Report from the Start Conference and Day 3 of Birthday Celebration:

So the Start Conference, a disgusting amount of Rock Band with a few friends and a day long, day 2 birthday celebration with my sweetheart (consisting mostly of watching old movies and eating sinfully) has put be a bit behind. Still I wanted to recap what I picked up on Thursday because I had excellent time and left buzzing like a coked-out ferret.

In order then…

Session 1: Launching a Business that is not on the Web

I walked in late to this one (it’s my birthday and I wasn’t rushing) so only caught a few scattered details. Among them…

• Beloved San Francisco coffee establishment Ritual Roasters is opening a shop in Napa, which will shake up the mellow vibe in that wine growing reason significantly.

• Somehow in my travels, I have missed Rare Device, an art gallery/shop in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, not too far from the girlfriend’s workplace. When to correct this oversight and visit? Hmmmm.
• Overheard during panel: Grockit is a startup experiment in worldwide peer-to-peer learning (i.e. does everyone in the world have something to teach everyone else and can we all learn something new from one another). Founder is an old friend Michael Buffington.

Session 2: Marc Hedlund, founder of Wesabe.

Mr. Hedlund gave a rundown of 5 principles one should hold near their heart when beginning any entrepreneurial endeavor. My comments in italics.

• Do the idea that won’t leave you alone. Hooray for saying this one out loud. Too often in technology, ideas are rewarded for being well-thought out, clever or well-timed. Which are all good things but "clever" doens’t get you out of bed day after day or enable you to stay home from Free Biscuit Night at your local soul food restaurant to work and feel good about it. Hard work that doesn’t fell like hard work comes from passion and since passion is an intense, usually outward emotion, the average geek finds scairwee to express, it can be deprioritzed at the beginning of a project, which is deadly. Put simpler, you gotta love what you’re doing with ardor, not careful respect.

• Only work with people you like and respect. Easy. Jerks are toxic and piss in the pool where the whole team floats. See Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room for what happens when you let jerks  run things because their success is valued more than their character.

• A good idea is not a business. A great need is. See Principle #1. Who does your idea serve other than you? Does it ignite someone else’s passion and not just yours?

• The best way to get funding is not need it. This also applies to a job interview, getting published, any professional relationship where one party can make something happen for another. That imbalance of power is corrected when the asking party comes across as doing just fine, thank you. No one wants to be in business with someone desperate or needy. They want to jump on a train leaving the station and going places. This has applications far beyond business. Do you want to date someone who needs your affection to feel whole or someone who’s leading a winning life already?

• No means maybe. Yes means maybe. This has something to do with venture capital but I either didn’t understand or wasn’t listening. Wasn’t exactly an inspiring way to end but the first four were platinum.

Session 3: David Hornik, August Capital

       I don’t get Silicon Valley-style VC at all but if ever that industry had a human face, it’s Dave Hornik who grew up in a socialist Jewish home, wears jeans and converse to work and blogs about his business at VentureBlog.

I’ve met Dave. He’s normal, real, and is doing for venture capital what Carl Sagan did for astronomy. He’s welcome to leverage my upside or mid-manage my arbitrage or whatever you call it anytime.

Session 4: Julie Davidson and Narendra Rocherolle, founders of 30Boxes.

This husband and wife team also run 83 Degrees, a software consultancy firm that also mentors other small companies. There was a lot of business jargon here I didn’t really understand. So I mostly left with the impression that you have to be very healthy to work with your spouse.

Session 5: Merlin Mann.

• "People who leverage the openness of the Internet for their own selfish reasons need to be told that that’s wrong."
• "Do not become a professional nuisance."
• "How do we bring the entrepreneurial spirit to everything we d
• "It never hurts to surround yourself with really smart people who know how to communicate."

Here here.

Thanks everyone. I had a great time with you on my birthday.

• Category: Our Web, Ourselves.