"Epic introductions of History" - Page/Brin

Since you have access to Internet I am guessing that you might have heard of Google Inc. founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. there's no romance in how they met but given the impact of their venture I considered worth of an "Epic introductions of History" entry.

Brin immigrated to the United States with his family from the Soviet Union at the age of six. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland, following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps by studying mathematics, as well as computer science. After graduation, he moved to Stanford University to acquire a Ph.D. in computer science. There he met Larry Page, who was in search of a dissertation theme and considered exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a huge graph. later they became friends. They crammed their dormitory room with inexpensive computers and applied Brin's data mining system to build a superior search engine. The program became popular at Stanford and they suspended their PhD studies to start up Google in a rented garage. The rest is History,...

if you want to try Bizlinks Beta please write to fredi@bizlinksapp.com, Thanks ^^

"Startup tales" - second but not last,... by now

We didn't think we were the only team developing a product to solve the same need, did we? well,...maybe we thought we were super-smart asses for a while but then reality kicked in.

Of course there is competition and we have to deal with it!  But there are many reasons why being a fast follower might be good, see fast follower, first mover disadvantage (by John Greathouse). Sometimes we let the great stories set false expectations of an easy way. We should be smarter than that, and the sooner we realize it the better we'll be. In fact, our team is composed by former athletes and competition is not a novelty for us, we just need to adjust. And if we ever feel too far behind, there are some words from Mark Suster that I'd like to remember (see his post, definitely worth reading: "Startups are all naked in the mirror")

 “Look.  I know that you keep reading about how our competitors seem to been going from strength-to-strength in the press.  I know that we’ve made some mistakes.  I know that we haven’t brought in revenue as quickly as we had hoped.  I know it sucks that we had to reduce staff.

But here is the problem.  You’re only reading our competitor’s press releases.  Your reading the good stuff.  And you’re looking at ourselves naked in the mirror.  You see all of our flaws.  And I acknowledge that there are many.  But when you see them they’re wearing their fancy outfits, look stylish and ready to go out on the town.  They’re masking their internal flaws.  And you know that they have many flaws, too.  I’m betting more than we have.

I promise you that inside their offices they’re reading our great press releases, wishing life was as easy for them as it was at our company.  They’re looking at themselves naked in their mirrors, too.  Believe me.  They haven’t hit their revenue targets.  They’ve had staff defections.  They’re working evenings and weekends.

You need to stop comparing our internal issues with their press releases.  Every company has growing pains.  Every competitor is resource constrained.  We’re all scared that the next round of funding won’t come.

So please try to keep your confidence.  We’ve assembled a great team of people that are each expert in what you do.  If we all stay focused on serving our customers and delivering as best we can every day then we’ll be fine.  The minute you lose confidence we’re finished.  Bad morale is the enemy of any company let alone a start up.”

by Mark Suster

Scout Scout Scout ! Not just competition but also getting feedback from users and clients, Now !  It's the only way we can keep moving forward.

Have a great week ahead - Fredi :)

"Epic introductions of History" - Jobs/Wozniak

Bill Fernandez, one of the first apple employees 

I guess most of the readers won't be familiar with the name of Bill Fernandez. Are you? Well, he is just the student that introduced Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, two geniuses in their own fields. There is no doubt now on the impact of this couple made in the world after they met in 1970 in the beautiful Northern California.

Do you imagine what would have happened if Jobs had never met Wozniak in first place? Maybe the first personal computer created by Wozniak would have never be launched in the market. Maybe some other smart guy would have years later. Maybe Jobs would have stayed in India looking for enlightenment or end up working at HP, who knows? Since we could speculate on what could have happened for hours, let's talk about the facts.

Currently Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world by capitalization, one of the big players in developing disruptive technologies and products as the Mac, Ipod, Iphone,... and who knows what else is there to come from them given the huge amount of talent inside Cuppertino's offices. Unfortunately the talents of Steve Jobs is no longer with Apple but its culture still reflects the spirit of who once was the legendary CEO.

Would Jobs have become JOBS without Wozniak, I doubt it; Would Wozniak's inventions impact in such scale without Jobs, I doubt it too. So I thank Bill for his addition to one of the most stunning partnerships that ever existed.

"Startup tales" - falling down the Rabbit's hole

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to", said the Cat.
"I don't much care where,..." said Alice.
"then it doesn't matter which way you go", said the Cat.

Alice Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Sometimes finding the way might be difficult, but if we keep in mind where we want to go we'll be sure to get there eventually. Same goes for businesses, we are currently in a really early stage as a startup but the excitement and the vision is so strong that we don't want to spoil the moment by thinking too much about the risks and problems ahead.

Don't get me wrong, we are taking in consideration all the good and bad that might happen but number one rule is plan for the worst, hope for the best. One think is for sure, if the outcome of our venture is not successful is not going to be for lack of talent in our team. 

Personally I have failed in more than one venture and I have learnt a lot from those. But it's the first time I have the chance to team up with outstanding people and that is going to turn the odds in our favor. It's true that by definition those odds are against us... who cares? we are falling dawn the rabbit's hole and enjoying every second. Even small little things like setting our email accounts are reasons to be excited. 

We want to help professionals to be connected, to save their time, to be more efficient. Isn't that a good value proposition? Let's see if we can communicate it well.

How many events do we attend in a year? How long does it take to find the right people in those events? Who is currently attending?

We are creating a tool that anyone with a LinkedIn profile can use. We want to help our users to search, find and discover networking opportunities,.... in real life.

and that from our point of view,...it's freaking cool

Bizlinks Team :)

bizlinksapp.com

"1min in Networking" - we all need each other

Keith Ferrazzi took a very wise and simple approach on how to achieve your personal goals in his book "Never eat alone".

"Do you want to become a CEO or a senator? Rise to the top of your profession or to the top of your child's school board? Make more money or more friends? The more specific you are about what you want to do, the easier it becomes to develop a strategy to accomplish it. Part of that strategy, of course, is establishing relationships with the people in your universe who can help you get where you are going."

In this age of communication we do have easy access to huge amount of contacts we could not imagine to find some years ago. But we should ask ourselves if the quality of those contacts we find are strong enough to help and build a meaningful relationship. We have to think wisely on how to approach them and how we can help them achieving their goals as much as ours. There won't be a better introduction than a good smile and a hand shake to start a good long-term professional relationship.