Therefore, by nature, entrepreneurs need to be eternal optimists, otherwise, they will give up way too soon. Who are the best sales people of their ideas? The ones who are enthusiastic and passionate about their ideas — all born of optimism!

All the stats are against entrepreneurs, as 9 out of 10 small businesses fail within the first two years. Hey, you got to have a lot of optimism to look past those odds. Many entrepreneurs who have failed will try again until they succeed. That’s from inner optimism and belief. Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, had three failed ventures before he made his initial fortune with Synder Communications, LP. Now, that’s an optimsitic person. I’m sure he believes his football team can get better too. Good luck.

 I’ve recently met with some local entrepreneurs who have endured difficult times due to the down economy. They remain optimistic, however, with the improving economic condition. They see the potential of their ideas. Of course, they do. They are optimists.

Stay true to your dreams, and keep on believing!

“It’s like getting to ride the coolest, baddest roller coaster. It’s exciting just thinking about getting on board. Then, that first ride is so exhilarating that you want to do it again, and again. But when you’ve had enough and are finally ready to get off, the ride conductor smirks, telling you that you don’t get to choose when you can get off.

“Swoooosh… you’re off on another and another ride”.

Some people can’t take the ride for too long. Others chicken out and leave the line even before the first ride. Then, there are those who never want to get off. The thrill drives them. They are start-up junkies or even deal junkies. They thrive on the wide gyrations of emotions. On any given day, your vision is headed for unimaginable success, or it is about to crumble on top of you.

Want a ride?

Writing a compelling business plan is a lot of work and quite difficult for most. So, as an entrepreneur, you must assess if you have the time and ability to create one. I’ve seen a lot of young entrepreneurs lose focus on their business execution points while trying to draft up a professional document. If a business has momentum, losing an entrepreneur’s focus away from the daily management to write a business plan for potential investors may be too costly in the end.

That’s why I advise young entrepreneurs to solicit professional help when possible. If cash flow is tight, find someone who will work for some equity, or will take payment only from a successful raise. The dilution is usually a low cost for the ability to create real value to your business plan. Too often, inexperienced business owners get fixated on the percentage of ownership. A hundred percent ownership of a business with no market value does not amount to much (or anything at all). As a startup business owner, your goal is to create value, and that could mean sharing some equity for services.

So, if you are looking for someone to help you, here are some tips:

1. Make sure the business consultant had previous success raising money for companies
2. Clearly understand what the consultant’s role was in the previous success, and then validate his/her claims
3. Evaluate how quickly the consultant understands your business KPIs
4. Make sure that the consultant asks some critical questions about  your business model. He/she should make you feel uncomfortable at times with the line of questioning. You’re not looking for a cheerleader.
5. Evaluate his/her network within the investment community
6. If something sounds too good to be true, it is.

I wanted to host the meeting at my personal residence and put in extra personal effort toward making the evening enjoyable. I cooked blue-cheese crusted filet mignons with red wine sauce, and had some nice wines lined up from a ’06 Groth Reserve Cabernet for the steaks to a ’85 Elysium for dessert, and many others in between. If you have good filets and wines, it’s really hard to mess up a meal. The dinner was a way of showing personal appreciation for the shareholders’ trust and support. The evening allowed me to serve them, symbolic of what I’m trying to do everyday as the CEO of Lift9 to all our stakeholders.

The current shareholders are our initial (seed) investor family and an employee partner. As the founder, I have controlling shares, but still need everyone’s understanding and support around our progress and direction.

Many entrepreneurs do not like managing their shareholders or board. Yet, it’s a critical part of their job and one that they should take seriously — and personally.

With experience, however, you come to expect these twists and turns. In fact, you kind of get some enjoyment out of it. Despite these varying emotions, certain principles are generally true. Growth, for example, is almost never represented by the infamous hockey stick graph.

Growth for a startup usually happens in stair steps. A startup moves along a horizontal line (with some variances) until hitting a wall. That wall represents the barrier to the next plateau for the company. It could be that a startup has launched and found some anchor clients. The principles in the business are so occupied by the demands of the anchor clients that they cannot focus on business management. Yet, the word of mouth effect from servicing those clients is putting some pressure to expand. Well, you’ve just hit that wall leading to the next plateau. The company can only take the next step in growth by addressing these pending issues. Once resolved and perched on the next plateau, the same pattern will most likely be repeated with a new set of challenges — the next level of company development.

Understanding the ‘stair step’  pattern of growth will help start-up companies understand why everyone seems to be running faster but the company is not still growing properly.

I’m always wary of business plans that have a linear growth projections. That sounds logical in a business school classroom or it looks good on a spreadsheet, but I haven’t really experienced such growth in my past. Things are difficult to start, then you get in a rhythm with your first customers. Eventually the business beat changes. There are new and unfamiliar pressures on the business. It takes leadership at that point to scale to the next level and return to a comfortable (but more sophisticated) rhythm.

Ben presented at the KAC (Korean-American Coalition) Networking Social last night, sharing the history behind his internet success. He mesmerized the packed gathering with his easy charisma. He said his job is like being the world’s worse comedian who can still make people laugh. He doesn’t have to tell any jokes, just show content submitted by the public. Ah, vive la web 2.0! And long live entrepreneurs like Ben who know how to provide compelling and valuable platforms that make us happy.

