Excerpts
2. Mission or Money?
Do something that excites you. Maybe it won’t succeed, but at least in the meantime you’ve enjoyed the huge part of your life that it ate up. At least if you love what you are doing, you have spent each day in eager anticipation of the next. And that to me is what life is all about.
3. Dreamers & Doers
Do you really want to be an entrepreneur? Many of the people who come to me with an idea for a business really don't. They say they do, but in truth lack the fire in the belly to step over the threshold. They are held back by an often invisible barrier of excuses and rationalizations. Instead of a fire in their belly, they have butterflies.
Think of this range of entrepreneurs as a spectrum. At one end are people who never even consider going into business for themselves. They want to work for a bank, a PPG, Alcoa or Mellon. Then, there are a bunch of other people who fantasize -- wouldn't it be nice to have my own company? I have talked to one friend no fewer than a dozen times about starting a company. The last time I told him to forget it and get a good job. If he was going to start a company, he would have done it years ago. It eventually became clear to me that he was in love with the fantasy of starting his own company, not actually doing it
5. Life lessons
At the beginning of the process there is an idea. But typically there is little else. You have no money, materials or people to help you. You just have an idea and you have to decide whether this will make a successful business or not. Isn’t that how we start out in life?
To get those other things, you have to be able to communicate with other people logically and with passion. You have to think clearly and communicate well. You have to position yourself and your idea as a winner.
You have to trot your vision for what your company should be for angel investors, venture capitalists, prospective employees, and prospective customers, and sometimes even suppliers. You have to explain your vision of life to potential spouses, friends, family, mentors and colleagues. You have to show how and why your business idea or your vision of life is better than the other ideas out there competing for their investment, talents, resources, time, attention, loyalty, friendship, trust and what not.
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Entrepreneurs cannot afford to look at their company through any but the most objective, rational, accurate lens. It may be your baby, but you have to look at it very rationally, very objectively in terms of its strengths and weaknesses. You have to know where to put your resources and what partners you need to shore up deficiencies. How much better parents we are when we bring this kind of keen, honest appraisal to our own families.
9. Starting with Nothing
One day I came home from Carnegie Mellon University where I was teaching to find my son, Alan, lying on the couch, munching crackers and watching TV. I also noticed that he was looking somewhat dejected. He had recently earned his MBA and most days he could be found sending out resumes and talking to prospective employers. So seeing him home in the middle of the afternoon was a surprise.
I said, “Alan, what’s wrong? What are you doing here in the middle of the afternoon lying on the couch watching TV?”
He said, “Dad, I've been everywhere and companies are just not hiring MBA people. So I don't know what to do.”
“Alan,” I said, “You know, you are one lucky son of a gun.”
He looked at me puzzled. “What do you mean lucky?”
“I’ll tell you what I mean. You could sign anything anyone puts in front of you, any IOUs, anything you want you could sign and what have you got to lose? I can't do that. If I want to take a risk and I put my name down I could lose a few dollars. I could lose more than a few dollars. You don't have anything. So in that sense you’re lucky – you could sign your name to anything and who cares? What have you got to lose?”
He still appeared puzzled.
“Look,” I said, “What I’m trying to say is if you can't find a company to work for, buy a company. There are little companies all over Pittsburgh where the owner wants to retire, maybe they want to go to Florida, or they had a fight with their partner. But it’s now for sale. Go find one of those companies and buy it.
“What's the worst that can happen? The worst is that the company goes belly up. What happens in that case? My guess is you lie on my couch, watch my TV, and eat my crackers, and that’s what you're doing now. I’ll bet you haven’t even looked into buying a company.”
13. Follow-up vs Pestering
One of Pittsburgh's most successful entrepreneurs was invited to speak to an MBA class at Carnegie Mellon University when I was teaching there. At the beginning of his talk he held up a batch of letters and said, "I was here last year and I brought the letters that you guys and gals sent me to apply for a job to work with me."
He paused and held up the thick bundle so everyone could see it.
"You know how many I responded to?" he asked.
Nobody raised a hand.
"Zero. And you know why?"
Another pause. "Not one person called me and said, 'Hey, I submitted a resume and I haven't heard. Would you mind telling me what you think and can we meet?' "
"Well," he went on, "if you don't have time to call me, I certainly don't have time to call you."
The moral? Push yourself over the pest-line. It’s probably further out than you think.
