it even if nobody understands what you’re up to
• Look for reasons why you’re wrong
• Aim high – the worst you can do is aim low and miss

[tags] leadership, leadership hacks, entrepreneurship, Dave Sifry, Sifry, NorthernVoice, Northern Voice, Moose Camp, MooseCamp [/tags]