Ben is a local internet star, getting a lot of media attention. Yet, he remains humble and funny. He is engaging and authentic, critical traits for any successful web personality. He speaks easily, and answers all questions. He said he became an entrepreneur because he hated his job at the time. His motivation was not a driving ambition to become rich, but a desire to do something he would enjoy.  He shared that he doesn’t own cats. In fact, he is actually allegoric to cats, but he certainly loves cat photos. Ben said his biggest current challenge is finding the right people for his growing team. Amen (A repeated theme on this blog).

Entrepreneurs can learn a lot from Ben. To be successful, you need to be passionate about what you do. A web entrepreneur needs to be authentic and transparent. And oh, it’s nice to have a business plan that includes zero cost “inventory”.

___________________________

Cheezburger is one of the largest blog networks in the world where more than 12 million people come every month to get their daily dose of laughter. With 220 million page views per month, the Cheezburger network of more than 30 blogs including I Can Has Cheezburger, FAIL Blog, GraphJam, Emails From Crazy People, ROFLrazzi, and There, I Fixed It is quickly becoming the new Internet media empire. Every day, more than 10,000 photos and videos are submitted and page views are growing at an annual clip of 300%. In addition to the blogs, a Cheezburger inspired book spent 13 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list during the winter of 2008. In the fall of 2009, three more books were released – ICHC: How to Take Over Teh Wurld, FAIL Nation, and GRAPH OUT LOUD.

Ben is a former journalist turned dot com entrepreneur who has a knack for nailing the zeitgeist. He has been credited with bringing Internet memes to the mainstream and popularizing Internet culture. The success of his business is attributed to his knowledge of memes, viral content, and crowd sourcing. Ben graduated with a BSJ from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Many think an entrepreneur’s first task is to come up with a killer concept. Yet, it’s been said many times that  ”ideas” can be a dime a dozen, but execution is where most fail. Who executes? The team. As Jim Collins points out in his book, “Good to Great”, first the Who? then the What?

Maybe it’s also because I’m not a technical whiz kid, or a genius financial mind that I keep stressing the team. Or, I’d like to think it could be that I’ve been involved with six startups and figured out what helps in success.

So, as I’m admiring the work of Seattle Mariners’ GM Jack Zduriencik this off season in putting together a more competitive professional baseball team, I’m reminded about my primary job of finding the right people for the the right jobs in my company. Like a baseball team, a startup environment requires everyone to be cohesive and supportive of one another.

Sometimes an entrepreneur needs to take risks on inexperienced people, or on an experienced person who has never been in a startup environment. You build such a team with an unwavering core philosophy about the type of team you want.  And when the team members need guidance, you coach them; when they prove themselves, you give them control. You always keep scalability and performance in mind.

In the end, it’s my job to look at ways to improve my team continuously based upon our performance against the competitive environment out there. If this means possibly bringing in more capital or merging with a complementary team or hiring faster, I will do so, always making sure that each new player within the company are complementary with one another. It’s my responsibility to ensure that the sum of the parts really make a much more compelling whole.

The character and performance of the team will ultimately be my scorecard as the founder of Lift9.

It’s a difficult question to answer because there are so many elements to being an entrepreneur. First, you need to be passionate about something. It has to be in your core. For many immigrants, they are passionate about their children and providing an opportunity for the next generation that they themselves never had. That drives many to amazing accomplishments. For others, the passion is about green energy, mobile technology, global health issues, and so forth.

Entrepreneurs also need a good support network of family and friends because owning your own business is not easy. It’s extremely time-consuming and emotionally draining.

Another very important component is the right personality. An entrepreneur cannot be risk-averse. In the type of businesses I’ve been involved with, I hire many very bright individuals with great business ideas. Some of them want to start their own businesses, and I know they have the intelligence and skills to be successful entrepreneurs. Yet, they lack the personality to actually be entrepreneurs. They are too risk-averse. And that’s fine because they can have fulfilling and financially rewarding careers within the corporate environment.

One time, a friend who is successfully climbing up the partner latter of a prestiguous consultancy asked me about entrepreneurship. I could tell he was thinking about possibly doing something on his own. Then, one night while driving together he started to panic because the gas gauge needle had just started touching the red empty mark. I laughed, and told him that making partner at his firm is a fantastic goal for him.

Since then, I’ve used that example with others who ask me about entrepreneurship. And a few have smiled and admitted they would panic as well. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Unfortunately many find out after an unsuccessful venture. Just do the “am I comfortable running on empty test” first.

Now, more good news seem to be on the way as Lift9 is moving fast toward an automated solution to accessing information from additional  ”closed” forum and review sites. Our social media analytics solution will encompass results from the best social media listening tools as well as from a specialized Lift9 web data aggregating tool, all manned by our own highly trained research center. The clients will receive accurate insights in the form of automated dashboards, report templates, as well as social media engagement and strategy support.

Stay tuned, more to come. I need to be somewhat discreet for the time being.

I hope you are all enjoying  ”in the zone” days as well.