14. Titles
When another company bought us, the new management named me “Vice President.” But my partner, who had just a handful fewer shares of stock than I did, didn’t get the same title. So one day, I was attending one of the management meetings for the vice presidents, and I thought, “You know, this isn’t fair. I’m here, and my partner is back at the ranch.” So I announced to the assembled executives that I would like to have my partner given the title of vice president. Right away, one guy named Bernie says, “Jack, that’s crazy.”
“What’s a title worth?” I said. “Bernie, let me do this. You can stay Vice President, except your business cards cannot say “Vice President.” And any stationery you have, if it has ‘Vice President’ on it will have to be changed so that it has no title. And let’s do that beginning today. Do you mind?”
“Well,” he said, “Yes I mind.”
I said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you $500 to take the ‘Vice President’ off your business card. Now is that okay?”
“No.”
I said, “Well, I don’t know what a title is worth, but you just proved it’s worth at least $500.
29. Sweet Spot
More than 30 years ago I took a golf lesson. The instructor gave me a club, put this little ball on the ground and said, “Now let me see how far you can hit it.” Once you have a club in your hand, this little ball on the ground in front of you and that kind of challenge, something happens inside of you. Something powerful.
I looked at that ball and brought that club back and down with all my energy, just as hard as I could. I was going to kill that ball. Well, I hit the ball. Barely. It didn’t go very far. It just dribbled out in front of me.
The instructor said, “Jack, let me suggest something. Why don’t you relax? Take it easy. You’ll find that if you do, when you bring the club down through a full swing and the ball happens to be in the way, it’ll go a mile.”
I took 10 lessons in all, but I don’t think I learned anything more important than that. I have applied it in my own companies shared it with students I have mentored. I think there are times in the entrepreneurial experience when that simple little advice is the most important lesson to remember
32. Worrier or Warrior
When I was CEO of On-Line Systems, a public company, one of the things I would say jokingly to my wife each morning on my way out the door was, "Well, it's time to put on my mask." What I meant was that I was leaving Jack Roseman the worrier at home and becoming Jack Roseman the warrior. I think a good chief executive officer has to do that.
There are different Jack Rosemans and, at heart, I am as sensitive as anybody. Maybe more. You might not believe that, but I am. However, I am not so sensitive when I have that mask on. When I have my mask on, I see the world as a stage where we're actors. And my role is warrior. So I take on the attributes of a warrior, a leader, a fierce defender of our company, our employees and our stockholders.
I used to smoke cigars. They were a prop that made me feel more confident. I used to smoke six to eight a day. Even though I might not know where next month's payroll was coming from, when the next big sale was going to happen, or where I was going to get the next five programmers, I needed to meet the specs in a government contract. I would be confident that the right things would happen. And they usually did.
When you are wearing a mask, it is also harder for things to get to you, the real you. You are a little tougher, not invincible, but a little tougher.
36. Motivation
A common mistake CEOs make is to think that money is the only or most important issue to an employee. When I was the President of On-Line Systems, I had a motto: “No one leaves this company for money. No one.”
Obviously, on occasion, some people do. But I truly believe that 90 percent of the people who do leave a company do it for some other reason. It often appears to be money because if they’re unhappy at the job for some other reason, then a 10 percent raise or 15 percent raise will be enough to entice them to jump ship. If they’re really happy at the job, no one’s going to hire your people away for 10 or 15 or even a 20 percent raise.
This is especially true in high technology where these guys are getting $50,000, $60,000, $80,000 a year or more. Why would they leave? For a 10 percent raise? I doubt it. If they leave, it is more likely because they were not being treated right. They leave because you are not motivating them.
40. Outrageous Optimism
So if you ask me where outrageous optimism comes from, my best guess is it's the confidence that you have within you, the imagination and determination to fulfill a need in the marketplace. You may not know exactly how the glass becomes crystal or the water becomes wine, but you somehow know you will bring everything you are to bare on getting it done.
41. Wake-Up Call
I was eating a chocolate ice cream cone the other day and it got me thinking. Before I knew it, I had gobbled down 95 percent of that cone and there was just a little bit left. I love chocolate ice cream. I loved that cone, and I thought, “How do I make that flavor last as long as I can?” So I took a smaller lick, really tasted the chocolate in my mouth, and then took another little lick. I tried to postpone finishing it as long as possible.
It seems to me that is what happens in life. We rush through the best of it thoughtlessly, and it’s only when we can see the end in sight do we begin to slow down enough to appreciate how precious each day really is. I got a wake-up call early enough in my life to enrich immeasurably these last 30 years, though I don’t necessarily recommend my method to anyone else. Hopefully just thinking about that ice cream cone will slow you down enough so you don’t miss what’s really important.